In this second episode of Solved, Drew and I go deep into the psychology, history, and science of procrastination. From Plato and Aristotle to Freud and modern research, we break down why we delay the things that matter most—and how to actually stop.
This isn’t a “just set a timer” productivity talk. We’re diving deep into shame, identity, perfectionism, culture, and why procrastination is ultimately a *skill issue*, not a moral failure. We cover things like:
– How humans have thought about putting things off for over 2000 years
– The real reason you avoid the most important tasks in your life
– Why “I work better under pressure” is (usually) BS
– Why self-compassion is actually more motivating than guilt
– Tons of practical, research-backed strategies you can start using today
And much, much, much more.
We also put together a free companion guide with all the takeaways, references, and tools to help you get your sh*t together once and for all. Download it here : https://solvedpodcast.com/procrastination
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:05 Episode Roadmap
08:20 What exactly is procrastination?
15:50 Plato’s Thoughts on Procrastination
24:07 The Buddhist & Confucian Views on Procrastination
26:19 Aristotle’s Take on Procrastination
33:50 Christianity and Procrastination
46:53 Self-Compassion and Procrastination
58:45 The Reformation and Procrastination
1:04:25 Freud’s Influence on Psychology
1:06:40 Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle
1:08:13 Id, Ego, and Superego
1:10:26 Defense Mechanisms
1:17:20 Adopting Habits as Identity
1:23:05 The Influence of Childhood and Parenting on Procrastination
1:33:42 Behaviorism
1:41:21 Environmental Design
1:46:10 Thriving Under Pressure: A Critique
1:52:10 Expectation, Pressure, and Procrastination
1:54:06 Critique of Behaviorism
1:59:20 Time Management
2:07:33 Knowledge vs Emotion in Procrastination
2:16:43 Mark and Drew’s Personal Productivity Systems
2:20:37 Deep Work and Task Management
2:23:12 Productivity System for ADHD
2:29:26 Productive Procrastination
2:34:22 Importance of Task Completion
2:36:51 Existentialism and Purpose
2:44:21 Purpose and Motivation
2:53:40 Temporal Motivation Theory
2:57:39 Limitations of Temporal Motivation Theory
2:59:22 The Role of Technology in Procrastination
3:07:10 The Dynamic Nature of Temporal Motivation Theory
3:10:59 Critique of Temporal Motivation Theory
3:16:41 Emotional Regulation Theory of Procrastination
3:20:27 Understanding Emotional Regulation
3:23:04 Managing Emotions and Environment
3:28:09 Introduction to the RAIN Method
3:31:07 The Six Types of Procrastinators
3:40:21 The 80-20 of Procrastination
3:46:21 Strategic Use of Friction
3:56:11 Gamifying Tasks to Make Them More Interesting
3:58:49 The Impact of Environment on Productivity
4:01:07 The Role of Purpose in Overcoming Procrastination
4:06:06 The Concept of “Minimum Viable Action”
4:11:26 Addressing Underlying Emotions to Overcome Procrastination
4:16:06 Leveraging Human Nature and Rewards
4:20:06 The Social Aspect of Overcoming Procrastination
4:21:19 Productive Procrastination: A Double-Edged Sword
4:22:32 The Hidden Costs of Overcoming Procrastination
4:39:12 Conclusion
Welcome to Solved, the self-help podcast for smart people. My name is Mark Manson, threetime number one New York Times bestselling author, and this is my co-host and longtime lead researcher, Drew Bernie. Now, Drew and I have been in the personal growth and mental health space for a combined 30 years now. And we’ve had enough. We’ve had enough of the [ __ ] empty promises, and fake solutions. Every episode of Solved, our goal is to create the most comprehensive evidence-based valued delivering podcast on earth on that specific topic. And today’s topic is procrastination. Now, the catch of Solved is that whatever topic we cover, our goal is that it is the last time you will ever feel a need to listen to a podcast on that topic. And this is the last time we can make an episode covering this topic. Therefore, our promise to you is that if you make the commitment to get through the entire episode and implement the advice, your procrastination will be [Music] solved. Drew, I have two things to say before we get started. Okay. Before we solve procrastination for the entire world. You’re welcome everybody. Uh first thing is uh so listeners don’t know this but this is the second episode that’s going out of this podcast but it this is actually the first one we’re recording and uh ironically we procrastinated this episode like three months. How many months did it take us to shoot this thing? Pretty close to that. Yeah. So be confident listener that uh your your hosts are are experts very familiar with the topic you’re about to discuss. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Uh, and then the second thing I want to say is is just I want to get in before all of the comments from people who are going to say, “Oh, I’ll listen to this later. You’re not funny. You’re not clever. The same joke. I’ve been doing this for 15 years. Every time I create any content around procrastination, the first comment is always, “Oh, I’ll get to this later.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you’re very cute.” Those people haven’t even made it that far yet, though. This far yet. So, yeah, that’s true. So, All right. So, today is procrastination. We are solving procrastination. Just a reminder to the listener, the whole premise of this podcast is that this is the last podcast that you should ever have to listen to on this topic. Drew and I and our research team have gone just absurdly in depth researching trying to understand this topic. It is, this episode is absolutely comprehensive. It is everything you need to know about procrastination. and then some. Uh, you’re probably going to want to vomit when you hear the word procrastination by the end of this. But the goal is that you don’t have to ever listen to anything about procrastination ever again. You don’t have to read another book. You don’t have to take another seminar. It’s all here. So, first some statistics. Procrastination is something that pretty much everybody struggles with. This is not surprising. 95% of adults report procrastinating at least some of the time. To me, the most surprising part of that stat is who the [ __ ] are the 5%? Yeah, show me that. They’re liars. Who are these superhuman robots that never procrastinate? Uh, yeah, I think 5% of people are liars. Um, 42% of adults report procrastinating regularly. Uh, and then 25% of adults report being chronic procrastinators, which is essentially means that you are just literally procrastinating everything all the time, right? anything you try to do you end up procrastinating which that is that’s a shocking amount 25% of people. So this is a huge problem. This is like this is a massive affliction that you know gets to us all. Um so some of the things that we’re going to go through procrastination as a topic is really interesting because it it is it is such a common human occurrence that there is thought on it going back 2500 years. So, we went back 200 years and we’re going to cover basically the entire corpus of human thought and approach towards procrastination uh since the beginning of civilization. And it’s actually kind of surprising because a lot of things that we take to be true or a lot of our assumptions of what procrastination is are relatively modern. They’re not they’re they’re pretty recent and and and you know people in the ancient world or people in med medieval times wouldn’t necessarily agree with us and how we approach uh the topic of procrastination. Ultimately we’re going to get to the bottom of what is procrastination. What like fundamentally like what is happening in your brain? What is happening psychologically when you’re procrastinating something? When you’re not doing the thing you know you should be doing uh and why does it happen? Why is it even possible? Right? like if I know something is good for me, like why is it possible that I can choose not to do that? That that like kind of doesn’t make sense in a in a certain philosophical way. Of course, we’re going to cover all the latest research on procrastination. We’re actually going to cover the entire history of research on procrastination. Uh and because a lot of it got it wrong and a lot of the conventional wisdom and typical self-help advice today is based on that old research that got it wrong. And the new research is says some things quite different than uh maybe what you’re expecting. And of course, we are going to go through at least a dozen different tactics and strategies that the listener can implement uh to help lessen procrastination in their lives. Uh I think if there’s one thing that I’ve learned preparing for this episode, Drew, is that I don’t think procrastination’s ever something that we just like completely get rid of. M I think that it is it just seems to be kind of a side effect or a cost of being humans who have agency and have complex brains. Um we’ll get more into that, but I I do think it is incumbent on all of us to do all the things that we can to lessen or mitigate the procrastination in our lives. And I do think that is very much attainable for most people uh relatively quickly. So before we get into it, anything you want to add, Drew? Um, what are you most excited for? I mean, this what are you procrastinating? Oh, god. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. This is a very common, very pervasive problem. And um, we all struggle with it. And I think there’s just there’s a tragedy kind of a tragic side to it as well cuz you know what what else is there to do but do the things you want to do in life, right? And then we put those things those very things off. So, I think a lot of people are going to find a there’s just going to be a big nodfest going on while you’re listening to this. And um yeah, I’m excited to get into it because it’s something I struggle with quite a bit. I I don’t know if I’m a chronic procrastinator, but there’s chronic strains of procrastination that I sometimes run into for sure. Sure. Um I have a lot of experience with this just being an author, a self-employed person um for my entire career. So, we’ll we’ll get into that. And you mentioned something which is like kind of the tragedy of it is that what we we’ll actually discover later on the episode is that the proportion of procrastination is actually uh directly correlated to how important we see a task being in our lives. So it’s like the more important the task is the more likely we are to procrastinate it which is so screwed up right like like that’s so unfair. Why does that happen? Yeah. We’ll dig into why that is but yeah it’s fascinating. But before we dive in, uh there’s going to be a lot of information in this podcast. And between me and you and our research team, I think we went through like what 13 14 books and 100 research articles. So to help everyone get through this, we’ve put together a companion PDF guide. It’s 65 pages, includes a full summary of the show, all of our citations and references, has book recommendations, and it includes some practical takeaways and lessons as well. So, if you’re listening to this, you can get the PDF guide for free by going to solvedodcast.com/procrastination. That’s solvedodcast.com/procrastination. The link is also in the description if you want to get through there. All right, let’s get started. Okay, so let’s start off with uh a couple definitions first because it it I was actually surprised how hard it was to actually pin down a technical definition of procrastination. And even the one that I chose, as we’ll see, there’s a little bit of wiggle room with it. So, there’s a researcher named Pier Steel in up in Canada. He did a big meta analysis in 2007, which is basically what a meta analysis is is for listeners is that it’s when a researcher takes all of the the relevant studies or data and then kind of like finds a way to combine them into like a super study. So this guy steel did this in 2007 and he crafted this definition of procrastination based on all the research at the time which is this procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying something despite knowing that there could be negative consequences for doing so and when I look at this I kind of like break it down into three factors. So the first factor is an unnecessary delay, right? I think this is important because prioritization is not procrastination. Like if my plan is to uh write a a script this morning but uh then my wife gets in a car accident and I have to go to the hospital like that’s not procrastination because something more important has now interfered. It’s only when the delay is completely unnecessary uh and fabricated. Um the second one is that there are negative consequences. So a lot of times when you delay something there actually are not negative consequences. There are plenty of things that you can delay and there’s actually nothing that immediately there’s no immediate feedback that makes you feel bad for that. I think this is why so many people procrastinate uh things like working out or eating well because the that feedback loop is so insanely long. You know it’s like 10 20 30 years before you actually experience the repercussion for that decision. uh it’s very easy to convince yourself that like there is no downside to eating the pizza tonight and uh sitting on the couch for another day. Uh and then finally the third factor is despite knowing and this is where it gets tricky. Like I actually found this whole definition very interesting because all three of these factors are ultimately subjective. Like who says a delay is unnecessary? Who’s to decide what’s necessary and what’s not necessary, right? Who’s to say what a negative consequence is? Like you say potato, I say potato. And who says that you’re aware or that you know? My personal experience is that most of my procrastination is I’m I’m usually bullshitting myself on all three of these factors. I’ve I’ve convinced myself that there is no negative consequence that’s going to happen or the negative consequence is very minor. It’s not a big deal. I’ve convinced myself that the delay is actually extremely necessary. like like when else am I going to be able to watch this Netflix show if if not for right now? And and then of course I I [ __ ] myself of saying that like I’m aware I I know that this is going to cause a negative. It’s like well who knows, right? Like maybe you know a book will write itself, right? It happens all the time. Yeah, I definitely ran into this too when talking with people about this, you know, kind of prepping with this and just talking with people around my life too. I definitely ran into this. They’re they’re like, “Well, is it so bad that you put this off? is I there was a lot of that that goes into it. So yeah, it’s very subjective. It’s Yeah. And it it is there’s a whole question around this of of awareness and knowledge uh which is actually very much well we we’ll get into that. We’re we’re getting getting a little bit ahead of myself. So the other thing that kind of surprised me and I guess well I I guess it makes sense is that there there is a cultural element to this um that I think is worth discussing at least just for a few minutes especially because I know the the audience for this podcast is extremely international. So it turns out that procrastination is to a certain extent culturally defined or culturally relative. There are some cultures where showing up late it’s not a huge deal. Turning something in late is not really judged or viewed as as something negative. Um, it actually reminded me, so I I lived in Brazil for a few years. My wife is Brazilian and and it’s one of the things that drove me crazy as an American down there is that if you if you ever do a business meeting with a Brazilian, um, first of all, they show up like 20 minutes late. Uh, then they spend the first 20 minutes like talking about their weekend and uh, telling you about like their kids soccer game and uh, you know, asking you what kind of beer you like. And uh and then it’s like not until like minute 45 that you actually get to the thing that you’re supposed to be talking about. And what’s interesting down there is that if you ever like cut try to cut that time down, they see it as as impolite and rude. Like they see you as doing something wrong. Um whereas coming from American culture where I’m like, “Dude, I was here at 10:00 a.m. It’s 10:45. We still haven’t even like talked about the the business thing.” I see it as rude that they’re like wasting my time. So this concept of time and punctuality uh is very culturally dependent. And what I found interesting there there’s a a social psychologist from from the Netherlands named Gear Hof who did a bunch of work on just like cultural factors. He I think he called it I think it’s called cultural dimensions theory or something like that. and um he talked about how certain cultures have different orientations towards time and they have different understandings of like what is something that’s done on time or not. Um, so some cultures very much prioritize. So like western cultures or like Anglo-Saxon cultures very much prioritize uh like following the clock. Like if I say we’re going to do a thing at 11:30 and you show up at 11:35 to me, you’ve now delayed things unnecessarily. It’s causing negative consequences. So on and so on. It’s procrastination. Some cultures, if you say 11:30 and they show up at 11:40, as long as they show up in a way that’s like feels justified or is like emotionally consistent uh with the people around them, it’s not seen as being late, you know? It’s like, oh well, yeah, we were going to be here 15 minutes ago, but like uh I was hanging out with my my my brother and my cousin, and we were having a great conversation. Um and so it just took longer. And like that’s seen as a completely justified response. And so it’s interesting that I guess coming back to the subjectivity of procrastination, some cultures see it very strictly in terms of tasks getting completed on time and some cultures see it more in terms of like emotions and relationships. like in Brazil, if I don’t sit there and kind of chitchat for 20 minutes, um that is seen as some sort of productive failure because I’m not doing the work to maintain the relationship with that person. Okay. Yeah. Um anyway, it’s just very interesting. We’re not going to spend a ton of time on this, but I like I said, I’m bringing it up simply because we do have a big international audience. There are going to be people listening to this in Latin America and the Middle East and the Mediterranean and some of these places that are not so rigid with the clock itself. They’re more kind of emotional, social and emotionally based. Um, and it’s just worth considering. And I think it it really just comes back to I think probably a more effective way to just frame this entire discussion is why do we consistently fail at doing the things we wish we could do, right? Like we have things that we know are good for us and we want to do them yet we don’t do them. Let’s go back. I think the best way I decided the best way to do this is to just go start at the beginning. So the first recorded discussion of procrastination and what what it is and why it happens does start with Plato. He has a few dialogues that get into it. The first one is uh called Protagoras. There’s a quote from Socrates in there. He says, “Surely no one goes willingly towards the bad or what he believes to be bad. Neither is it in human nature, so it seems to want to go toward what one believes to be bad instead of the good.” Plato puts forth like a really interesting argument. He kind of argues that procrastination like doesn’t actually exist. that like if you’re not doing the thing, it’s because deep down you actually don’t think it’s worth doing. That if you thought it was worth doing, then you would just go do it. And it’s kind of interesting that the earliest take ever on procrastination is like super spicy like that. I wouldn’t expect that. I would expect something like, you know, uh uh I don’t know, start small or um you know, like give yourself a little reward, a piece of candy if you like if you do something that that you’ve been putting off. And it’s like Plato’s like no, no, it’s it’s impossible to do something that you don’t think is the best thing to do, which I think just intu like our gut intuition, everybody’s gut intuition. It’s just like that that doesn’t feel true. Does that feel true to you? Absolutely not. No. the definition you brought up earlier and we’ll get into that a little more too, but despite knowing part, right? I just I feel like anybody you talk to, they’ve probably got at least a handful of things in their life that like they know are good for them and they don’t do it. Exactly. So Plato’s full of [ __ ] No, that’s So, okay, I’m I’m being I’m being facitious. The interesting thing about Plato is so almost all of his work is written in the forms of dialogues and those dialogues revolve around it’s usually Socrates having a a debate a philosophical debate uh with some other prominent person and in most of the dialogue Socrates just kind of like clowns the the person and there there there’s a lot of ambiguity around Plato’s work for a couple reasons. one is it’s sometimes unclear because Socrates was a real person and Plato was uh somebody who like followed and learned from Socrates. So, especially in in the early dialogues, it is hard to differentiate between what Socrates thought and what and Plato is just reporting what he thought versus like what Plato actually thinks and he’s just putting his words into Socrates’s mouth. So there’s a lot of ambiguity around that and Socrates had a reputation for being a bit of a troll. The second piece of ambiguity is that sometimes Plato would just create a dialogue to just kind of raise points and play with those ideas and because they it was a conversation between uh two historical figures, it’s sometimes unclear if he actually believes what he’s writing. So later on in the republic which was actually uh seems to be very clearly Plato’s thoughts and ideas um he kind of backtracked a little bit and and the republic is the first place that you see this idea of what he called the tripartite soul and it’s he basically says that the the mind is divided up into three different parts and it and it’s actually pretty incredible because this idea still persists today like you still see it all over psychology and philosophy today. So the three parts of the mind is he called the the rational, the spirit and the appetitive. One way to think about that is that there’s like the anim animalistic self, the part of you that has hunger and impulses and cravings. There’s the emotional part of yourself. That’s the spirit, right? It’s the anger. It’s the love. It’s the passion. It’s the joy. It’s the sadness. And then you have the rational, which is like the calculating and um the the logic and all that stuff. Plato’s argument is that he used the metaphor of a chariot which is that the rational part of yourself is like the driver in a chariot and he has two horses in front of him. One horse is the animalistic appetitive part of yourself. The other one is the spirit emotional part of yourself and it is your job to guide those horses in the right direction. But they’re wild horses. And so sometimes they’re going to buck and they’re going to run and they’re going to go try to go in different directions and it’s going to be chaotic, right? And in the Republic, Plato said that it is essentially what procrastination is or back then they called it a basically this experience of not doing the thing that you know you should do is when essentially your horses don’t go where you want them to go. It’s like, “Hey, we should go to the gym.” And the horses just start going towards the fridge for another piece of cold pizza. And you’re like, “Wait, no.” And then next thing you know, you’re there. And so I feel like that is a little bit more relatable and a little bit more understandable. But I think that the takeaway from Plato is that he ultimately saw Acrasia or procrastination as a knowledge problem. It was your problem isn’t that you don’t have willpower. The problem isn’t that you don’t have discipline. The problem is that you just aren’t aware enough of the repercussions of your choices. He kind of puts forth this argument that like if people were just more knowledgeable and educated on what their choices were causing in their life, they wouldn’t make those choices. And I personally think this is a very idealistic view. I think it’s it feels nice. I mean, there’s something to it clearly like knowledge certainly does help probably at the margins, but I also just think it’s it’s I don’t know. It’s too like roses and rainbows. It doesn’t match my personal experience. Uh and I don’t think it matches most of the people that I know who really struggle with procrastination and and not doing the right thing. Um but it is it’s a nice it feels good to believe. It feels good to believe that like oh if I just understood what I was doing when I was going back to the fridge instead of the gym then I wouldn’t do it so much. And you actually like you still see this a lot. It’s funny. I’m going to I’m not going to name names, but um I was on social media the other day, and I see this stuff all the time. So, this is a very prominent person in our space posted this. They said, “Your entire life will change when you realize that you have to sacrifice short-term freedom in order to earn long-term freedom. Instant gratification will kill your dreams.” Ed has over a quarter of a million views and 7,000 likes, right? No [ __ ] Sherlock. Right. Right. Like everybody knows that. We all know the information. We all know that. Like it it’s not you’re not moving the needle by telling us that. But I think there is a part of ourselves, a very idealistic part of ourselves that just feels like if we were reminded of that, then it wouldn’t be so hard. That it would be a little bit easier to get up early in the morning and, you know, put on your workout shoes and, you know, start with the hardest task of your day. and you know all those things that we wish we could do. So that’s kind of the first school of thought. We’re going to return to it quite a bit. It it like most of Plato’s ideas, they never really go away. It’s interesting. We actually, you and I talked to pretty much the most prominent researcher on procrastination in the world, Fuchsia Sarra. And even talking to her, she brought this up multiple times. This never really disappears, but it starts it starts with Plato. Yeah. The second school of thought I want to bring up. So around the same time, the Buddha was doing his thing and uh Buddhism has an interesting kind of spin-off of the the Platonic idea that that I think is worth talking about just briefly simply because I think when towards the end of end of the episode when we talk about interventions and tactics and strategies, there is a little bit of the Buddhist approach that I think makes sense. So Buddhism saw procrastination as ignorance of oneself. You know, Plato saw it as like an ignorance of the consequences of your action. The Buddha saw it as an ignorance of your own cravings and desires, not understanding what your own motivations were, which I think is a really interesting twist. And I I actually think there’s probably a lot more value in the Buddhist approach. Like I just know from my own life, you know, I like as you know, I went through this huge weight loss journey over many years. And a big component of that was like really understanding where my food cravings were coming from. What was causing my distractions when I couldn’t focus or or or get any work done. And sure enough, usually there’s like some emotion underneath the surface that’s like driving things. And becoming aware of that or mindful of that and then um learning how to how to deal or negotiate with that emotion is super useful. Uh so I I I thought like the Buddhist twist on the ignorance as as on the procrastination as a knowledge issue. Um I actually think there’s it carries some water. Sticking with Eastern philosophy, just want to touch really quick on Confucianism. Um from I’m not I’m by no means an expert on Confucianism, but uh by the little bit of research I did, it didn’t seem like there was a whole lot directly written about it. But the interesting thing about Confucianism is that there is so much emphasis put on accountability and social pressure. Um everything in Confucianism is kind of written in such a way of like you have to do the right thing to honor your family, your society, your your country, your emperor, whatever. There’s a nugget in there as well that’s actually really important and useful that we will come back to much later. But that social pressure and accountability is like a legit thing. Um, this finally brings us to Aristotle. So, Aristotle in the Nikomachian ethics wrote quite a bit about accrasia uh or procrastination. He wrote quite a bit about why people don’t do the things that they they should be doing. And I have to say, dude, like as somebody who has studied the psychology around this for a decade, going back and reading Aristotle’s take, I’m like, “Oh, he nailed it.” Like the dude just nailed it over 2,000 years ago. Yeah. Like 2,300 years ago, he’s just like in one chapter just like, “Here’s why we don’t do the things that we know we should do.” So, Aristotle essentially, here’s like the super condensed version of what he says. Aristotle essentially saw procrastination as a skill issue. He said, “Like any other skill, we all are born terrible at it.” Uh, and then as we grow older, we develop and practice and and habituate ourselves to it. And anybody can learn to do it. Anybody can practice it. Anybody can develop the skill or discipline. And like any skill or discipline, some people are naturally extremely gifted at it and some people are naturally not gifted at it. Right? What’s also interesting about this view is that he kind of puts his middle finger up the Play-Doh. He’s just like, “Dude, we all don’t do the things we know we should do.” Like, we all know we should do certain things and we just fail to do them. Look around you. Yeah. Seriously, like it it’s like wake up, man. But what I like about Aristotle as well is that it’s there was no moral judgment or shame attached to it. This is actually what’s super unique and interesting and like way ahead of his time. With Plato, it was there was a little bit of like, well, they’re not doing the right thing just cuz they’re they’re ignorant. They’re uneducated. They’re not as privileged as you and I are, right? They’re not as enlightened as us. You know, in the Buddhist view, there’s if you’re not doing the right thing, like you got to get right with yourself, dude. Like, you know, sit on a mat and meditate for a few years and and and like figure out what the hell’s going on in your head. You know, the Confucious system, it’s like you’re dishonoring your family and you’re you’re screwing up society. Like, get your [ __ ] together. Aristotle’s like, “Hey, man, we all struggle with this. This is a journey for all of us and it’s something that any of us can get better at. Any of us can practice it. we can develop the right habits, we can develop the right skills and you can and you can improve upon it. And so I think the first takeaway around all of this is that ultimately there are like there’s a little bit of truth in everything that each of those schools of thought said there, you know, some of it is knowledge of the repercussions that are going to happen if you, I don’t know, stay up till 4:00 a.m. on a Tuesday night. Some of it is understanding your own internal awareness and emotions and you know what’s motivating you, what’s driving you. Some of it is finding good accountability systems and social pressure to like nudge you in the right direction. But ultimately, this is a skill issue. It’s something that you can learn. It’s something you can get better at and it’s something that you have to to try to get better at. So, I’m curious, Drew, have you seen your procrastination as a skill issue? Uh, because I certainly haven’t most of my life. I’m curious what your experience was. No, I I think there is just a lot of that self- judgment that goes into it and I’ve always thought, yeah, if I just knew a little bit more, had the the right information at the right time, then I would be a better person, not so, you know, morally corrupt. Yeah. uh and and bankrupt in my ways. But um yeah, it’s it’s interesting that each one of these kind of schools of thought took one angle at it and it’s like, yeah, you got that right, but you got this completely wrong. Yeah. And I I feel that within myself even too today. So, yeah, definitely. I think I started seeing it as a skill issue relatively late in my life. I would say like well into adulthood. Like I have vague I have vague memories in my 20s of like starting my first business and just being like incredibly upset at myself for playing too many video games or not being able to finish a work task in the amount of time that I allotted for myself. Like just really chastising myself and beating myself up over it. Uh and I I feel like that’s that’s the default for most people. like there is a shame and there’s a moral judgment. And what I found super fascinating and surprising is that that moral judgment is is for the most part didn’t exist in the ancient world. You know, Aristotle saw saw uh accasia or or doing the right action. He saw he he had he had a a whole ethical system around virtue, right? The virtues were like the right way to live. But Aristotle was very aware that like nobody is virtuous all the time. The virtues are never achieved. They’re they’re just something that you work towards and you get better at over time and everybody’s going to screw it up. Everybody’s going to fail to a certain extent. And so the only thing you can do is just try to fail less. And if you look at the Stoics, there’s there’s a very similar vein there, right? It’s like you should try to be virtuous. The the Stoics were a little bit more platonic in that they saw it as more of a a lack like a knowledge problem, but it it’s still the same attitude of like nobody’s virtuous all the time. Nobody gets it right all the time. Just get up each day and try to do your best and try not to dwell on on your failures and and things like that. And it’s it’s so fascinating like going back and looking at those takes because that doesn’t feel like anything I heard growing up. Yeah. Right. I I I heard that you are you are a a immoral piece of [ __ ] who’s irresponsible and is failing yourself and failing your future and failing your family and like it it is there’s so much moral judgment especially I guess in western culture but I think eastern culture as well there’s so much moral judgment wrapped up in your ability to be disciplined you know like I I think about people who are obese or overweight like one of the huge judgments against them it’s not about the unhealthy iness. It’s about the apparent lack of discipline, right? Like I’ve been around people who have said really mean things about overweight people. And it’s it’s it’s never about the weight. It’s about the like why can’t they control themselves? Why can’t they like keep food out of their mouth? How could you let yourself go to that extent? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it and we have similar judgments like if somebody loses their job or if somebody doesn’t make a lot of money. Um it it’s there’s like a moral judgment. It it’s and we just we joked about it earlier, right? It’s like if I showed up an hour late for this shoot, you would judge me. Yes. Yes, I would. Yes, you would. So, it’s interesting that that didn’t always exist like that. That is it started somewhere along the line. And uh drum roll. Do you want to guess where it started? I have a good idea. Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll give you one. It starts with a Chris and it ends with aity. Yeah. Yeah. One of the seven deadly sins, right? Sloth. Sloth. Exactly. Exactly. So, interestingly, there’s actually kind of a particular moment in time that I think you can point to where you can you can actually say this is the moment that procrastination and a failure to act became a moral problem. It became a a shameridden failure that that signifies that you are a a piece of scum essentially, right? So the story actually starts in in the late 4th century. Uh St. Augustine of Hippo was born in what is present day Tunisia. And he would go on and become basically the most important theologian of pretty much anybody who didn’t live during Christ’s time. And but it’s interesting because Augustine he was born pagan. He grew up he was a rich kid. His parents were like aristocrats. He he was kind of like that douchebag with a Ferrari in high school. like he just not a care in the world, screwed around, partied all the time, was drinking a lot, seeing a b bunch of different girls, just life was on easy mode. But the interesting thing about Augustine was that he was very smart and he was very philosophical. And so he was he became curious about a bunch of different religions and I guess you call them cults. uh throughout his early adult life he kind of dabbled in a bunch of different schools of thought. Now the interesting thing is that the Roman Empire had just converted to Christianity uh maybe 50 years prior and you have this gigantic empire and what essentially was kind of this French cult religion which was Christianity suddenly becomes the state religion and is now expected to be followed by like tens of millions of people. So there was kind of this vacuum of strong theological knowledge that didn’t exist at the time. There was like an early opportunity to fill that void, that theological void. Like they they needed like very smart people to kind of like create frameworks and philosophical ideas that the masses could understand and implement into their lives. And so Augustine would end up filling that void to a great extent. and he would be the one who would take Christian thought and combine it with Plato and kind of turn it into early Christian theology and the the the Catholic theology as we understand it today. But the way he went about that is super fascinating. So he was this playboy. He’s screwing around all the time and he’s like drifting, you know, from this religious sect to this religious sect. And by the time he gets to his late 20s, he’s he he becomes pretty self-loathing. Like I think he he’s at this point he’s self-aware that he is a very smart, talented guy who’s been handed every privilege and advantage in the world and he’s done nothing with it. He’s like absolutely wasted everything. So this goes on for a number of years and he’s just he’s really looking for something to commit himself to and all the while he’s like kind of disgusted with himself. He’s like, “Why do I keep doing this? Why do I keep drinking? Why do I keep hooking up with all these women that I don’t care about?” And like, “Why can’t I just get my [ __ ] together?” And one day he’s sitting in a garden and he’s reading and he hears a child singing outside saying, “Pick up the paper and read it. Pick up the paper and read it.” Singing this like little lullabi or something. And so he happens to look down and he sees a parchment paper and he’s like, “Huh?” So he picks it up and he starts reading it and it’s Paul’s letter to the Romans, verse 13:13. And it says, “Let us behave decently as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in the sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.” And Augustine claims that he converted to Christianity right there on the spot. He was like, “This is it. This is a sign.” Drops everything. Immediately goes to seminary, trains to become a priest, and then within a couple years goes on to become the most prolific and successful Christian preacher in the Roman Empire. He gave, I think, 2500 sermons or something like that, of which like half are still around today. He was just like a prodigy of preaching, I guess. Yeah. But what’s super interesting is that he has this personal history of like he was kind of this he’s like this playboy wasting his life and then he finds God and God saves him, right? Like he doesn’t drink anymore. He doesn’t fornicate anymore. He doesn’t screw around anymore. He’s like very diligent and disciplined and he’s working his ass off and he’s like achieving his potential and he attributes all of this to God. So in his book, The Confessions, he talks about Acrasia. He talks about he gives an example of when he was a boy of stealing fruit from a local market. And he talks about how he stole the fruit. He didn’t need the fruit. He wasn’t hungry. Uh he didn’t need the money. He wasn’t going to sell it to anybody else. He stole it for the thrill of it. Mhm. He stole it because it was something exciting to do to kind of impress the other boys that he was hanging out with. And he looked at that and with a very platonic lens. He said there was a lower desire. There are the lower values of the excitement, the thrill, impressing the the people around him. But then there’s this higher level value of of fairness and justice and um you know not being selfish. And his argument was that anytime we sacrifice that higher level value for the lower level value that we succumb to our anim animalistic impulses or urges or desires at the cost of kind of the higher level rational intellectual spiritual values. Not only is that a failure, that’s a sin. that is you’re not it’s not you’re not violating yourself, you’re not violating your family, you’re violating God because God’s will is that you do these other things and you are failing God’s will to indulge your animalistic behaviors and impulses and cravings and as soon as God enters the picture [ __ ] gets moral really quick, right? Like it’s it’s if you’re suddenly it’s like procra your procrastination or your failure to do the right thing for yourself. It’s not about failing yourself like now you are actually sinning and becoming a corrupt individual and that is shameful and you should repent and you the the only path to salvation is to surrender yourself even further to God and to Jesus and to give even more of your life over to the church. And so this is where you see the shame indoctrination really begin. And without getting into like too extensive of of a commentary on Christianity itself, it was interesting reading Augustine in this context because I couldn’t help but but view it as like a it’s like a multi-level marketing scheme or something where like it’s basically like you create the problem for for people and then you sell them the solution, right? So, it’s it’s it really felt like, you know, Augustine is basically going around and taking this experience that we all have and we all already kind of feel bad about and are a little bit sensitive about and he’s like, “Hey, that thing that you feel bad about, that means you’re a piece of [ __ ] and God God hates you and the only way he’s going to stop hating you is if you come to church and uh confess all your sins.” And I’m like, man, that is that’s like that’s aggressive to say the least. And and look, I’m we’re not here to comment on religion u or or make any sort of like theological arguments, but let’s just say from a a mental health point of view, not optimal. Not optimal from a productivity point of view, also not optimal. Okay. Yeah. So, we can’t want to get into the shame stuff then. Uh yeah, through some of that right now because like I said, I think it’s a big misconception that most people have. Most people, what I have found is that a lot of people are afraid to relinquish that self-judgment, because they’re afraid if they go easy on themselves, quote unquote, then they they won’t do the thing. Right. Right. And it’s like actually the research says the opposite, the exact opposite. This happens a lot. Yeah. So I I think this is like a useful place to make this point and kind of discuss like why this happens or what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they do find that exactly that that um people who experience a lot of shame, especially around things like procrastination or any things that they deem to be character flaws. Uh they actually end up putting things off more. They don’t end up doing them more. And it’s because that shame creates this uh kind of motivation for avoidance around these things. You don’t want to feel that shame. And so you just avoid doing it altogether in the first place. And you get this very very vicious cycle um that goes along with it. you there’s this self- judgment cycle that comes with it right like you feel ashamed for delaying uh that this shame makes you uncomfortable and to escape that shame that you feel now you further procrastinate delay more you distract yourself you you give into those lower values that that um Augustine talked about so that’s uh the the studies around this have really found that it’s the exact opposite this doesn’t happen all the time but a lot of times it will be yeah we have these intuitions around oh I I need to feel this way in order to get things done. Um, or I think my brain works this way and so I’m just going to keep doing this. When it’s like, step back, there’s actually a a kind of deeper issue going on here. Avoidance is really what what comes from that self-loathing and that shame. Yeah. Well, at least to me, some of the most interesting research that I saw around this was actually in workplace research. M so they actually there are a number of studies that they like looked at how shame based the feedback is in certain workplaces and then they tracked employee productivity and uh also absenteeism how many people stuck around. Basically looking at like who who like who has the [ __ ] boss and like how how do employees respond to that [ __ ] boss and uh surprise surprise shame based workplaces. Um they did one study on uh nurses in a hospital and they looked uh at supervisors who would like shame the nurses for their mistakes and um for for not completing all their tasks or whatever. And uh sure enough those nurses showed up less often to work. They got through fewer rounds. They spent less time with the patients and uh they quit more often. So, yeah, I think some researchers too will interpret that as you are violating your sense someone’s sense of autonomy too, right? If you shame them, you’re saying you’re a bad person, you don’t have any um control over whether or not you can do something about this. Whereas, if you’re much more gentle and much more compassionate about it, you’re like, “Okay, this is how we fix it.” It goes back to the skills thing, right? I was just going to say, we’re going to come back to seeing procrastination as a skill issue uh a little bit later. And it it it is mind-boggling to me though that like that got lost. Yeah. For thousands of years. Yeah. When when it was the norm before like that was just how people thought of it and then it completely got destroyed. Right. Cuz it’s it is what you do see in this whole kind of Christian era through the medieval period and everything. It’s just like if you don’t do the right thing, it’s because you’re a bad person. If you if you can’t get your work done, you’re a bad person and you screwed up and I don’t I don’t want to be around you. Right? Again, I still feel the residue of this, you know, like growing up in a western culture like and I I I I know people who grew up in confusion cultures experience this a lot too because that that is also very shame. It’s it’s less about God. It’s more about family. When you grow up in that, it’s so hard to escape it. And and it is like I still catch myself like judging people. Oh, 100%. You know, just being like, “Oh, look at that guy.” Like can’t even get his [ __ ] together, you know, like what a joke. Yeah. Judging other people or judging yourself, too. Again, going back to the same thing. And um and this isn’t just uh applicable to procrastination, but anything where you kind of have this kind of self-loathing or self crit criticism that’s very loud uh inside your head, it it will create avoidance, not uh approach, right? And so that’s something to keep in mind all throughout this. So, what is the opposite of self- judgment or self-shaming? I self-acceptance, right? Self-compassion. Okay. What does that look like? Well, uh I hate myself, Drew. How do I stop? Well, make the self-loathing stop. Pretend I’m your friend, Mark. Okay. And if you heard me saying that, you would be like, “Whoa, dude.” Yeah. God, take it easy on yourself, right? And totally. This is kind of the the standard advice to a lot of people is when you’re when you want to be more self-compassionate and and kinder to yourself, treat yourself like a friend. Step back, detach yourself a little bit from the whole situation and be like, “Okay, what’s really going on here? How can I be a little bit more understanding of my own actions?” Yeah. And uh knowing some of these reasons, having some self-awareness around these reasons why I’m doing this and being like, “Okay, I need to address these. Let’s move forward.” Yeah, which I think is kind of the way things were even with Plato and his uh maybe a little bit muddied thinking around procrastination. I still think there was a lot of that prior to this whole injection of shame into the culture around doing getting things done. Yeah, that would be an interesting exercise. I mean, if if if you’re listening to this and this is something that you really struggle with, like that could potentially be a really useful exercise of like write down your selft talk around this stuff and then go back later and read it and just probably be horrified by by it. I’ve been there. Yeah. Yeah, but it’s it’s one of those things that we don’t notice it when we do it to ourselves. And that that self-compassion does that creates that space for approach like I’m saying instead of avoidance. So it if if you’re if you know you’re you’re in a safe space, you know, in your own mind that opens up a a a space for exploring what’s actually going on and then taking action. Whereas again, the shame just creates a lot of avoidance around that. Yeah. that the the thing I like about self-compassion too is that it it’s not and this is a point I made in subtle art is that you know it’s the flaw with self-esteem as a as a metric in my opinion is is like it’s it became through a lot of the research it became a measurement of how people felt about themselves when they did good things right whereas like what you really want to measure is like how do people feel about themselves when things go bad right and that’s that’s where the self-compassion comes in it’s like okay let’s let’s actually measure how you treat yourself when nothing is going right because that’s actually probably a better more accurate metric of your mental health and your well-being and your life satisfaction and all that stuff. So the other thing that’s um interesting with the the self-compassion research is that a big component of it, a big step in it is uh finding shared humanity. It’s funny because it’s just again thinking about this 95% of people That’s what we opened with, right? Yeah. Like literally a survey asking people, “Do you struggle with procrastination?” 95% of people said they do. Like I don’t I’m not aware of any other problem that that scores that high. No. Yeah. I I in surveys. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And I think it’s about 5% of the population is considered psychopaths, too. So maybe that’s where the other 5% are. I don’t know. They’re just or or they’re like androids that are secretly walking among us. They It was so interesting though that uh when we were talking to um to Fuchsia Sarra like I actually asked asked her I was like do those 5% actually exist and she said absolutely. Can you imagine? Well what that must feel like. I I wonder what like there’s some downsides to that though too, right? Like sometimes you need to prioritize and sometimes you need to delay. Like what if you’re jumping into things a little too much? So maybe it’s I don’t know maybe it’s on a bell curve or something. I don’t I don’t know. But the to me, okay, getting off on a little bit of a tangent here, but like to me a certain amount of procra Yeah, like an optimal level of procrastination is probably not zero, right? Because there there is a certain weight that comes with like really really important tasks in your life and that that weight is intimidating and and sure as a human you find ways to delay it or put it off or avoid it in this way or that. I kind of like that. I don’t know. Maybe maybe I’m being irrational here and like kind of playing the same game with the with the shame stuff where it’s like I’m afraid that if I don’t procrastinate something it means it doesn’t have weight or importance, but like I don’t know. I kind of like that there are certain things in my life that intimidate me a little bit that make me anxious because it it signifies to me that I’m doing something very worthwhile. And I don’t know. Yeah. I worry that if I had zero procrastination that I would just kind of see everything in like you said a psychopath. I would just see everything in my life as just another task to be done and uh you just get on with it and you don’t you know what’s the point in stressing over it. I I would be curious any listeners out there who well I don’t know why they’d be listening to this but like if for some reason you are one of these freaks who does not procrastinate I’d be very curious to hear from them like what their experience is or why like what what is your thought process when when there’s a really important task in front of you? What is the emotional experience of that task? I’d be very curious. I actually just thought of something related to the self-compassion as well. Something else like it’s funny when we’re judging ourselves. I think we we like get very skewed perceptions of what’s actually normal. Like I remember I used to feel this uh back when I was writing all the time, which is like I would set a goal for myself, right? Like I’m going to publish three articles a week of at least 2,000 words a piece, right? those 6,000 words a week, which is a really good clip of writing. And then if I didn’t hit that expectation, I would judge myself. But then I’d go talk to other writers and they’re like, “Man, I’m lucky if I get like 300 words in an entire day, right?” So, it’s like our understanding of like what is normal and expected and and like reasonable can often get completely warped in our own heads, especially when we’re judging ourselves. Uh, and so it’s again it kind of comes back to that subjectivity thing. Like the same way we can kind of [ __ ] ourselves in one direction and tell ourselves that, oh yeah, I can, you know, I’ll do it tomorrow. It’s not going to be a big deal. We can also [ __ ] ourselves in the other direction by saying like, oh, you’re you’re absolutely a horrible person. You know, you only worked out for 90 minutes. You should be working out for two hours because you’re just lazy if you don’t do that. So, it’s just it’s useful to understand, I guess, that our minds are just crazy and wrong in in all sorts of different directions, and it can it can screw us up, especially when looking at ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. I have to say in prepping for both this episode and the last episode, I’m like, dude, Aristotle got everything right. Yeah. Like, that guy nailed everything. Plato gets a lot of credit, but Aristotle actually Yeah. between happiness, values and virtues, uh, and and this stuff, self-discipline and accrasia and procrastination, everything like Aristotle nailed like half of psychology before there was such a thing as psychology. So, shout out to Aristotle. So in like the 12th century there was a Arab an Arab scholar living in present day Spain named Avaro and he translated he was the first person to translate Aristotle into Latin back into Latin which gave Europeans access to Aristotle again for the first time in almost a thousand years which is mind-blowing. And sure enough quietly Aristotle started to go viral within European universities and among European scholars. It was just it was mind-blowing stuff to them. Keep in mind too that it wasn’t just the psychology and the happiness and the virtue stuff. Aristotle like literally invented the scientific method. Like basically all of what is modern science started with Aristotle as well. So you start to see the the scientific method begin to show up in around this time. people are thinking about empirical observation, experimentation, um, documenting what they see, trying to measure, understand things. I mean, I I I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Galileo and Capernicus show up within a generation or two after Aristotle is translated back into Latin. Of course, predictably, the church has this horrible reaction. They try to ban it. They say it’s heresy. But there’s a young student at the University of Paris at the time by the name of uh Thomas Aquinus and Thomas has like a very unique and interesting talent which is he became famous very very early in his life. He was he was a prodigy. I think he ended up going to university when he was like 15 or something and he studied theology, became very successful very quickly and he became famous for being very good at taking people who were on two opposite ends of an argument and finding a way to synthesize them. Finding like the common threads and finding a way to like make things make sense for everybody. So he studies Aristotle, his mind is blown, but the rumblings going on around is is that the church is like not okay with this. But in his mind, he’s like, “This stuff is so powerful. It’s so worldchanging. There’s got to be a way to make this synthesize with Christian thought and theology.” And so that became his life’s work. And eventually he published uh Suma Theologica which was his magnumopus which is was essentially that it was bringing Aristotleian philosophy into the Christian umbrella uh in a way that people could understand and that was acceptable to the church brought it essentially brought Europe out of its its medieval period intellectually into kind of what would eventually become the Renaissance and the scientific revolution and everything. So, I can’t overstate how important it is to bring back the idea that this is a skill issue. This is not a character issue. This is not a theological issue. It’s a skill issue. Procrastination is a skill issue. And and it it’s interesting. There’s there’s this concept in psychology uh called self-efficacy, which is basically a belief that you can get better at something. And it’s fascinating because self-efficacy strongly correlates with success in almost anything you do. Essentially, the more you believe you can get better at something, the more likely you are to get better at that thing. And I don’t know, I just like everything I know about psychology, I I I don’t think it can be overstated the importance and the impact of bringing self-efficacy back to the public. That belief of like we can be better. we can do things in this life that are better, right? Like I I really do think kind of old school Catholic theology is is like it’s fatalism. It’s like God decides. There’s this kind of cosmological war going on between heaven and hell. We’re all caught in the middle. All we can do is just ask for forgiveness, right? Like there’s nothing. We’re all we’re all sinners. We’re all uh we’re all doomed. But like if we pray enough and ask for enough forgiveness, then like things are going to turn out all right in the next life, not in this life because this life is going to be [ __ ] It is [ __ ] It’s got to be predetermined. Yeah. So I think just reintroducing self-efficacy back into the population. It’s just like I I can’t I can’t overstate how impactful that probably was. And then sure enough, like a century or two later, you get the reformation. You know, when Luther hammered the 95 thesis to the to the door, he was essentially saying that like we have control over the outcome. We can decide we can improve our relationship with God. We can improve our lot in this life. We don’t have to depend on the clergy. We don’t have to depend on uh on the church. There there shouldn’t be an intermediary between us, right? And sure enough, as Protestantism arises, this is what they become known for, right? It’s the old Protestant work ethic. Like, because the idea is is that if our salvation is up to us in this life and we have control over it, then whoever works the hardest is the most likely to be saved, right? Like God God gives fortune to people who work hard and deserve it. And so you see you see these these kind of philosophies emerge like Calvinism where it’s there’s a huge amount of moral value attached to industriousness that if you are uh diligent and hardworking and uh you know do all the right things in this world you will be rewarded in this world and in the next world by God and you deserve it. So if you have nice things awesome you worked for it you deserve it. So on the one hand we’ve brought self-efficacy back into the equation. we’ve brought uh you know procrastination as a skill problem back into the equation. That’s good. But on the other hand, we still have the shame, right? Because now it’s like if you work your ass off and things aren’t going well for you, well, God still is displeased with you. God God does not look on you with with favor or fortune, you you must be doing something wrong. there’s still a there’s still a moral attachment to material success, to your ability to do what you say you’re going to do or or accomplish things in the real world. So, and in fact, because there is so much moral and theological weight placed on, I guess, worldly outcomes, these early Protestants, you get this kind of insane perfectionism. And I think the group that really illustrates this is like the Puritans who came to America. They were hardworking. They were diligent. They believe that, you know, if you did the right things and if you worked really hard, you would get what you deserve and God would smile on you with good fortune. But holy crap, they like judged the [ __ ] out of each other. Like there was an insane amount of perfectionism self-induced onto those communities, right? And it it and it makes sense because it’s like if you if your worldly status is now being attached to your moral superiority or inferiority, it just adds that much extra pressure to everything you do. And so I think this is actually appropriate because I think as we’ll talk about later, like a huge component of procrastination is perfectionism. is this feeling that you’re not allowed to fail. That you if things don’t work out the way you want them to, then that is some sort of moral reflection on you as a terrible person. And so I’m curious like I know you are a recovering perfectionist. Yes. I’m curious how this has like come up in your own life and what the research says around this. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely perfectionism. um it feeds into procrastination, what they find in the research, and I can vouch for that very much so in my life. Again, the research shows that um perfectionism, it’s just it’s another form of shame basically that causes you to avoid the things you need to do. It’s an avoidance mechanism. Yeah. Of sorts. It creates a lot of anxiety around certain tasks. So, you end up avoiding them that way. um you’re so afraid of failing that you just don’t even want to approach the task to begin with or you come up with all sorts of mental gymnastics ways to to avoid those. Um so I need to wait. I need to have more information before I do this. I need to be better at this. So we’re into the skills set now. I need to be better at this. I need to have the skills in order to do this. And for that I need to step back and develop these skills. That that’s an evil loop that I’ve gotten caught up in before. I’m like, “Oh, I need to be better at this before I go do the thing.” Right? And so then I spend all my time trying to be better instead of doing like actually like doing the thing is what will make you better at it. Right. But instead of actually just doing the thing, I I try to do all this other stuff to prepare for everything. Exactly. Do research. That’s another thing. This this goes right up into today. This this happens in all sorts of productivity systems. Um people, you know, like, oh, you need to just have the right system in place or have the right information in place and you’ll you’ll get there. And that can very much feed into the very common problem of perfectionism. So what I’m hearing so far, it it sounds like the story so far is that if I was to really simplify this is that we avoid things that are unpleasant. No duh. Often the mechanisms by which we judge ourselves or the expectations we place on ourselves around that avoidance only makes us feel worse and therefore avoid even more. Yes. Right. And so shame is one component of that. Like that’s one form of it. It’s like the the more ashamed I feel of my inability to do the things that I set out to do. Um the worse I feel about doing them, therefore the more I avoid them. And you get in this downward spiral. Similarly with perfectionism, the unrealistic expectations that you set on yourself are make the task so intimidating and unpleasant that you find ways to avoid it, which then makes you feel even worse and expect even more of yourself and then you get end up in another kind of [ __ ] spiral. Let’s transition into Freud. Yeah, I actually have a cool little tidbit to to to like swing into this. Kick it off. Okay. Yeah. Um, it’s actually really fascinating. So, Freud Freud went to university in Vienna in the mid 19th century. And at the time, like psychology didn’t really exist, right? It wasn’t really a thing. So, Freud had a professor. His name was France Brentano. and professor Brenano his kind of obsession and the thing that he would eventually become most known for uh he was really into Aristotle okay and he loved the kind of subjective what we would call today the psychological side of Aristotle but he also loved the scientific side as well and at the time most mostly Aristotle’s scientific stuff was studied and it was like the virtue stuff was I guess less prominent but Brano had had had a theory which is he believed that you could take Aristotle’s scientific method and you could potentially apply it to human happiness and he called it an an empiricism of the psychology and he taught the he taught this idea in his courses and Freud was one of his students. Oh, I did not know that. So interesting. This was so this would have been late 1800s. So this is 1860s 1870s. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. I did not know that. Yeah. Yeah. Freud um is a fascinating guy to say the least. And yeah, whenever you bring him up, uh there’s going to be a lot of uh a lot of dicks. A lot of dicks come out, right? A lot of lot of dicks and mothers. That’s right. That’s right. To to say he was controversial is an understatement. Um he got a lot of things right. He got a lot of things wrong. Some fascinatingly wrong and just uh spectacularly wrong. But um the mark he left on western thought and on psychology is undeniable. You can’t you can’t deny that. So we would be remiss if we did not bring up Freud in all of this. Yeah. There’s a few ideas that Freud introduced into the larger kind of intellectual culture at the time that we need to be aware of for to that are pertinent to procrastination. Okay. Okay. So first we want to talk about the pleasure principle versus the reality principle. Right. Okay. So Freud uh he thought that we are basically just driven by these two principles. One he called the pleasure principle which is uh we seek we seek out pleasure and we want to avoid pain. Um this is from birth this is just part of our nature. Anything that’s pleasurable we gravitate towards it. Anything painful we avoid it. Very basic. Okay. Then he said as we mature though um we mature into what he calls the reality principle where we realize that um just indulging in whatever pleasure comes our way is can be can be uh detrimental to us especially in the long run. So we start to realize this as we mature and actually one of the marks of maturity that he saw or that he he outlined was that we live more by the reality principle. Right? So again it goes back to this you know our evolution like I mentioned previously was such that we will uh prioritize pleasure in the immediate uh term over long-term uh benefits that that if we delay gratification right so that’s the first one. Procrastination then can kind of be seen as giving into the pleasure principle over the reality principle and this can happen chronically or it can happen just in in the moment like that. Okay. So that’s the first first idea we need to think we need to be aware of when it comes to Freud. Uh and then he also has if you go back to your psych 101 he has the the model of the psyche too. The three-part again the three parts y very platonic of him right you have the id ego and super ego. Okay you want to go through each one of those for everybody. Okay, so we have the id, right? And the id is like this this some people call it the lizard brain. I guess that’s probably an oversimplification, but it’s basically your drives for uh a lot of it is for the pleasures that we have, eating, sex, you know, whatever joyful experience you might want to uh indulge in. Hedenism basically. Yeah. You have the superego then though too which is kind of the opposite of the id which is all these moral standards that we obtain through socialization in our childhoods through the people around us our teachers our parents our siblings um we start to form as we as we mature we start to form this idea of what it’s means to be a good person to do right to be morally superior to others or just to act morally out in the world that’s the super ego and then Freud had other idea of the ego, which is kind of the mediator between the two. Like you need to satisfy some of your base urges, right? You need to eat and drink and have sex and all of those things in order for the species to survive and thrive and and propagate. Uh but we also need to temper that um in some way uh with our moral understanding of the world. Yeah. And that’s the ego comes in and says, “Okay, I have a plan how we’re going to get satisfied both of these.” And the whole Freud said when these things were in balance and the ego was doing its job then we had mental health and whenever it’s out of balance we’re screwed. Right. Feels very similar to the chariot. Very very much the chariot driver with the two horses. Like you said Plato he’ll come up all throughout western thought. He’s everywhere and he’s everywhere. Yeah. Procrastination then kind of through a Freudian lens is giving into like I said giving into the id when the id can overpower the super ego or the ego I guess. uh and the the super ego is kind of left out uh to dry. That is uh you know Freud never uh specifically addressed procrastination but a lot of his uh people after him did a lot of his students did the psychoanalysts. Yes. Who who were the the Freudian psychologists they addressed procrastination through this lens. Another thing uh he brought up too and brought to our awareness I think more was the defense mechanisms. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was going to say cuz doesn’t the ego isn’t part of the e when the ego is mediating between these two things right that the the the social obligations and and the c cultural values and versus the anim animalistic urges doesn’t the ego kind of because like when people talk about an ego we usually think of some sort of like selfidentity or self-image. Yes. Right. So isn’t is the mechanism for mediating those two things like is it kind of this mental construction that happens like how does that all map out? You mean in terms of uh like how the ego mediates that relationship or or Well, I I am I’m imagining that the the mediation between those two things. It happens through the construction of this self-image, right? It’s like this is the type of person I am. This is what I how I act in these situations. And then once we’ve constructed that identity, we need to protect it. Right. Yeah. So the ego does it very much forms our basis of selfidentity. What you’re saying and and how we navigate those that pull between the two horses, right? The ego is sitting in between uh in Freud’s view, the ego sits in between those the poles to to be morally superior and good and pure versus, you know, a base uh creature of nature. Yeah. Right. So yes, the the ego very much navigates that and say this is how I act in these certain situations. These are here here are my morals. Here are how I get what I need out of life and want to. Yeah. So absolutely. Yeah. So I want to make a quick point here or quick interjection because I always find this super interesting. Like in conventional wisdom or or typical parlance, like if you’re just hanging out with a bunch of random people and somebody’s being an [ __ ] you’re like, man, that guy’s got too much of an ego. Yeah. He’s got to get rid of his ego, man. Or if you go to like a meditation group or you know go to some woowoo, you know, incense burning temple here in Malibu, like they’ll tell like, “Oh, we’re here to dissolve our ego or get rid of our ego.” It’s interesting if you actually go back to Freud, you don’t want to get rid of your ego. That’s not what you want. Yeah. It’s like your ego is actually really important. It’s pragmatic. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like actually you just want to have a good ego, right? Like you want to have a functional ego instead of a dysfunctional ego because a dysfunctional ego is probably giving in way too much to either the social pressures or the anim animalistic urges whereas a functional ego is able to balance everything effectively and manage itself. Right. Right. And it can manage shame for example too. So yes you can there there’s good ego to have. Ego is not a bad word in the the fian parlance. Right. Yeah. Okay. But it does what what happens is when the ego comes under threat. Yes. Uh that can be a problem. So this is where the defense mechanisms defense mechanisms come in. Okay. Right. So if you um I if there is any sort of uh threat to the ego, threat to your selfidentity in in these or threat to your your your view of yourself. I’m a good person. I this is how I act in these situations. then these defense mechanisms can kick in and protect your ego, right? And that’s where some problems can come just as they relate to procrastination. A couple of common ones are which we’ve already mentioned uh rationalization, right? We rationalize well uh one of them is I work best under pressure, which I want to really talk about that one. Okay. Um or I need the adrenaline of a looming deadline or something like that, right? that that um we rationalize our way out of actually taking action towards our goals. Yeah. Okay. Another one is intellectualization. Um one I’m very fond of which is we’ve already mentioned this one too. You research I need to research this more. I need to just I need more information aka this entire podcast. Right. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I need to I need to listen to more podcast. I need to listen I need to listen to a 5 hour podcast before I can do this. So yes, that one’s very much in our our wheelhouse where you you think you just need more information or you need to stop and understand it more in some way, right? So that’s a very common one that that’s um I mean as you know like one of one of my favorite things to say is is that uh learning more is a smart person’s favorite way to procrastinate. 100%. And that I mean I think a lot of people listening to this will identify I do for sure. So they’ll relate to that. Uh, another really common one too is just denial, which we’ve already mentioned this one, too. It’s like, ah, it’s not that important. I’m just going to put it off. It’s fine, you know? Yeah. What’s one more day? What’s one more day? What’s what’s one workout? What’s, you know, that sort of thing. So, those are some common ones. What those are designed to do in the Freudian school of thought is to protect this ego, the selfidentity that we’ve constructed over time. Yeah. So um the ego sitting in the middle trying to balance all these pulls that we have and then all of a sudden something comes along to threaten that and we need to protect that. That’s what the idea of the um uh of defense mechanisms are and that’s I mean you know for all Freud’s flaws I think defense mechanism are definitely one of those things that he brought to um the cultural conscience that we absolutely needed. The the funny thing about Freud to me is is that it’s he got the big stuff right. Yeah. He got the details horribly wrong. Yeah. And the details are horribly and and not only horribly wrong, but like hilariously wrong. So, and and it’s because they’re hilariously wrong. That’s what everybody focuses on and remembers, but like the ego is just it is such like everything you just described is so profound and tracks, right? And it it is like it is such an incredible insight into human nature and and not only like you know talking about these defense mechanisms and protecting ego like not only do we protect the ego we protect our ego as if it is our physical body. Yes. Oh yeah. You get you you like revolt back into yourself. You you will crunch in you will have phys physiological responses to an ego threat the same way you would have responses to a physical threat. You will have uh emotional responses to an ego threat that track exactly as the emotional responses you would have to a physical threat. Right. It is so incredible like such an incredible realization. Yeah. Because we all need we all need a sense a selfidentity to navigate the world, right? And and so it is very threatening. Uh you have this kind of humans have this need um to explain things and and make sense of the world. And one way we do that is through a selfidentity. And when that gets threatened, that’s very very scary like you said. So I I do think that that’s one of Freud’s biggest contributions definitely just in psychology in general, but around procrastination especially is um when we get defensive and like you said, you you you’ll feel that in your body. You’ll feel your yourself recoil um whenever your ego is is threatened in any way. So yeah. So I I think this raises an interesting point of self-defin as a component of procrastination. And I’ve noticed this uh I mean I’ve noticed this in my own life quite a bit where it’s like as soon as I decide that I am something suddenly the emotional veilance around that thing becomes way more intense right to the surface. Yeah. Yeah. So, like before I wrote Subtle Art, I didn’t really see myself as an author. So, I just wrote a book. It was just kind of like, oh, this is just another thing I’m going to do. This is like one of like five things I’m going to do o over the next few years. Uh, but then all a sudden it takes off and I become socially known as an author, which then affects my self-perception of myself of like, oh, I guess I’m an author now. And as soon as I am quote unquote an author, now writing is a completely different experience for me because now this is the thing that I’m supposed to be good at. This is the thing that I’m most known for. This is the thing that I’m most respected for. I’ve been most rewarded for. And so that is a much more intimidating experience. And it actually took me a number of years to like revise that self-defin and remember like, yeah, dude, you weren’t always an author. like you you you just kind of like decided one day that like oh I guess I’m an author now and then like that added a mountain of [ __ ] stress to my life and like I can just as easily decide I’m not an author. It’s just like one of many things I do and suddenly as soon as I that that self-defin switched a lot of that stress went away. M James Clear talks about this a little bit in in Ato atomic habits about how like the ultimately the only thing that makes a habit stick over a long like over the long term is when it’s adopted as an identity. Identity. Yes. Yeah. And and it’s that adoption as an identity that is that’s the ego, right? It’s like when you go from a person who uh is happens to be running three times a week to a runner or you go from a person who is taking a painting class to a painter, right? It’s like once you define yourself as I’m a painter, then suddenly you don’t need willpower or discipline or to overcome procrastination to paint because that’s just the thing you do, right? So, um anyway, I [ __ ] love this stuff. But there there’s you’re saying there there’s stakes attached to that as well too. There’s stakes when you attach your identity to that. And so would you say from your transition to being well I’m just somebody who’s going to write a book to I’m an author. You haven’t written a book in a few years. Mark, have you been procrastinating on this because this threatens your identity now or I think well it’s funny because it’s it’s I let go of Okay. I let go because it’s like I let go of that identity. It did cause me a lot an immense amount of stress. And this isn’t to say I I don’t like the books that I wrote. It’s just that like I I wouldn’t have necessarily written them when I did or the way I did um if I had had a different selfidentity at the time. And by freeing myself of that identity, part of freeing myself is realizing that like I don’t have to write a book. Like I’m not just an author. So, I can write a book if I want. And I I’m sure I will write a book again soon, but I don’t have to. It’s not the thing I do. Right. It’s like if you and I decided like we’re podcasters now. Yeah. Right. Right. Like this is who we are and what we do. I got caught up in that for a little while. Yeah. I’m sure. I’m sure. It’s it’s it’s it’s tough. Like it’s it draws you in. And I I guess this is kind of coming back to like the the ego intermediating between, you know, the social pressures and the moral values and then also kind of like the anim animalistic instincts. Like we have a fundamental drive for social acceptance and social approval, right? And so it it’s like our our ego’s part of our ego’s role is to like take that social acceptance and be like, “Yeah, I’ll be that. This is what rewards me socially. This is what gets me respect from the tribe. I’m going to be that person.” Right? And so it is a natural reaction, but when you decide that that’s who you are, it it adds a whole another layer of I guess of of of stakes, you know, like I’ll say this. I think adopting the coming back to the James Clear thing of like adopting a habit as an identity. He is correct that like if the goal is to just do the thing then adopting it as an identity essentially solves that problem. Yes. Cuz it’s like if if that’s who you are, that’s just what you’re going to do and it’s going to feel like it’s going to feel weird to not do it. The the tradeoff of that that I think is not mentioned in that book is that when you adopt a habit as an identity, you are now adding a whole layer of social pressure, judgment, validation to that, right? So it’s like if we if we decide now like we are podcasters like now we’re that’s that’s the yard stick we’re going to start measuring ourselves with, right? If you decide I am a runner, well yeah, now it’s not going to be hard to get up and run in the morning. Now you’re gonna be judging yourself by how your run went every morning. Ah. So it’s like you you you you trade God, it never ends. It never ends. You trade one problem for another essentially. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. Yes. I I do think again Freud and his uh uh conceptualization of the psyche, the three parts and the defense mechanisms and all that. That’s that’s useful in terms of yeah tying your selfidentity to what you do, how you behave in the world. obviously um that is that that’s now in the zeitgeist and now very much a part of our culture too. I think the other thing though too uh is Freud was one of the first people to really emphasize childhood how our childhoods affect the way we develop into adulthood. It’s funny when I was in college and I was I was taking psychology I think I was either a freshman or sophomore at the So, I was taking pretty lower level psychology classes and was talking with um somebody in my dorm who wasn’t a psychology major and they’re like, “Oh, you’re a psychology major major. Tell me about that.” And I was like, “Oh, we’re going over Freud right now.” You know, I tell them all this and I get to the part about childhood. I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” And Freud, you know, he’s the one who kind of came up with this idea of like childhood, you know, affecting us as we get older. And she goes, “Well, doesn’t everybody know that?” And I didn’t have a good answer at the time. I was like, “Well, yeah, it’s really obvious, isn’t it?” And I didn’t have a good answer at the time, but no, actually before Freud, nobody thought that like it was just you were just a bad person, period. Like you are what you are. You are what you are. There was nothing that from your childhood or the way you were raised that was necessarily uh like indicative of why you are the way you are at this point. Even the concept of parenting Yes. is like less than a hundred years old. Yeah. Yeah. Which is mind-blowing. Yeah. Well, I think Yeah. probably a lot of that was parenting in well it was probably more uh of a collective effort than it is now. So yeah it was a collective effort also like half of your kids died before the age of seven. So so it was just like well the like obviously obviously God had something to say about Exactly. God God decided Yeah. Yeah. But but Freud did he introduced the the idea of um parenting styles and how uh experiences we had in childhood how they affect our development throughout our lives all the way into adulthood. Right. Right. Um, a few of these, now this was this came from some of his contemporaries. It wasn’t directly from Freud, but they took these psychoanalyst psychoanalysis principles and they applied them to uh, parenting and procrastination. Um, there are kind of these three big ideas that I came across. Anyway, one of them being when your parents kind of equate love with achievement. Um, so this gets into the perfectionism thing. Definitely. This can kind of um uh encourage someone to develop a more perfectionist personality. Well, and this this ties into the confusion stuff 100%. Um but parents who who set these unrealistically high expectations on their children, you’ll often get um children who are kind of perfectionists and big time procrastinators at some point at least in their lives if they don’t manage it well. Anyway, um the the child feels fear around taking any sort of action around the failure and procrastination then as an adult it’ll manifest in a way as to just avoid that emotional pain through the Freudian lens. What you’re doing when you’re procrastinating if you have these types of parents is that you’re avoiding those memories of of being chastised for not doing the right thing or for not for not doing a good enough job. Right? Another one is kind of uh internalizing parental anger. So if you grew up around very reactive parents who um got angry whenever you did something wrong, you know, you spill the milk or whatever it was and they immediately got on you about that that a child according to the Freudian school of thought would internalize those that anger from those parents and they would feel less worthy direct it towards themselves. So again the procrastination is avoiding any uh situation in which you could fail and so uh you you you don’t you’ve already internalized the anger and you just want to avoid it altogether. Again it goes back to it comes back to the avoidance a lot with these. Um and then the last one I came across with parenting anyway is two different uh parenting styles. So you have permissive parents or authoritarian ones. Yeah. And on the permissive side, if if you grew up in a very kind of like rules-free environment, more or less, um you according to the Freudians again, they you this produces a nervous underachiever, right? They they feel overwhelmed by self-imposed deadlines or work or whatever it is. They So they just they’re like, “Well, that’s just that’s too many rules, too much structure. I’m just not I’m just going to avoid it all together.” Yeah. The flip side being authoritarian where you you grew up in a very strict household with lots and lots of rules and to the the psychoanalysts they think that uh there’s like a rebellion against that right for some children. Yeah. So, um, whether these are, you know, whether that’s actually what’s going on or not, that’s obviously the topic of debate and we’ll go over some of this. But again, the idea that the way we were raised affects the way that we develop throughout our lives and it specifically around procrastination, it does have uh it could have an effect this way. Now, was it was it is it because we’re like avoiding those emotional memories like deep emotional memories that we want to avoid? I don’t know. It it’s funny because the the parent thing I mean there’s definitely something to it. It’s so hard to know where that line begins and ends. You know how much of that is just personality, natural disposition. How much of that is like how mom and dad treated you? Like it’s such a fuzzy area like it the the boundary between those two things is very fuzzy. It is funny. I have never I had never heard that permissive parent thing. Uh and the what what did you say it was? The the timid underachiever. Yeah. Nervous underachiever. underachiever, dude. That that [ __ ] I feel called out. Really? My parents were super permissive. Like grew up no structure, no rules, which you know was a real double-edged sword. Like there was a lot of things that I think it forced my brother and I to develop a lot of traits. Uh self-reliance being a big one, right? Independence. Uh comfort with autonomy, comfort being alone. Um, so there there are a lot of things that I developed at an early age that I’m like actually very grateful for. But it is funny. Uh, both my brother and I were spectacular underachievers. I, you know, pretty much up until maybe my second year of college, I was very much an underachiever. And it’s funny, I I I had a really good friend in high school um, who called me out on my [ __ ] once and it was like very uncomfortable. It was one of those moments where like somebody says something to you and it like because it hurts so bad you know it must be true. Yeah. But like I you know I used to be a pretty arrogant teenager. Um you know I was a smart kid who never did his homework. Okay. Yeah. So it it I think I was like just talking [ __ ] once and I said something. I was like uh I was like you know I if I really cared I you know I could easily get an A in that class. And then I think my friend was like well why don’t you do it? And I was like, “It’s not worth my time.” And he was like, he said, “No, I I I think you don’t do it because I think you’re afraid of trying and then not actually getting the the A.” And he said, “You’d rather not try at all.” And I kick in the stomach, dude. It was like [ __ ] getting stabbed in the chest. And I was like, whoa. Uh, had no comeback for it, you know? Um, but I think it there really was something to that. Like I I very much there was something about the permissive environment that maybe as a defense mechanism I had a very inflated perception of my my own ability and potential and actually doing anything threatened that. Ah so if I actually did try in a class and didn’t get the A, I’d have to re-evaluate my ego. I’d have to re-evaluate um how I see myself. And that was just too scary and too So it’s just easier to smoke pot and not do your homework. Yes. Um which is interesting like you know you mentioned the real the pleasure principle segueing into the reality principle. I imagine I’m not aware of Freud talking about it in these terms. But I imagine like part of that process it it part of it looks like almost ego flexibility like developing an ego flexibility. Like when I think about my younger self and I think about young people in general or immature people in general, they have very rigid egos. They have very like I think what people mean when they say you have a big ego or you you need to get rid of your ego, what they mean is that your ego is rigid, which is that you have a self-perception that is not open to new information, right? Like if you if you fail at something or something doesn’t go well, instead of re-evaluating how you see yourself, uh you blame everybody else, right? and double down on your and double down on how you on your your self-image. And so I think that that ego flexibility is actually what we should be going for. And I think that is also a skill that we naturally develop as we get older. Like I I I definitely find that I’m much better, you know, at 40. I’m much better at kind of looking at myself and being like, “Oh, yeah, maybe I wasn’t as good as at that thing as I thought I was.” Whereas like, you know, when I was 20, that felt cataclysmic to to have that thought. Right. So, super interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. Well, one thing too about the whole parenting thing and and Freud’s view, I think sometimes they get a little bit pigeonholed uh when they think about this because when you were telling your story about permissive parenting and how it affected you, I had a friend who had a very permissive she was um the daughter of a single mother. Yeah. Her and her mother just let her do whatever she wanted and she resented her for it. She wanted this structure. Yeah. And she became a very high achiever actually. So it was the other way. So I just don’t think like a lot of times with Freud I think they they have these neat little like explanations for it just so stories. So there there’s that. Again though the larger takeaway I think is that he did find these kind of big categories of influences on our behavior that nobody had really thought about before and and brought them to to the to the surface the surface and the cultural conscience for sure. Yeah. So, just a quick reminder before we move on. If you’re starting to get a little bit of information overload, uh we do have a PDF guide for all of this and all the solved episodes. So, just go to solved podcast.com/procrastination to get a full episode guide with accompanying notes, takeaways, references, and citations. We break everything down, help summarize all the most important information, and offer next steps if you want to start implementing what you’re hearing. And of course, it’s free. So just go to solvedpodcast.com/procrastination. The link is also in the description. All right. Anyway, so yeah, speaking of other frameworks, behaviorism, this is the big psychological breakthrough that comes right after Freud. Yeah. Kind of during Freud even, too. Oh, is it a bit of a backlash, I would say. So 1913, John B. Watson, kind of regarded as the father of behaviorism, although there were some people before him, but he comes out with a paper called psychology as the behaviorist views it. Okay. And right from the get-go, like the opening line is psychology as the behavioral as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Kind of like a slap in the face to the Freudian psychologist psycho analyst at the time. It really is kind of a backlash that’s going on. They Watson and the other behaviorists at the time they see all of this like, oh, you know, let’s talk your dreams, your childhood, your the internal states that you want to like really naval gaze at, right? They saw this as wishy-washy. It it it wasn’t useful. It wasn’t helpful. Also, keep in mind at the time too of what was going on like Einstein is like kind of starting to like become a name that’s known and physics and there’s all these breakthroughs in the material sciences at this time too. And the behaviorists wanted to take that kind of uh philosophy which was kind of rigorous scientific method and apply it to the psychology. um very much in contrast to the uh the Freudian psychologist which is just sit and talk for hours. Sit on a couch talk. Let’s get under all these unconscious motives that you have. The behaviorists were very much the opposite actually like almost exactly the opposite. They said no we should not be studying mental internal mental states at all. We should only be concerned with what’s observable and what’s observable is behavior. So that’s why it’s called behaviorism. Gotcha. Um, Watson also went on to say in that in that same paper is that the behaviorist recognized there’s no dividing line between man and brute. So this is where because what was going on is where all of these studies with animals uh were were starting to be incorporated into the the body of literature that was going on and the behavior saw all these parallels between even you know a rat or a mouse and a human being and and how they can be very similar in a lot of ways. I feel so objectified, Drew. Well, that was that is exactly what the behaviorists were trying to do though was to make this an objective rigorous science. They wanted they wanted to really get at the heart of things. And they thought if we could only just study things like a physicist studies atoms and particles, then we could get to some underlying truth uh around behavior and psychology and human nature even. So, so that kind of puts it in the historical context of what’s going on. Um, you know, there’s Watson was very much influenced by Pavlov and the Pavlov’s dogs. You know, you ring a bell, give the dog food, after a little while the dog hears the bell, it just starts salivating. Yeah, that was kind of the the the forerunner to this strict behaviorism that that came in the early 20th century. That kind of conditioning, the Pavlovian conditioning was was called classical conditioning by the behaviorists. They saw that as you’re pairing this um neutral stimulus, which in this case was the bell, to um a a a natural um stimulus, which was the food, and then you get this um this um kind of innate response, which was the salivating. Yeah. Okay. Would this be like the behavioral manifestation of the neuroscientific idea of like what fires together wires together or those different things? Well, that I mean later on that’s how it would be explained. Yes. Um and that was the that was the classical conditioning side though. Yeah. Um I think what you’re starting to get out a little bit more was the operant conditioning. Okay. Which is what the behaviorists really like that was their big kind of breakthrough was okay you have these classical conditioning experiments where you can make a dog salivate at the ringing of a bell. So what? But actually when you introduce learning um which is is relevant to the procrastination story. when you introduce learning into the equation, then it becomes what they call operant conditioning. Okay. Okay. And this was really um this really took hold. Watson kind of was was dancing around it, but it wasn’t until uh Skinner came along. BF Skinner, Burus Frederick Skinner was his name. I did not know his real name. I was I’m a I was a psychology major. I did not know I would I would go by BF, too, if that was my name. Yeah, it’s kind of a a dorky name for sure. He grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Yeah. But th this was the idea of operant conditioning where you learn through a series of rewards and punishments. Okay. Um now Skinner I don’t know how much we want to get into. How much do you want to get into Skinner? He’s a fascinating dude. Okay. Okay. From a young age he was very inventive. uh he was always uh trying to come up with like new little inventions and contraptions and he had a very mechanical mind which would later produce the the Skinner box, what we know as a Skinner box, right? You put the rat in the box, it pushes the lever, it gets the tree, it learns very quickly that pushing the lever gets a tree. Yeah. Skinner um actually found that you could get rats to do all sorts of things. He used rats, he used pigeons. Those were his two main main animals. But he he found that you could get them to do all sorts of different complex very complex behaviors with just simple rewards and punishments. Okay. Now um he so he invented the Skinner box. He he taught them to he he introduced the idea of shaping behavior as well. Um so just little increments of you know get the rat to press the bar. Okay now get the rat to press press the wall and then press the bar. That kind of thing and you could get these complex behaviors out of all of that. This is what again was called uh operant conditioning. Yeah. Skinner even got to a point where he coined the term radical behaviorism which he thought even like internal states could be the result of rewards and punishments. Okay, we’ll get into that here in a little bit. But one of the reasons he thought that was because you could do some pretty complex behaviors with these simple animals and get just through a series of rewards and punishments, right? So for instance, he taught um he taught pigeons how to play pingpong. He taught them how to quote unquote read, it was more like a word recognition thing, but they could still, it was kind of like reading. He’s like, you know, now this is if I can teach a pigeon how to do these simple word recognitions than taking a brain from a human, you could do the same thing, just reward and punishment. This is what this word says. You’re rewarded through that through a little dopamine in your brain or whatever it is. And then you learn how to read. So he’s like all these complex behaviors can be reduced down to this very very simple idea which is you kind of like the wire together fire together. Sure. You you repeat what you’re rewarded for and you don’t repeat what you’re punished for. So to a a behaviorist procrastination really does just come down to um what you are rewarded or punished for. And uh in the case of procrastination, they would say something along the lines of, you know, you are one, you’re rewarded for the the delay. You you’re anxious about whatever task this is and then so in order to remove that anxiety, you just don’t engage in it whatsoever. So there’s your reward or the punishments aren’t grave enough for you. We’ve kind of already touched on this too, right? Like that’s the the the consequences so far down the line that you’re not even it’s not even registering with you. You’ve discounted it. You discounted it completely. So, it’s really just a series of uh they just see it as a series of rewards and punishments. And that’s what all animals, not just humans, but all of us are subjected to. That’s like the law of nature for a behaviorist. Yeah. Yeah. So, the solution for a behaviorist would be give yourself a worse punishment for not doing the thing. I think well, so a lot of or reward yourself for doing the thing. Well, both, right? It’s it’s using punishments and rewards in your life uh strategically, right? And this has definitely influenced a lot of like the modern day productivity um space. Yeah. There’s even a a law called Skinner’s law. So like make make the thing so um unpleasant not to do it that you just do it. Yes. Like that that’s very much used in a lot of modern day uh productivity schemes and and and systems. I mean there is something to that 100%. Again, yeah, there’s something to it. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s I think about it a lot in terms of friction, like adding and removing friction to certain behaviors. Yes. Right. In my environment, um making it easier to do good be, you know, it’s like if you don’t want to eat junk food, like just don’t bring it in the house, right? So you don’t have to make those decisions in the first place. Or um if you want to do something like if you want to pick up a new habit like sign up for classes and get that accountability and convince a friend to go with you or or whatever so that like not doing it becomes way more painful than doing it. It’s funny because it is it sounds so simple but this is like for me personally this is one of the the strongest levers that I’ve ever pulled. Definitely. Yeah. For my own behavior. Yeah. No, the the environmental design is very much influenced by the behaviorist school of thought. the the modern day environmentalist design even go back to James Clear setting up your environment and in such a way that rewards and punishes uh certain behaviors that you want that’s very much comes from the behaviorist school of thought for sure and uh also there is even though you know they were a reaction to Freudian psychology there is still kind of that pleasure principle that carried over into behaviorism they acknowledge that um but they say that’s it we don’t have to go any further than that and we can just uh we can shape uh our lives and even society through a series of rewards and punishments. Yeah. Right. And yeah, so procrastination to them is uh really again it’s in terms of rewards and punishment, but there’s you know there’s kind of like there’s a refor reinforcement of delay like I already said you um immediate indulgences that are in your environment are just easier to reach for. So we will reach for them. There’s ineffective punishments. um it’s either distant or it’s not a strong enough punishment for for us to not procrastinate on a any given task. Previous conditioning though too they also bring that in. So there is a little bit of you know um if you were uh if previous uh experiences of procrastination went unpunished then you’re just more likely to do it right like so if you’re in a job and you don’t really face a lot of consequences for not getting something done well you’re just going to continue doing that. That’s a behaviorist view. And then there’s an also they have this negative reinforcement loop. Um which there’s greater anxiety as a deadline approaches, right? And it can make finishing that task more relieving. Like the the more pressure you put on yourself, the greater the relief you experience once you do finally do that. Well, it’s funny because one of the one of the people I talked to in preparation for this podcast was Tim Urban, who has the most watched TED talk of all time about procrastination. He’s a chronic procrastinator, dude. And it’s funny because I’ve I’ve been friends with Tim for over 10 years and and I I know him very well. And it he is he’s a chronic procrastinator, but he’s also like I don’t know. I I’ve known a number of people like him where it’s they get in this pattern where you you kind of mentioned this earlier that that they feel like they thrive under pressure and they need that pressure cooker experience going on around them, right? Like that’s that’s what actually gets them to perform. And so they continuously throw themselves into that situation over and over again. and you know doing the work weeks ahead of time and not stressing or worrying about it at all like that’s not a very interesting emotional experience. It’s kind of boring and requires you know a lot of forethought. Whereas waiting till the night before having this super extremely stressful event and then like you said the relief of accomplishing that stressful event um that can easily be something that you condition into yourself. That is 95% of college students right there. That that’s what it is. That was that was a lot of my college experiences probably at least. Yeah. Yeah. It was like I I I would get an assignment and I’d be like, “Oh, the allnighter for this is going to be interesting.” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You could pull it off. So, you did, right? Like you again, you were rewarded uh in in these ways that you weren’t don’t even realize you’re being rewarded, right? Which is a good example is the relief of that stress that you put yourself under. But it’s a self self-reinforcing stressor. It’s just self-imposed stress, I should say. I This might be a good time to talk a little bit about that. Thriving under pressure. You know, talk a little bit about this. I know. I know you you have a bone to pick with this. I have a huge bone to pick with this because I feel like I’m one of these people, right? And in talking to people around this, like I would say, oh yeah, we’re doing this this big long podcast on procrastination. And everyone’s like, “Oh, I need this.” But almost all the time or a good number of people immediately would say, “Oh, but I thrive under pressure. I need the dead. I need the the pressure of the deadline. And I have thought a lot about that and I think that’s just [ __ ] Like I to say to say that you thrive under pressure. You’re calling out our entire audience. I get No, no, no. Look, I I understand that it’s motivate. I understand the pressure is motivating, but you don’t need it. This is the more common thing about I do my best work under pressure and that I think is total [ __ ] Okay, there are people who thrive under pressure. I get it. like a situation comes up that like there something needs to get done and people are boom they just snap into that get [ __ ] done mode, right? I that I totally believe in. That’s that’s not that’s something separate. That’s not what I’m talking about. When people say I do my best work under pressure, I’m always my immediate question is compared to what? Right. Compared to not doing anything at all cuz that’s the only work you do. Sure, it’s your best work, but it’s the only work you do. I I don’t I don’t agree with that at all. I feel so attacked right now. I get it. And look, I get it. Sometimes you just have to. Sometimes they’re like there’s just so much going on in most people’s lives that they use that pressure to get things done. I get that. Like there’s just there’s only so many hours in a day. That’s fine. Don’t tell me that’s your best work when you’re fearing the negative consequences of not getting something done. That’s your best work. Are you really going to tell me that’s your best work that you can produce? Let’s let’s back up the track just a couple a couple a couple feet. Okay. I hear what you’re saying. I I don’t think you’re wrong. I I So here I’ll I’ll I’ll kind of delineate what I think you’re right about, which is that the people who say that they have probably not had a healthy working experience. Because what you’re saying is is like, okay, if these people budgeted their time, let’s say they have a an assignment due in two weeks, right? Okay. if they were diligent, they budgeted their time, they’re like, “Okay, I’m going to spend an hour to two hours a day, every single day, and then the last day, you know, I’ll have most of it done or whatever, and they’ll have time to rethink things and go back and change things and do further research and like dig into other stuff.” Yes, they will probably have a much better result with much less stress. I guess maybe this is the funny thing is that budgeting of time and following that schedule and following that plan, they don’t see that as part of the work. They see that as something different. And so that it’s it’s all they experience is maybe they try to work on it a week ahead of time and they’re like, “This is boring. This sucks.” Yeah. uh there’s no emotional stimulus happening and so they lose interest or they don’t try very hard and then they get two days out and they start freaking out and panicking and then that forces them to like really focus and put in a lot of effort and so they get that emotional stimulation which then gets channeled into the work itself and then yeah sure the the work that they do then is much superior to like the half-ass attempt that they had a week prior. So I agree with that. Yes, I can see how that is probably their experience. And I I can also see your point that like if they were very diligent and budgeted out their time like say 2 weeks in advance and did a little bit every day and really thought were thoughtful and considerate about like the work they were doing, yes, they would produce a much better outcome, but they’ve never had that experience. They’ve never Well, that’s my point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Compared to what? Yeah. No, you you are correct in that regard. But I I I think you I think the point that you’re kind of like uh subtly raising here is that a lot of people I guess maybe mistake the emotional stimulus for the work, right? Like it is it is that anxietyfueled frenzy where they get a ton of stuff done and they are super focused that they they associate that with good work because it is enlivening. It’s it’s exciting. It’s stimulating, right? And they are way more focused on on a task or a goal than they usually are in most circumstances. So, in their mind, they’re like, “Yeah, this is I’m doing great work right now.” So, I guess what I’m saying is it’s it’s more of a skill issue. Like, if they knew how to budget things out well in advance and do a little bit every day and like thoughtfully look at their work every day, they would agree with you. Yeah, but it’s it’s like I guess I’m just agreeing with you, but it I’m like softening the There’s a nuance to it. I’m like I’m like I feel so attacked that I’m like you’re now recoiling. Your ego is being attacked. Exactly. My ego my ego is being threatened. So, no, I think it’s just I think you are I think you are directionally correct. I do think it’s a little bit more nuanced and I guess I’m kind of like diplomat as somebody who was that person. Yeah. For a lot of his life and I have been too. That’s I’m I’m including myself in this too. I get that. I mean, okay, if you’re if you’re saying I do my best work under pressure, again, what I think you’re saying is I do my best work when only the threat of the negative consequences are on the line. And not only that, but I’m I’m limiting myself to such a small time window that you’re going to tell me that like all your first if creative work especially, all your first ideas are going to be your best ideas because that’s all the time you have to put down. Yeah. or to to to work out in whatever creative work you’re doing. I don’t think so. Some of this might come down to I I agree with that. Some of this might come down to the type of work as well. I mean, here’s the counterargument is that is that pressure a lot of pressure is derived from high expectation, right? So, when the caliber of the work is is not expected to be that high, you don’t feel the pressure and so you don’t try very hard. But when the when the caliber of work is expected to be extremely high, that’s a lot of pressure and so you try a lot harder. I mean, I think most people have had a I mean, maybe this gets it a little bit into a discussion of expectation um and procrastination, but like I think most of us most of us have had an experience at some point in our lives where like somebody has come to you and be like, “Hey, Drew, I need you to do this thing.” And the first time you hear it, you’re like, “That’s impossible.” And they’re like, “Oh, and by the way, I need it in like four days.” And then you do it and you’re like, “Holy [ __ ] I could actually do that.” Right? So, it it like, okay, I’m just going to throw that element out there. Mhm. I I’m not saying it’s not motivating. I’m not saying you shouldn’t like leverage that when it does happen. I I just don’t think you should rely on that to produce your best work. That’s what I’m saying at 100% agree. Thank you for bringing in the nuance. I was very angry about that one. And now you you’ve softened it. I do agree with that. You were on your soap box and I I managed to kind of kick it out from under you. From from the behaviorist point of view though, too, again, going back to those what you’re fearing is the negative consequences. Well, they’ve I mean a lot of studies have shown that um you know punishments aren’t uh really as effective at least not they’re effective in the short term. They’re not effective in the long term, right? Rewards are more effective I think in the long term. Part of that I do think goes back to something I mentioned earlier was about uh agency. We think we when we’re just being punished for something, we don’t feel like we have the agency to actually make decisions. But when there’s rewards on the line, we can choose whether or not we like that reward. Yeah. And I think that’s that’s something that came out of the behaviorist um well an interpretation of the behaviorist view anyway that I I think is actually very useful for people. So where do you think behaviorism went wrong? What did they miss? Cuz everything you’re describing at least in the context of procrastination I’m like yeah that works. That works. Yep. So what what what did they fall short on? Yeah. I mean all the environmental design stuff I think they nailed. Um definitely. I think though even though Skinner later in his life came to this what he called behavioral rad uh radical behaviorism um which was that even our mental processes and cognitions could be reduced to rewards and punishments. I don’t think they ever fully showed that and I think they ignore a lot of the emotional states and cognitive internal processes. Not only do they ignore them, they explicitly ignore them. we’re not going to worry about those kind of things because some method will come along where we can explain it in terms of rewards and punishments. Yeah. So they ignore that we we can also we can override our uh sensibilities around rewards and punishments too um to which I think is a cognitive again an internal cognitive process that happens. Yeah. Um that gets overridden by these principles of just simple rewards and punishments. I wonder what Skinner would think of David Gogggins. Oh, that’s a thought experiment. God, what would he say about David Gogins? Yeah. Where he’s just constantly self flagagillating and punishing himself. Yeah. Putting himself through the most pain that he possibly can. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe they would say that it’s a kind of a higher order of operate operant conditioning where he gets some sort of reward out of it eventually and he’s just conditioned himself to to um experience that reward over time. See, I I in the in the context of Gogggins, I see the Freudian ego explanation uh is more effective. And and I mean I mean ego strictly in the Freudian sense, not as like oh my god, Gogggins has an ego. But in terms it’s it’s like Gogggins has built an identity around doing incredibly hard and painful things. And so to maintain and preserve that ego that he’s built for himself, which has served him extremely well in his life and he’s like rewarded him in many ways. Um, but to maintain that ego, he like needs to get out and [ __ ] punish himself. It’s kind of what we were saying that it’s like when the habit becomes the identity, you have to do the action. It feels it feels more painful to not do the action than to do it, right? And so it’s like Gogggins has built an identity around doing incredibly difficult, painful things. And so he has reached this [ __ ] crazy place where he probably feels weird not doing painful things rather than doing them. Well, he was also socially rewarded for doing those things though too, right? The culture he grew he he um kind of forged all that was Navy Seals where that was socially rewarded. Totally. So the behaviorist would say ah no there’s actually a big uh um behaviorist lens we could put this through and we don’t it doesn’t have to be reduced to identities and so is the behavior I mean I like to maybe I’m naive but I I like to try to see everything as like a puzzle and see where everything fits together you know you I guess are we seeing the behavior the behaviorist perspective as uh kind of the interaction between the super ego and the ego like the the rewards it’s like how the world is rewarding you and punishing you and how like I suppose you could see it that way. Yeah. Um I I mean I I I would think I would say that the behaviorist saw human nature as finally tuned to social rewards. Yeah. Uh and so those are big big rewards that have a very high veilance very high salience when you think about them those um you will approach those a lot more readily. Yeah. Um so I mean anything just and with operant conditioning anything can be turned into a reward almost right you the operant part is that you’re learning about these rewards or punishments so almost anything can like with the gogggins example punishment can be its own form of reward at at some level and so I think the even the behaviorist would go so far as to say that yeah it’s all just comes down to this seeking pleasure avoiding pain you know I I think Really though, the the big takeaway from the behaviorist was these practical tools that we’ve kind of already environmental stuff. The environmental stuff, setting up, teaching yourself about the rewards and punishments that you’re being aware of the the environment and how it rewards and punishes you in different ways. The refrigerator example with the junk food is a good example of that. Yeah. Um I I think that’s the biggest takeaway. And um e you know even today all of like the productivity systems and and gurus who preach the kind of environmental and only environmental side they draw from a lot of this but they’re not wrong. There’s just not they’re not right. It’s incomplete. Yeah. So I think we’re getting closer. Um this is part of the puzzle. Yeah. The rewards and the punishments along with the identity stuff from Freud. Yeah. Sure. That’s all there. The skills stuff we got from from Aristotle. We’re starting to build a little bit of a picture where okay, these things fit together. It doesn’t have to be a war between all of these things and we can take the best parts of it. And I think that’s I think that’s where we’re we’re headed with it. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Well, let’s move on to the next thing then which is time management. Ah yes. So, as we move into the mid- 20th century, it’s actually interesting to me that there’s there is so much credence to what the behaviorists were saying, like all this environmental design stuff, it actually does work for productivity, yet what we got was a bunch of time management consultant [ __ ] So, how did how did that happen? Well, okay, put it let let’s put it a little bit in historical context here. So yeah, the earth early 20th century you you have the Freudians and the behaviorists battling it out. Um what changes though as we start to get into the middle of the century so starting the 40s 50s60s is there’s a big ch shift in the economy right the post-war economy shifts much more towards kind of the knowledge work the beginning of the knowledge work especially you get into the 60s think like madmen you know the drones corporate drones all of that starts so people start going from the farms and the factories we have been urbanizing for you know several decades uh since the industrial revolution started in the 1800s slowly urbanizing and we’re getting a new economy out of this. Knowledge work becomes a thing. Uh so the ad agencies uh the design designing products for consumer products for uh the masses all of that start to crop up, right? So if you think about that, that’s a very different work environment, right? You go from a factory or a farm, you know exactly what you need to do. It’s right in front of you. It’s very tangible. If you’re in a factory, especially to somebody else is telling you exactly what to do. you don’t have to think about it. Whereas, if you’re getting into more creative work in the the new knowledge economy, now you have all of this there’s all these tasks that are nebulous kind of and there even the end goals a lot of times are nebulous. It’s creative work. They’re you’re not really sure what you’re producing. You’re given a little bit more autonomy too in those spaces. And so now you have to manage your own time. Okay. Up until this point too, like I said, a lot of the things you were supposed to do had kind of been outlined for you. somebody else told you what to do for the most part for the the average worker. Now, you’re you’re managing your own time and you need a way to organize all this and decide what do I need to be working on right now? And so, for a lot of the the the industry, I don’t know if they were really gurus around this time, but this is kind of their their predecessors. They thought, oh, well, these people just need to be taught how to organize their time, how to manage their time. So this is where kind of the time management philosophy really starts to take hold and and rise to the collective conscious. Yeah, there’s a lot of the like techniques that come out of this too. Um at least started here, even the ones we use today, Pomodoro techniques and time boxing and all that. And we can get into those here in a little bit, but that’s kind of that sets the stage anyway, the historical stage for the time management crowd. Okay. So you you had your bone to pick like 20 minutes ago. Okay. Th this this section is going to be my bone to pick because I just think most of this is nonsense. I’ll pile on with you, I think. Okay. For the most part. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a few observations here. first of all is this is a very subtle Plato back with a vengeance type situation which is like we have all these office workers we have all these worker bees they’re they’re at at their desk they’re doing they’re typing they’re doing things but like the output is completely unpredictable and a lot of people are underperforming uh what’s the problem oh they must not know the right things right and it I I find it so interesting that repeatedly throughout history that is our default. Like it it’s like if I just knew the right system, if I just knew how to organize my time, if I just knew how to use my calendar, if I just knew how to time box my week, you know, like it then everything is going to be fine. And I don’t know, it’s like what is so seductive about that? It’s simple. It’s simple. It’s you can point to one thing and say, “Oh, I just need to know how to organize better. I just need to know how to uh manage my time more effectively and and box this little bit of time over here for this little thing and and this little thing over here. It’s a simple story. It’s also I would say it’s unemotional. Yes. Like it’s very rational. Very very rational. It’s very rational. And you know, we just talked about, you know, with Freud and Skinner, like we just spent 45 minutes talking about how defense mechanisms and resistance and rationalization and like all these excuses that you come up with and how uncomfortable it is and it’s exhausting. It is exhausting. Like emotions are [ __ ] exhausting. But it it there is something alleviating. And there’s something relieving about uh just being like, well, I just need to get the right calendar system or or or if I if I get the right morning rout like these days, it’s the morning routine, right? Because everybody’s self-employed. So, it’s like, I just need the right morning routine and then and then my day is going to be great, I’m going to get so much done. I I think here here’s a spicy take. I think 90% of the time, this is just another subtle form of procrastination. 100% I agree with that. Yeah, it is. It is let me study the techniques and systems that are going to make me more more productive so I don’t actually have to go be more productive because being productive is actually uncomfortable and scary and all these emotions start happening and I don’t want to deal with those. So let me let me study this calendar system and try to get it down. Absolutely. And exhibit A, look at how many productivity apps are out there. Those are all come from the the time management kind of philosophy. They start there at least. And correct me if I’m wrong because you did more research on on this section than I did, but like most of the research around this stuff is like not there’s no not a whole lot of there. Oh yeah. No, they they tried to do some research I think kind of in the 70s is when they and they’re just like we’re not finding anything here. Yeah. I mean and just anecdotally too look at it. There’s people who are highly organized uh professionally, personally, whatever. They still procrastinate. So it isn’t it is not just about the system. And that’s speaking from somebody who’s tried every system there is out there. Maybe not everyone, but I’ve tried a lot of different systems. I have my little system. I do have a time management system, don’t get me wrong. Right. I think too if you go from somebody who’s never had a has just been told what to do at all times and then you just tell them, “Okay, now go do whatever you need to do without any structure.” Yeah. They probably need some time management skills, right? Absolutely. It is nowhere near the uh uh the underlying cause of what causes people to not get things done though. some of the tenants of time management, you know, setting clear priorities and goals. Well, sure. Okay. Yeah. Um people often they underestimated how long tasks would take. So getting better at managing your time. Sure. Yeah. Struggle. You struggle to structure your day. Um and so you end up working on less important tasks over more important tasks. So prioritizing, sure, all of these things obviously you need to have those skills, but it’s not getting at the root cause, right, at all. you know there but there are still going to your point too just recently actually I tried a new system a new um way of kind of capturing my to-do lists and organizing my time and even time boxing and stuff like that and it uh it was AI enabled so of course I was really excited to try it um when I tried it it was very disappointing because I’m like oh this is just the same the same [ __ ] I’ve already tried just repackaged and they put AI in front of the the name of it and so I got on a forum and I asked them about a couple of things. I’m like, “What about, you know, X, Y, and Z?” And somebody immediately jumped in and they’re like, they’re like, “Look, this community and the the the team uh for this app are just so dedicated and devoted.” And they had this long long response to my thing that had nothing to do with actually getting [ __ ] done. But that’s where that’s where this leads though, too. You’re right that people it’s it’s another form of procrastination. Like, I learned so much from this app. That was one of the lines he said. I’ve learned so much from I don’t want to learn about an app. I just want to get [ __ ] done. Right. Right. Right. So that I think that is the big risk with this these apps and other systems and people have wrote books on this. They’ve made a lot of money and we still haven’t found the time management solution because they’re they’re they’re feeding that seduction that that that Plato seduction of like if I just knew the right thing. I mean this kind of dovetales into just the self-help industry in general. I’m sure this is going to come up on a lot more episodes of like people thinking knowledge is the solution when it’s really like it’s an emotional problem. I’m kind of spoiling the the ending here, but like procrastination is an emotional problem. And sure, knowledge can like nudge you slightly in this direction or that. A a framework, a time management framework, you know, a certain system that you build for yourself can nudge you in this direction or that. your environment nudges you in this direction or that ultimately it’s an emotional problem. I I have a couple thoughts. One came up just while you were talking which is like yes you’re you are correct like I think every productive person develops some sort of system for themselves. What people mistake is that that system is not the cause of their productivity. It’s the effect. Uhhuh. Yes. Right. You like you learn what your personality is, what your proclivities are, what your emotional pitfalls are, the the things that you get anxious about and that you worry about and that you stress about and the way you like to get things done and the sorts of things you like to do first thing in the morning versus last thing in the afternoon. And you build your own system around that to optimize for yourself. And eventually once you spend enough time doing it, you know, you you get 10 15 years into your work life, uh, you figured out pretty well what works for yourself and what doesn’t. And that does make you very effective on a day-to-day basis. But then other people show up and they’re like, “Oh, what what system do you use?” And they just assume that like if you if they just adopt your system that it’s going to work perfectly for them. Yet, uh, you know, a lot of people have built multi-million dollar businesses around that. So that’s that’s the first thought. Um the second thought I thought what you said you know you while you were describing knowledge work you raised a really good point that I hadn’t really thought about before which is uh you know in the kind of the industrial economy or agrarian economy the measurement of the output is like predetermined right like if you’re a factory worker you go in your boss is like hey I need 50 of these widgets per day it’s very tangible yeah super tangible and it’s very measurable and you know what your progress is so it’s like you know if you break for launch and you only have 22 widgets done instead of 25, you know you’re behind schedule and so you know to like catch up in the afternoon. When you go into knowledge work, as you pointed out, a lot of it’s creative, a lot of it’s intangible. A lot of it is like involves negotiation. It involves like you know discussing committees and meetings and dealing with clients and you know taking uh somebody to the golf course and like all this stuff that is completely unmeasurable. What I know about human nature is that things that are not legible or measurable or or are uncertain, they they generate anxiety. And I imagine that there are lots of people in the knowledge work world, I know I I experience this all the time in my own work. I’m sure you do too, where it’s like you want to feel like you’re making progress on something. Yes. You know, you can like spend days or weeks on something, it is not necessarily clear to you that you’ve made any progress whatsoever. And so I’ve noticed it uh that on projects like that I start measuring my time. You know, it’s like books are a perfect example because books like literally take two years to write. So there are whole stretches in the middle of a book where you actually don’t know if you’re making any progress or not. Like you’re like this entire chapter could end up deleted, right? You know, like everything I’ve worked on this month might be for nothing. So that doesn’t feel good. So what do you start doing? you start measuring the hours you put in, you know, you start measuring like, okay, I did I’ve done 11 days in a row of at least three hours a day, right? So, it’s like I’m I’m doing a good job. I’m a good author, right? Are you like, yeah, well, it’s same thing with to-do list, too, right? Like I keep a to-do list and stuff. I love checking things off and sometimes I’ll keep the completed LA task list there so I can see it and it’s looks tangible and I’m making progress on something, but am I? I don’t know. or am I just checking boxes? Yeah. Like and it can get to that just that that box checking can become its own little task of your own a conditioning, right? Yeah. Yeah. There are, you know, a number of things like I mentioned a few of these that already came out of this era um or at least were inspired by this era that we still even use today. One of the kind of famous ones amongst the kind of productivity crowd anyway like the Eisenhower matrix, right? Dwight Eisenhower was president after World War II was this this time frame was very popular. So we had this quadrant, right? Uh on one side you had what was it? Importance and on the other side was urgency. So it could be highly important and highly urgent, low on each. Yeah. You get these four four quadrants. And he said the quadrant two which was important but not urgent are were the tasks that typically got procrastinated on. So his advice was to do those first. Not bad advice, don’t get me wrong, but it still hasn’t solved the problem of why is it not urgent? Why is it not important? Right. I was just going to say like that’s just the 1950s Eisenhower version of that that tweet I read at the the top of the show which is like you know you have to give up short-term freedom to gain long-term freedom like all of your dreams are behind sacrifices. It’s like well no [ __ ] Sherlock like this is I know this this is not helping me. Uh so I don’t want to dogpile on this stuff because like it is useful information. Absolutely. It’s just not sufficient whatsoever. Like it is not the solution, right? You shouldn’t start there. I think a lot of people where when they’re like, “Okay, I need to get a system together. I need to get something together where I can get stuff done.” They’ll start here. And I don’t think this is when start. This is when you’re optimizing what’s already working. Right. Right. Yeah. Find something that works first and then then go to this kind of stuff. Like I said, I’ve tried all the different systems, all the big ones. And um you made this point already, but I it does ring true for me too is that I took the the one good thing from doing all that is I took the things that worked from each one of those and made it my own in my own personal way. I just don’t think there’s any one system out there. No cuz every time again like this this one app I just tried to use recently. I’m like, “Oh, this is it. This is the one.” I found myself already like falling into that trap and it’s like, “Oh, no.” There there’s no single system out there that’s perfect for everybody. Yeah. And even even if you find a system that works for you today, like three years from now, it would be slightly different. Three weeks from now different. I can I can almost guarantee you that once you think you found the solution, it’s Yeah, there’s something hiding around the corner that you didn’t plan for. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay. But there are Okay, can we There there are some good things like we said there are some good things that did come out of this. So providing structure and clarity around what you need to do that is a useful step. Yes, obviously. Um I I think another thing that came out of look kind of the behaviorist um view but also the time management crowd was breaking things up into smaller chunks. Um and we’ll talk about maybe a little bit later why that’s um useful. It’s not it’s not because it just manages your time better. It’s because it gives you a better emotional uh container for it. Right. Yes. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I also think too one thing one benefit I got out of all these different time management systems is the ability to accurately assess how much work I can get done in a day. I I think that did actually come from trying and failing over and over and over because um for instance you know I time box or and I am by no means perfect at it and I change it constantly throughout the day even too. So, I’m not a rigid time boxer, but I’ve gotten a lot better about, okay, it used to be like I’d have 10 things on my to-do list and I try to time box them all and it’s like I’m on thing two by 3:00 in the afternoon and I’m like, okay, I got to be realistic about this. So, there is kind of even though you’re approaching it from the more cognitive quote unquote rational side of your brain, I think there’s some benefit in in the time boxing systems and methods that you can get out of that. They’re not again, it’s not the base underlying cause, but yeah. Yeah. I mean again I think a lot of this stuff is useful at the margins right like what you just described like gaining an accurate assessment of which part what parts of your job take what amounts of time like that’s something that is just it’s good to learn that over time like ultimately procrastination is an issue of going from doing nothing to doing something yes even if that something is completely imperfect whereas I feel like time management is just is taking somebody who’s already doing something and just helping them do do it slightly better or more efficiently or in a slightly shorter amount of time. And uh and so yeah, I it comes back to what you said earlier. It’s like this is not the place to start. This is this is not even the place to like go second or third. Like this is the place to go, you know, when you are when you’re you’re moving along and you’re doing a lot of things really well, but you’re just kind of wondering like how can I fit more stuff in or like how can I be more efficient with my time? Then you start taking a look at this stuff. Yeah, for sure. Do we want to risk going into some of the things we do? Do we do we want to um throw those out there? I I it might be a useful exercise for somebody with all of the caveats and the warnings we’ve already issued, but Sure. Yeah. Why Why don’t you go first because um I’m weird. Yeah. Yeah, we already know that. No, but it actually it might be it might be a useful segue as well just because um you know as as someone with ADHD like my productivity function is like strange, right? And so people who other people people who are listening who maybe have ADHD and because I know procrastination disproportionately people with ADHD struggle with it. So um it might be useful to get into that a little. Okay. Yeah. So why don’t you go first? No, sure. So, I mean, for me, I try to keep it as simple as I can. That that’s one gripe I have with so many of these apps, uh, is that they get complicated way too quickly. They usually start out fairly simple and then I think what happens is they kind of get a like a an audience capture a little bit. They’re like, “Give me this feature. Give me this feature.” And they just keep adding things. So, so my one of my principles is to keep it as simple as possible. Have something have a to-do list of some kind. Um, I use Notion. That’s what we use on the team. So, I put all my tasks into a a personal database that I have and there’s a way to organize it. But then, uh on a day on a daily basis when I’m trying to decide what to do, I do time box. Okay. For me, this works. Y because um again, I I the most useful exercise out of all of this isn’t like, okay, this is what I need to get done now. I’m going to go get it. It’s thinking about, okay, realistically, what can I get done in this amount of time? And after you time box for a while, again, like I was saying, you get you get better at this and you get better at estimating how much time any given task is going to take you. Um, just describe really quick what time boxing is in case people don’t know. Yeah, sure. So, time boxing is uh you you use some sort of system. In my case, I just use pencil and paper. I actually use Cal Newport’s um time boxing journal that he has. You could you could use any um journal to do this. I just I like his this way it’s formatted and everything like that. Essentially the way I do it is I will write down you know eight o’clock, nine o’clock, 10 o’clock down one side of side of the paper and then I make a box around any given say it’s a one or two hour time box from 8 to 10 o’clock let’s say every morning. Um and uh I put down whatever task I need to get done and I’m saying I’m allotting two hours to this task or whatever it is. Uh and so I give myself those two hours and I’m only going to work on that during those two hours. Now, life happens and this it it it’s not a perfect system. And so, like I already mentioned, I will revise this throughout the day. I’m like, “Okay, this task took longer or something came up that was urgent that I needed to address.” Why I like Cal’s uh notebook, too, is because there’s different columns for that. You can you can change it as you go. Essentially, though, what the the goal is is to plan out your day ahead of time so that you um have something to aim at and say, you know, I’m working on this. I’m am I doing what I said I was going to do? Yeah. It’s kind of like a an internal accountability system a little bit. Um and again it also just keeps you very realistic like you know you have an 8 to 10 hour workday every day. What can you honestly get done in that? And then um it also for me anyway too it does give me that okay I actually did get something done. This is what I I can look back at it and say I use this time block to uh to actually get done what I said I was going to get done. Okay. So, I use a combination of to-do list and and time boxing. Uh, I use a calendar, too. Obviously, we have uh a shared calendar with the team. I also have my own personal calendar. I look at that pretty much every day. What do I got going on? Any events? I got dinner with friends. I’ll put that in there. You that kind of thing to just kind of keep me these are the things that I know I have to get done today. That that’s what I put in the calendar. The to-do list is more just like these need to be done at some point. The time box is what am I doing right now? That’s kind of my system. Do you have any sort of like rules or principles? Do you do you like do the hardest thing first in the morning? Do you like do easy things in the morning? Like So I I try to I I am a big fan of Cal of Cal Newport. Um and uh I do try to get I get deep work in every day. What he calls deep work. If you don’t know, go read his book Deep Work. It’s fantastic. Um I try to get that done and for me it’s mornings. For most people it’s going to be mornings. Um, so usually I try to schedule about two hours of deep work in in the mornings where I’m getting like, okay, this is something that’s going to require a lot of my attention and focus. So I’m going to sit down and uh for two hours, usually from like 8 to 10, um, or something like that. I usually get up around 6:30 or 7, do you know, I’ll read, I’ll kind of get warmed up for the day, and then I start working around 8ish, okay? 7:30, 8ish. Try to give my two hours of deep work in. Um, and that is usually the hardest hardest thing that I have to do for the day. And honestly, if I get those done, that’s like a win for the day, too. You know what I mean? Like, if I get two solid hours of deep work, and I mean, there’s all sorts of other tasks that are important that I need to do that I will get done. But if I get those two hours in, I I feel pretty accomplished for those. Yeah. So, I again, that’s a realistic expectation. You can get about two to three to maybe four hours of real deep solid work in if you’re in a knowledge work industry. Yeah. Yeah. And for those listening who haven’t read the book like deep work it’s generally something that in requires intensive creativity or problem solving right so something that takes like a lot of mental energy and effort like you know writing an article or programming or you know whatever design something like that like generally we kind of max out at three to four hours a day right intense research you know stuff like that yeah that sounds very I think that’s it like I said though what yeah the other principle I have is just keep it as simple as possible because as soon as I add any sort of complexity to it and I just I don’t So no pomodoro, no like break times. No, I mean I I will schedule in with my time boxing. I’ll schedule in breaks or with sometimes what I’ll call flex. I’m just like I just I know I just need a bunch of stuff that I need to get done. I’ll put like a 30-minute box. It’s just called flex and I’ll do whatever I need to get done in that time. Yeah. But I don’t do No, I don’t get hardcore on the Pomodoro or the um Pomodoro never worked for me. I I I never quite got that one. Yeah. Yeah, man. Sometimes I wonder if somebody just made that up. I wonder that with a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. If it works for you, great. But yeah, sure. Try it. Whatever. What’s your ADHD uh rolin system look like? Mark, if you could call it that. So, okay. I I would divide it up into two kind of classes of work. So for deep work I would say it’s not very different which is I try to block off X a number of hours eliminate as many distractions as possible you know I used to use software that would block things like social media and you know sports websites and stuff like that I I I did that for a number of years and it was very helpful especially when I was writing a bunch of books. Um these days I don’t do it as much. I kind of I’ll let myself if I kind of feel the need to get distracted for a little bit mentally, I’ll I’ll let myself do that. The biggest difference um so this is where the ADHD comes in. This is and this is what’s going to sound crazy to people and also I think is a good case study of of like how productivity is just very personal and what works for you may be something that like does not work for any productivity guru out there. That should be the highlight of the section actually. as we’re going through all these details. Absolutely. That’s the highlight section. As somebody with ADHD, um my brain kind of has a disproportionate need for novelty. Actually, I wouldn’t say need, I would say a disproportionate susceptibility to novelty. Like it gets bored extremely easily and it gets excited by something shiny very quickly and very like very strongly. What I noticed, and I noticed this as far back as when I was in university, is that to a certain extent, and if it’s not deep work, task switching actually works in my favor. I wouldn’t call it multitasking because I don’t I never do two things at the same time. But I I’ll give a a simple example which is I had a university lecture that I used to go to and without fail I would fall asleep every single time and I would have to like end up asking my friend for her notes and I would like scramble and freak out and have to like go read the textbook you know two days before the the exam and it was a disaster. And then at some point, I don’t remember when or how, uh, I started picking up sudokus and crossword puzzles from the student union and I would take them to this lecture and I found that if I like sat there and did sudokus while the guy was lecturing, I not only did I stay awake the entire time, but I paid attention to the entire lecture, which makes no sense. I mean, I know that makes no sense. That makes no sense. I didn’t understand this for the longest time, and it it’s true to this day. So, like sometimes when I’m like listening to somebody give a talk or even if I like pull up a podcast or something like I can’t just sit and listen to a podcast. I have to like open up like a game on my phone and if I have the game going on my phone then I can pay attention to the podcast. I know. Yeah, you are weird man. But it’s you know what it is. So this is what I figured out. It took me a long time to figure this out but it’s so it’s not multitasking. I thought it was that for a long time. What it is is is it’s task switching or it’s like I guess cognitive switching. Let’s go back to the crossword in the the college lecture. So I’m in the I’m in the the classroom. I’m listening to the professor lecture. I pay attention. Let’s say I make it five, six minutes. My brain starts getting bored. And as an a person with ADHD, when I start to get bored, it’s like I’m really [ __ ] bored. And when I have the sudoku there, I’m like, cool, switch to the sudoku. And I start doing the sudo sudoku. And while I’m doing the sudoku, I’m like kind of passively listening and hearing him in the background. And then after a few minutes when he says something interesting, I’m like, “Ooh, that’s shiny and new. Hey, look, novelty. Go back to the lecture.” Okay. And so now I’m back in the lecture for another five or six minutes. And then when the lecture starts to get boring again, I can like use the sudoku to keep the novelty engine going in my brain so that I never just shut down and go to sleep. And I I bring all of this up because I do this every day. Yeah. In my actual day. I’ve watched you do this. Yes. And as you know, I’m I am strangely somehow extremely productive. So anything that is not deep work, I will very intentionally do this. like we took a break between shooting this. We were out uh in the office. We’re talking about this podcast. While we’re talking about it, I am looking at the design for podcast covers and fonts for the website and thinking about feedback that I’m going to give on all that. And I’m doing the exact same thing. So, it’s like, you know, while you and Jess are talking, as soon as that that conversation starts to get boring, I look at the designs and start thinking about the designs. And then as soon as I hear one of you say something interesting, I like stop looking at the designs and I go back to the conversation. And it keeps the novelty engine going in my brain. So, anybody listening to this with ADHD, the thing to know is that you you have this kind of constant disproportionate craving for novelty, for new stimulus. And if you don’t feed your brain that stimulus, uh you you shut down essentially like you just lose interest completely and in my case go to sleep. If you can find productive ways to feed yourself that stimulus if you can and in in my case it’s kind of task pairing things. So, uh, it’s like if I have to do something extremely boring like check like go through my inbox and clear it out, then I will just pair that with something else I need to do, right? Which is like, I don’t know, have a meeting about like a production meeting for the YouTube channel, right? And I’ll just kind of casually like flick through the emails while people are talking. And I’m not being rude. I’m like I am noticed when it happens. Yeah. I am paying attention, but it gets it helps me get everything done because it it’s like if I just tried to do the email and nothing but the email, it would never get done. I would get bored and I’d start watching YouTube after 10 emails. And if I just did the meeting and I tried to pay attention through the meeting, I would get bored and I would like zone out and probably start watching YouTube videos. So, it’s okay. by pairing them together. And this is so we have not talked about something yet which you and I I think it’s like the main thing on this episode that you and I disagree on. Okay. And it’s probably because of this is which is the active procrastination. There is something in the research called active procrastination. Big debate over it actually. Yes. Which I personally call my wife and I we we lovingly call it productive procrastination. Yes. That’s common. Yeah. Yeah, which is essentially this. It’s like let’s say you have a big hairy task that’s really intimidating and scary and so you’re you’re putting it off. Uh well, one way to get it done is to go find an even bigger hairier task that’s even more scary than that one and then procrastinate by doing the less scary task that you’ve been putting off, right? So it’s like simple example is you’ve been meaning to clean the garage for months and you know you just keep putting it off but then suddenly it’s uh you know you need to go buy a new car and that’s terrifying and you’re really anxious about it. So you put it off like so it’s Saturday and you’re supposed to go to the lot you’re supposed to go look at the cars and instead of doing that you decide you know what it’s time to clean the garage. Okay. And so you spend the entire Saturday cleaning the garage. Now, on the one hand, you just put off a really important task. On the other hand, you finally clean the damn garage, and as somebody with ADHD, I feel like my entire life is this. It’s just like finding like here’s the task I’m supposed to do. Here’s my level of intimidation with it. What is something I can find that is is more or less intimidating than this to either do instead or to force me to do this, right? And it’s just like this constant negotiation with my own brain. like you, I do have a to-do list. I don’t time box because, as you can imagine, yeah, that’s my life is chaos and the time boxes are completely useless. If you’re gonna be task switching, that’s useless. It’s and it’s not just that, but it’s also like given, you know, my role in the business, like my days are crazy. Like, it’s there’s so much unexpected stuff that happens throughout the day. So, yeah, time boxing just goes out the window. But I do do to-do lists and task lists and I I’m actually like quite religious about it because I think it’s the only thing that keeps me like tethered and like streamlined because otherwise I just forget stuff. But outside of that, I don’t do a whole lot else. The other thing uh that I do that is strange about me that’s different. You know, the conventional wisdom is always like knock out the most difficult task of the day first. It goes all the way back to Ben Franklin. There was a bestselling book in the 80s called Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy, which it was basically it’s one of those like books that should have been a blog post. Uh like the entire book is just like do the most important thing. Eat the frog first thing in the morning and then you like like you said you feel it feels like a win for the rest of the day. I can’t do that. Yeah. Like I got to You need some warmup or Yeah. My brain it feels like my brain needs warmup. So I I usually actually do the the the least important stuff first thing in the morning. I love mornings. It’s funny. My my morning routine is literally wake up, grab an energy drink, and sit down at my desk and start working like within 100 100 seconds of waking up. Oh, wow. So, it’s Wow. Really? Yeah. I don’t do anything. I don’t I don’t stretch. I don’t meditate. I don’t walk. I don’t I I literally wake up, walk to my desk, start working. Okay. But I need to start with like low impact work. So, it’s like usually first thing in the morning is email and then I catch up on Slack messages and then usually by then it’s been like 30 40 minutes. Um, and my brain’s like functioning and I can start kind of doing creative stuff. Um, and then I’ll I’ll and if anything is kind of intensive and creative and I need to like dedicate more in a couple hours to it, then I’ll like do the deep work thing where I’m like, “Okay, close all the windows, close all the tabs, put the phone on the other side of the room and like now we’re locked in. we’re writing a script or we’re writing an email or whatever, but that’s kind of it. Yeah. Okay, that’s it. Well, okay. What it sounds like is you have figured out a way to leverage your impulsivity. Yes. Uh which I think is is probably useful for people even if they don’t have ADHD if they’re just an impulsive person. And I consider myself to be impulsive at times, too. Um and I I’ve heard you talk about that before where um your your task switching, cognitive switching, whatever. And I I’ve I’ve experimented with it in recent weeks as well. And yes, every now and then like if I am getting bored with something, I’m like, “Okay, I need I just need a jolt of novelty.” And I don’t have ADHD. Yeah. Um so I think that could be useful um for for a lot of people. The important thing I think is going back like Yes. When I talk to ADHD people who who are dysfunctional, they do the task switching thing, but then they’ll just leave six things half completed and they never go back and complete it. And so, like, and this is where the to-do list come in that I’m like religious with my to-do list because it’s like I I Yeah, you have to go back. Okay. You have to go back. Well, so that’s what when you talk about the productive procrastination, I think that’s the point where I get um a little sticky with it because um it’s so easy for me like if my if my house is a disaster, I’ve been procrastinating, putting off, but I got some work task I need to do. I’m like, time to clean the house now and I’ll go do that and then two hours go by and I got a hell of a clean house, but I I’m nowhere close to working on what I want to work on. I think this is one you just have to be very very careful with. Yes. Yeah. If the task should probably be in the same domain ideally, I see can I’m usually like I’m gonna do something completely. Exactly. It’s like if if if I was supposed to prepare for this podcast and instead I like decide to go mow my lawn like that’s useless, right? Okay. Whereas if it’s like, you know, I should be preparing for the podcast, but maybe instead what I’ll do is I’ll like start doing research for the next podcast. Okay. Like that’s what I try to do because then it’s like, okay, at least that’s like adjacent to what I should be working on. Even emails at that point. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And the idea too that the whole the importance of coming back to the thing and finishing it. It’s like let’s say I start, you know, prepping for this podcast. I get bored halfway through, so I start doing another thing. What I do is I wait for the moment that the initial task starts to feel novel again. It’s like, oh yeah, I was prepping for the podcast this morning and now it’s six hours later and yeah, I should go finish that. That sounds kind of interesting. Actually, I was in like I was at a really interesting place with that. So it it’s like tricking your brain into finding old things to feel new again. Yeah, if that makes sense. That does make sense. No, I I found the same thing, too. We’ve been working on this particular episode for so long that I got procrastinating. I would get so bored. I’m just like, “Oh my god, I cannot with procrastination anymore. I’ve read these studies or whatever so many times or whatever.” And if I just put it away for a week or whatever and came back to it, I’m like, boom, there’s all this novelty to it again. It feels novel again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the big takeaway here though is not to get caught up on what we do because you and I have very different systems. We have except for the to-do list, I think we we have pretty different systems and I try not to work on too many things at once where where you leverage that in your favor. I need to work on a lot of things at once. Yeah. The the key takeaway here is just you can try these things out. Figure out what works for you. Pick, choose, borrow. That’s great. Yeah. But this is not going to solve your procrastination problem. This is only after you’re self-aware enough, right? of of why you procrastinate in the first place that these things actually will work. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s move on to another mid-century school thought. This one that went completely under the radar in the productivity space and is actually one of the most effective things when it comes to dealing with procrastination and productivity and that is purpose. This doesn’t get talked about. In fact, we almost missed this. Yeah. This was a late addition to our our guide and our outline. Mhm. I was I was kind I was embarrassed actually when you brought you’re like why aren’t we talking about purpose? I’m like oh god like it was a huge face palm for me. Yeah. This is the fascinating thing is like so much has been written on time management. There’s not a single person in the corporate world that is like you know walking around cubicles like reminding people of their purpose. Yet when you look at the research this is like one of the most important things. Yes. is that people feel a sense of meaning and purpose in the work that they’re doing, right? Like if if you feel like your work is meaningful, you’re much less likely to delay doing it, right? Because it aligns with your values. It feels important. It feels useful. So, this actually comes out, I’m not going to harp on it for too long, but like it comes out of the mid-century existentialist movement, right? Which is just wonderful and and bleak and French. and that they they basically said like, you know, they they start with nihilism, which is like nothing means anything. Off to a great start. We’re all just a bunch of dirt and atoms and uh and we’re all going to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. But from there, they make a very important leap, which is that, you know, meaning and purpose is not pre-ordained. So, Jean Pulsard had this great saying where he said, “Existance precedes essence, which is actually taking Plato and flipping it on his head.” Because Plato said productivity is a a form a concept that we try to live up to and whether we are exist or not productivity always is always there and it’s it’s just a question of whether you embody it or not starts like no dude [ __ ] that like you get to decide what productivity is. You get to decide if it’s even worth pursuing at all. You get to decide if it’s meaningful. Existence precedes essence. That basically meaning is constructed after the fact. that essentially like we are all writing our own stories and we are all deciding what is useful and meaningful and what is not. And it’s a simple idea. It it’s incredibly profound. I think it’s it’s most popularized uh from the experiences of V Victor Frankle in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. He wrote about his experiences surviving the Holocaust and he talks about how, you know, it’s a sense of hope and purpose for the future that not only drove him to survival, but like he noticed among the other prisoners was kind of the deciding factor of their fates as well. And so you get kind of this this whole philosophical movement through the 60s and 70s of just really thinking and paying attention to the meaning that’s being ascribed to certain behaviors or functions or uh or groups or relationships. And strangely, it’s funny because existentialism, I mean, it was everywhere. It was in culture, it was in art, it was in film, it was in politics. um it never made its way into the business world, which is funny because when you look at the research on productivity and procrastination as an extension, people who feel a sense of meaning and purpose in their work, they’re more productive, they’re more resilient to setbacks, they’re more willing to take risks, they’re more willing to hear feedback, and they they procrastinate less. And so it’s just like it’s so stupidly simple, but it is worth considering. Why am I doing this, right? Like why do I care? Well, do you think it didn’t make its way into say corporate culture? Because it’s almost it’s almost anothetical to a lot of corporate culture because it’s it’s kind of hard. I think most people would kind of see what’s going on there. If you brought a consultant then in to say, “Okay, we’re here today and from 8 to noon we’re going to talk about your purpose here in this corporate setting and people would be like, wait a second, what?” Oh, well, okay, let me back up. Or is that too cynical? I guess. Yeah, that is pretty cynical. Yeah. I would also say that it did make its way into the corporate world. It just took about 50 years. I would say with our generation. Ah, okay. Yeah. within I would say really just in the last 20 25 years like really the millennials and Gen Z like if if and I remember seeing uh survey data around this years ago of like one of the big things about the millennial generation is like they like millennials really gave a [ __ ] grave purpose what they did for a living like they needed to feel like their job was contributing value to the world in some way and they weren’t they weren’t satisfied just you know getting a paycheck and that’s a relatively new thing throughout history like it’s a I would say it’s actually a very privileged thing uh in history but it’s also uh I mean it is purpose is is productive right like it’s and if you look at all of the businesses and companies over the last 20 years like they really push some sort of social value or uh cause or mission behind whatever they’re doing you know everything from like like the Nike commercial focus like focusing on female athletes or um Apple being the first to pioneer like recycling electronics and like there’s just so many examples from the last 20 years of of large corporations who have like adopted specific missions, certain meanings, aligning themselves with certain political causes and it’s like very much like it’s not an accident. It’s more profitable, right? Like it’s it’s like we want to we want our employees to feel like they’re doing something important and worthwhile. Um, and because when you feel like you’re doing something important and worthwhile, you work harder. Yeah. And you [ __ ] around less and you’re willing to to make mistakes and and embarrass yourself because it’s for some higher cause. You know who’s the master of this? [ __ ] Elon Musk. Oh, like think about it, dude. Like if you’re an engineer interested in space, what feels more important than taking humanity to Mars? Right. Right. Like if you’re an aeronautical engineer and you hear that like you’re 25 and you hear that you’re like whatever dude I’m all in. Like tell me what to do. I will grind all day all night. I will work my ass off. You know Tesla, you know, climate change and bringing bringing the renewable economy, you know, into America. It is it really is a superpower, right? And it is a real I think it’s an overlooked talent of Elon’s of like finding these kind of almost like civil civilizationally important causes to align his companies with. uh you’re seeing it now with with the AI stuff like he’s he is pushing this narrative of like we need an AI that’s aligned with with uh valuing human life or else like we could all go extinct. Um it is absolutely existential. It is existentialism you know just in corporate form. So it is um okay it is a super overlooked thing and it and I understand why it it it feels handwavy and clich’s like there are a lot of cliches around it but it is a thing and I think to bring it back home to people listening to this who are struggling just to like you know eat healthy or apply for that job that they want or whatever like really ask yourself why do you want it? I’d say what I noticed the most often is that people who are primarily motivated to do things not because they actually care about the thing but because they care about the attention or the result the thing will get them. Those are the people who who lose motivation very quickly, right? Like if you’re doing something for the approval of others, that is not a sticky motivation. Like that is a very short-term motivation. Uh so you’re not going to stick through all the challenges and setbacks and failures and you know false starts. Whereas if you actually really believe in in a higher like like a higher meaning or purpose around something um then you will have that patience, you will have that resilience and you will stick with it even if you you don’t get it right the first or second time. What do you think too though about you’re you’re talking about purpose kind of in a grander sense and a um you have this higher grand purpose that aiming for whether it is somebody like Elon Musk and they’re um his grand designs that he has on humanity I guess is that over complicating it so too though for some people because we can’t all have those jobs right so what I’m thinking of is I think a lot more jobs and work in general had just an inherent purpose tied to them and it was usually taking care of your family. Yes. Like so a miserable job, you could be shoveling [ __ ] Yeah. And you could say, “Ah, this is a meaningless job. I’m shoveling shit.” Or you could say, “This job allows me to put food on the table for my family.” Or, you know, whatever it is. Another example, I had a friend um who wanted to start his own business. He was he had a you know pretty decent corporate job that he had and didn’t really like it though and there was no purpose behind it but he wanted to start this business and as soon as he decided I’m going to start this business the job that his corporate job actually took on a new meaning because he needed the money from that corporate job and he needed the connections and he needed so he started to like his job more because there was a new purpose around it that’s awesome which is insane and it wasn’t some high pie in the sky purpose that he had it was more just like I mean it is treating it as a means to an end, but there was a a bigger purpose behind that means to an end, if that makes sense. So, um I think there’s just a way to, you know, not we don’t all have to be uh engineers for uh SpaceX or NASA or whatever to find that purpose and to motivate us and to not procrastinate on these things. Yeah, there you you don’t need these civilizational cataclysmic existential reasons. Um it’s interesting. You know, I was talking to a guy recently, you know, uh we did a a podcast, an old podcast episode last year on my my health journey. And I in that episode, I talked about how it was really important for me to find a way to make exercise fun. Like that was one of my big challenges is just that I just I hated doing it. And so I I really had to find like gamification or groups or, you know, competitions or whatever just like keep it interesting for myself. He’s like, “It’s funny. I’ve worked out religiously for 20 years and I’ve I’ve always hated it. Never enjoyed it. And I was like, “Wow, that’s actually Wow. sad.” Yeah. Well, I was like I was like, first of all, sorry. I’m sorry. Feel feel a little bad for you. But uh I was like, “Wow, that’s actually that that’s atypical.” Generally, when you meet somebody who’s like exercised religiously for forever, it’s it’s because they they enjoy it in some way or they found a thing that they enjoyed. And so I asked him, I was like, “Well, what drives you? Like why do you keep doing it?” And he said, “Oh, well, you know, everybody everybody in my family dies super early.” And as soon as my kids were born, I was absolutely determined that I was not going to die early. I was gonna I was going to live to an old age and I was going to see them grow up and I was going to see my grandkids. And I was like, “There you go. There you go.” Yeah. Yeah. It’s like it doesn’t need to be. He didn’t actually hate it probably on some level, right? Exactly. On a deeper level, he didn’t. Right. And I I think that’s that is the power of of finding some sort of purpose in in something is that it it makes like the suffering in anything is going to be inevitable. You know, we’ve talked a lot in this episode about the pleasure principle and avoiding pain to me. It’s like purpose is the one if there is a hack it’s the one hack there is because it’s purpose is the only thing that can take pain and make it feel worthwhile. Right. Yeah. Right. And it like it can make you feel like okay that sucked but I’m glad I did it. Going back to the Gogggins thing too I think that’s that’s I think that’s actually what’s going on with him is there there’s just a higher purpose to his pain. Right. Totally. What what do you think too about though um if you if you do start out kind of at a a not very good reason or not very good purpose for something? I I’ll give you an example like um I’ve always been fairly healthy but you know um like you over the last few years I’ve focused more on my health and I started out was I just I just want to look good. That’s I was a vanity purely. It’s it’s switched to a bigger purpose though. Um, I was just telling you a little while ago about a great uncle that I had who in his 80s was able to like spread his legs and bend down and get put his head on the floor like he could stretch insanely and who’s skiing and in his 80s and all of that. And I’m like, well, I want to be able to do that. I I and I want to be able to live a healthy life when I’m older now. It’s very much switched to that, but it started out as a a very vain purpose. Yeah. Um, I some jobs can start out that way, too. This is a just a means to an end. I pay my rent and then it turns into something uh bigger later on too. Are there examples of that that you could think of in your own life or what’s going on when that happens? I don’t know. I mean, this career started out that way. Oh, yeah. Like I I I was I read Tim Ferrris’s 4-hour work week and I was like, I just want to make some money on the internet so I can go party in Argentina. Like that’s that was that was like literally the my entire bar 2000s, man. They were awesome. I can just clear that bar. I’m good. And so I just started I just started a bunch of websites. Like I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t care about it. And you know eventually as you know one of those websites was a dating advice website. And that started to take off and do pretty well. And and then people started asking me for advice. This was 2007208. And I was like well [ __ ] if people are going to ask me for advice I should probably like know what I’m talking about. So I started researching all this stuff. I start, you know, buying a bunch of books and downloading psychology papers and reading journals and and pretty soon, next thing I know, I’m like, this is I could do this forever. Yeah. Like, this is it. I’m I’m so in on this. And I I just feel like that that actually is probably the more common story. I I think this is people’s biggest mistake with this, too. And and and I am 100% sure we will do an episode on purpose at some point. Uh but it it people mistakenly assume that you find the purpose and then you become super motivated to do all the stuff where it’s like no you do the stuff and as you do it you find the things that feel very meaningful and impactful and then that’s where the purpose is and you know so again I guess this might be a little bit like the time management thing where it’s like if you’re trying to go from zero to one then purpose is probably less of a factor unless there’s I don’t know there’s like some major external force like a a a kid’s born or something like that. Generally speaking though, it’s like you need to have actually be doing something and then you look for the purpose in the things that you’re doing and and like because that’s the thing that’s going to sustain you over the long run. Like the the purpose the thing that the purpose solves is going from short term to long term. Yeah. It it won’t get you from zero to short term. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. and and checks out um where I I have found purpose in all sorts of places I never thought I would have. So 100% that that checks out. Yeah. Yeah. So just really quick before we get into the takeaways, I just want to remind listeners that we do have the free downloadable guide that goes along with this episode. Most podcasts put their show notes on the website. Our show notes are so freaking long and thorough, we actually had to turn them into a PDF. The show notes for this episode is over 65 pages long. So if you want to see those show notes, including full summary of the episode, all the takeaways, all the research, book recommendations, all the above, go to solvepodcast.com/procrastination to get it. Also, if you want some help implementing the advice from this episode into your life, you should check out the Momentum Community. We are launching a 30-day procrastination challenge based on this episode where we take all of the best ideas and concepts that we’re discussing here and turn them into daily actions that you can implement into your life. So, if you’re wondering how to apply everything that you’ve been learning, then the Momentum Community is the best way to do that. You can go to findmomentum.com/procrastination. Link is in the description below. All right, let’s uh let’s get back to to the theory and the research. So, like we’re at this point, we’re pushing into the 80s and 90s. Everybody realizes the time management stuff doesn’t really work. Where are we at here? What what’s next? Well, a group of researchers were very uh observant that the time management was not working. And so they set out to figure out, okay, what is it about procrastination, motivation in general, that gets people to actually do what they want to do, say what they want to do. One uh researcher in particular, his name was Pier Steel, who you’ve already brought up, um and he gave us the definition, our our modern definition of uh procrastination. He also formulated what’s called um the temporal motivation theory, okay? Or TMT for short. I might refer to it as TMT every now and then. Temporal motivation theory. Um essentially what he did, he tried to marry a few different areas um around things like motivation. Um there was this idea about uh temporal discounting and uh hyperbolic discounting that he kind of developed too throughout this that he borrowed from other which we’ve talked about and just for for listeners temporal discounting is we tend to devalue things far in the future. Right. So if there’s a consequence 20 years from now we tend to not really care. Right. Right. that will factor in really big into temporal motivation theory as we go through this. But his the big innovation um through his theory was this equation that he came up with. Okay. And I’ll go through it real quick. Won’t bore you with the details and you know there’s no um obviously you’re not going to be able to have to plug in numbers for this or anything like that. But a I know I brought my calculator and everything. He came up with this this um equation which is motivation equals expectancy times value divided by 1 plus impulsiveness times delay. Okay, that’s all right. So if you’re not mathematically inclined, no big deal. The important thing to take away is there’s kind of four big factors that go into this equation on whether or not you are going to procrastinate or not. If you’re motivated enough to not procrastinate, right? Yeah. Uh so expectancy we have this um uh this first variable which is the perceived likelihood that you think you can actually achieve what you’re trying to achieve. Goes back to the self-efficacy thing. We already talked about that. So the he’s already bringing in stuff that we know if you expect you’re you’re going to be successful, you’re more likely to be successful. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s uh that’s one of the first factors that uh up in the numerator of the equation, right? Then you have the the value. uh it’s your perceived how how rewarding the uh perceived outcome is to you and there’s a subjective component to that. Um but essentially if it’s something that you actually value highly you’re going to be more motivated, right? Makes total sense. Yep. Okay. Multiply that by your expectancy. If you think you can achieve it and it’s highly valuable to you, then you’re going to have this synergistic effect where motivation goes up, you’re going to not procrastinate on it. But then we have some things that um might detract from your uh uh motivation as well. Impulsiveness. Okay, so here we’re kind of getting at some of the emotional side of things, right? And we’ve talked already about our own em impulsiveness and how that’s factored into our procrastination. So impulsiveness is how prone you are to seek out and succumb to distractions um or immediate gratification too, right? So uh your ability to postpone gratification or delay gratification. Uh and then that last one is delay. how far away is the outcome of whatever is associated with the task that you’re about to perform. Right. Right. So, the further a task is or the further the um the reward is the reward or the result of of the behavior that you’re going to engage in, the less motivation you have. And that’s the temporal discounting that you talked about. That was one of the big uh innovations of temporal motivation theory was including that in our our calculus, right? literally uh the equation to procrastination. Now, I’m going to guess just from my experience with other psychologists who have tried to create equations is that this equation is just not going to work in every situation. So, that’s fine. What I like about what I really like about TMT is that it finally breaks down and acknowledges a lot of these emotional factors. The expectancy, we’ve already talked about that, not just in terms of the self-efficacy, but also the perfectionism, right? Like if your expectation is that you know that it needs to be perfect to be accomplished then that is going to be far more intimidating than if you your expectation is that like oh I just need to do you know a decent job at it. Um I like the temporal discounting and then I I like the it’s amazing that we’ve gotten this far and not talked about distraction yet especially given this day and age. Like I mean younger listeners will probably will have trouble believing this but like procrastination and distraction were not two things that you people really related to each other until like maybe 15 20 years ago. Like when we were kids it was never like the issue with doing our homework was never because like we couldn’t get off our phones. It was just we just didn’t want to do our homework. Maybe TV, but even that was Yeah. Yeah. Like it’s dad was probably watching TV anyway. So you choose what you used to watch. like my memory of childhood is is long periods of boredom and uh but I still didn’t do my homework. So it’s it’s this idea that procrastination is is directly proportional to distraction is a relatively new concept and I I know we’re going to get into distraction deeply at some point here soon. Um but it’s interesting to me that it’s really only coming up now. Yeah. Well, look at it in the historical context again like you just said the uh Pier Steel was doing a most of his the bulk of his research was in the 90s and 2000s and he’s continued since then. But um that is when information technology really started to take off and get like embedded into the culture uh to where we see it today. And so the impulsiveness part of that uh you’re right it captures that distraction element. Yeah. um that it the it’s a simple equation but it is pretty flexible still at the same time because that impulsiveness one of the benefits and the strength of the equation is that it can these these terms can capture a lot but those terms can also become imprecise then too we we can get into that in a little bit but so like just some examples of this like your expectancy it it could be really high like you like yes I can do this but your impulsiveness uh might override that and your the deadline might be a long ways away so you can start to see all these different really complicated kind of calculations that happens with just these four variables. Um, which is really um pretty interesting and again it was a an innovation at that time that to marry all these different things and start putting these things together in a way that’s more interactive because we when we started out we were talking about the ancient world there’s this one school of thought that thought this thing and then there then the psychologist come along and they’re like no it’s this thing. This is finally we’re starting to get a more integrated approach at this point and I think that’s uh what another big innovation of TMT was that it started looking at it in a kind of multidisciplinary way that we just hadn’t seen up until till this point. Yeah. Yeah. If we may take a quick detour. Okay. I think the assumption up until this point is that to be productive or to defeat procrastination, it it is about summoning willpower. It’s about just mustering up enough energy or motivation to just brute force your way through it. And I definitely like especially in the the the ancient times and and throughout you know in my second book I called it the classical assumption like if you look at all of the discussions around aasia and like why people don’t do the things that they should do and why people fail at things like it is very much seen as like it is the job of the higher level of your mind the the ch the chariot driver to whip the horses into shape until they do the right thing. And so you you’re just expected to like brute force your way through it. I think it’s really only in the last few decades that our understanding of psychology has gotten developed enough that we’ve realized that it’s like a that doesn’t really work in the long term. Like you can brute force yourself into I mean everybody’s had this experience. You can brute force your way into the gym once, maybe twice, maybe even a couple weeks, but like by week three or four you’re done. You’re just tapped out. You don’t care anymore. So you really do have to negotiate these other factors like you have you really have to look at like what is how are you measuring yourself like when are the benefits coming how do you feel about it how do you feel about your ability to accomplish the thing what sort of standards or expectations are you holding yourself to are those reasonable or not like it’s kind of negotiating these other factors within your mind that help you you know when you combine that with the environmental stuff like that That’s you almost just like grease the skids for the behavior to happen naturally as a byproduct of all these things. Yeah. And I think maybe what you’re kind of getting at too is that you’re not denying uh that part of you that part of your nature too. You’re working with it. Yes. More so this these more recent theories start to really acknowledge that and incorporate that incorporate that into their their frameworks. Yeah. And I think you know Yeah. For the longest time, it was very much like the reasoning, the writer, you know, on the chariot, the reasoning part of your brain developed so you can overcome all of these terrible, nasty, brutish things about you. And well, yes, it can be used for that, but it’s also those things probably evolved in our minds as well in order to serve those those two chariot chariot driving horses, right? Like there’s there’s a an acceptance of uh who we are in a lot of these. It’s like, okay, look, there is you’re there’s impulsivity. We’re impulsive by our nature. How does that factor into getting things done and our procrastination? We, you know, there’s we have this weird kind of um temporal discounting where we we put off things that are further that are due further in advance for for whatever reason. Yeah. This starts to incorporate that and like really acknowledge human nature on a a more realistic level. my view it’s a much healthier view of how to actually get yourself to take the action that you want to take you know because it is coming back to the shame piece I was just going to say shame is gone shame is out of the equation right you’re not judging yourself you’re not like oh god why why am I like not why am I discounting things that happen in the future you know like right you don’t yeah it’s it’s like you’re human this is we all do this and and coming back to Aristotle this is the skill right the skill you could you could almost look at each of these four factors and and see the skill in each one of them, right? It’s like managing your expectancy, managing like like being mindful of the value that you’re going to get out of something. And and there are ways I I’d love to talk to you like there are ways of manipulating that value as well. Like you can gify things. You can create social accountability around things. You can reward yourself for things. You can create things in your environment that make it more enjoyable, right? So it’s like learning to manipulate the value aspect of the equation, learning to implement I think the purpose stuff that we talked about really factors into the time discounting, right? Like it’s it’s like when you remember what is the cause or mission that is driving my motivation to do this thing that helps you counterbalance that time discounting. It’s like it’s like I’m doing this for my kids. I’m doing this so that when I’m a grandfather I can play with my grandchildren. That’s why I’m going to the gym today. Right? It’s like that counterbalances that time discounting that naturally happens in everybody’s brain. So, it’s we’re finally starting to see everything come together. Right. Right. Yeah. And you can you can look at each one of these like the expectancy thing. Um you can work on things around self-efficacy. Um or break the task down to a point where it is you do feel like you have some agency and some uh ability to where where did that start? uh like the the the breaking down tasks. Yeah. Actually that a lot of that kind of came from time management too. So there was there was glimmers within that where it’s like oh um you don’t know how to one of their one of the big kind of uh I don’t know not a revelation or even an innovation but they were like oh yeah people need to be able to see a big task and break it down into the component parts. Um, and it it’s just a lot more explicit in something like TMT. Okay. Where Yeah. they they found that breaking that down into You’ve talked about this so many times. This this is my go-to advice. Yeah. This is this is one of the first pieces of advice you always say. If you got this huge daunting task, you know, start with the most dead simple obvious thing that you can do and that gets your momentum going and then on to the next one and on to the next one. That’s the other thing about the equation. It’s very dynamic. If you really apply it, you will see that these factors can change over time a lot. It’s most most obvious in the delay thing as the time approaches, the motivation goes up, but the others can do the same thing too. You might value uh a task or the the benefits of a task differently throughout the stages of uh the process of doing it as well. So yeah, it is the breaking down thing. I I feel like it works on so many levels. You know, part of it is just the intimidation factor. You know, when you have this huge hairy goal, it it is scary and it feels impossible and it feels you don’t get that sense of progress and movement, you know, in just a single day or a single week of action. But if you can break it down into that single day of action, then you get to feel the sense of accomplishment. It feels less intimidating. And then, like you said, you do get that sense of momentum, right? Like there’s like a old thing from that Jerry Seinfeld said that you know when he writes he exes out a day on his calendar. Yeah. And he said that you know the initially the goal is to just X out a few days in a row but he said once he’s got a few days in a row his only goal is to don’t stop the stream. Yeah. Don’t break the chain. Keep it going as long as possible. And you can again that’s like a beautiful example of like manipulating these factors within your own head and redefining what the metric is and re like breaking down tasks into constituent tasks or like lumping tasks together into some larger task in a way that feels more doable, feels more exciting, feels more fun and feels less intimidating for yourself. Yeah. So that’s the expectancy component of the the equation. I think for the value one like you already mentioned too is like having some well you you said it with with respect to delay but I think value can also be manipulated through your purpose as well like if you do have a purpose again it goes back to if I have a job I don’t really necessarily like yeah I’m probably going to procrastinate it this and that but if I have a purpose attached to that job that same job now the value could shoot up at that point too. So again, it’s just these little mind trait. It’s just it’s all within your head too, which is is crazy. You know, there’s some external factors as well, obviously, the the delay and all of the impulsiveness, distractions in your environment. But again, yeah, we’re putting it all together at this point. Yeah. And it is it is a skill. It is something you you work on and develop. And I mean we’ll we’ll talk at the end of the episode about how to work on and develop it, but it it is it’s not something you know cuz again it’s like purpose is subjective, value is subjective, um expectation is subjective. These are all things that you get to decide. You get to decide like what success looks like. You get to decide what is meaningful, what is valuable, what what is worth pursuing. Um how long you pursue it, you know, do you want to pursue it for a week, a month, a year, 10 years. Um, these are all decided within your head and the skill is learning to draw the lines in such a way that makes it easy to move forward, right? That it that it stops being intimidating or feeling difficult. I was uh I listened to a podcast that uh Pier Steel was on in preparation for this too and he made a good point and you actually alluded to this earlier uh was that to um TMT a lot of it is about being very realistic too and he said the people he’s noticed that do the best with procrastination are very very honest with themselves and I think it applies to each one of these variables but he you know he gave the example that we’ve already given too of you know he doesn’t buy junk food. Yeah. And it’s because he knows what happens when he has junk food in the house. And I’ I’ve been very like with my friends, they all know like I’m a sugar fiend. I’m a junk food fiend and that’s why I don’t buy it, you know. Um and but I think that you um that’s part of like reducing distractions part maybe or it is uh even increasing e expectancy like I know I cannot eat junk food if it’s not around me. Yes. Boom. That’s like a immediate unlock for me. Immediate win for me. So, it is just getting into the kind of minutia and and dialing these things around to fit your personality and be real honest with yourself about it. Yeah. Yeah. How do you how do you feel like this maps with uh Neyel’s indistractible stuff? Because I, you know, one of the things I quibble with Neon sometimes I sometimes I feel like, you know, it is a two-sided coin. One is just don’t have temptation in your environment. Yeah. like be aware of your triggers and get rid of them. But then some of it too is like being aware of your own internal triggers like being aware of when you get bored or antsy or anxious and not choosing the the avoidance in the moment. Sometimes I feel like he leans too much on the ladder, but like I’m wondering I’m wondering if like if if his framework kind of fits into the the TMT stuff like so specifically around environmental design or um more about the emotional trigger stuff. Uh the emotional trigger stuff. Yeah. Well, so I think that’s actually kind of one I would say fair criticism about T TMT is that it kind of is a little it it’s not specific enough around the emotional triggers necessarily. Yes, there’s impulsivity in there. Um, and there’s some subjective uh constructs like value and expectancy and all that, but the emotional side, I don’t think it’s quite it kind of tries to boil down these very complex emotional processes that we go through into four variables. And that that’s one of the um the criticisms of it that I think is fair. Yeah. Um it feels like it should be like six or seven variables at least. Yeah. While while the variables are pretty well clearly defined, like actually measuring them and defining them in the in the real world is much harder. Yeah. Um, so I think that’s a fair criticism of it. Um, and we we’ll get to more of the emotional side of things, but yeah, it oversimplifies some of the the the complexity of human behavior, I think, to some extent, which all equations will, of course, you know. Well, and it’s this is this is the problem with this field is like anytime I see an equation in psychology, I’m like, yeah, you know, it is probably directionally correct. Yeah. But it probably does not measure a single thing. It doesn’t it can’t capture everything. Yeah. And really what they found in the experimental studies is uh TMT does a very good job of predicting procrastination in the short run, but it’s not super great about like chronic procrastination, let’s say, or just like repeated procrastination in the same domain. Yeah. Um you I’m sure you’ve experienced this before, too. Sometimes you’re like highly motivated and you still procrastinate like I like a s surge of motivation. I’m going to get this done and you still find a way to procrastinate. Um and so that’s the one thing the output for this if you notice in the the equation is motivation. It’s motivation equals the expectancy times value yada yada. There’s can still be times where you feel highly motivated and still perform. You just still don’t do it and it just doesn’t it this doesn’t fully capture that. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s one of the criticisms for sure. I and there just isn’t really a lot of focus on the emotional and affective triggers. Yeah, because I’m just thinking about the impulsivity piece. Like everything else makes sense to me, right? The expectancy, the value, um delay. Yeah, the delay. I feel like the impulsivity you could actually break out into probably three or four of its own variables, right? Like there’s how many distractions are in your environment? Like how easy is avoidant? Like this is the near iel thing which is like he it’s it’s your level of distraction is proportional to both how many opportunities for distraction is there in your environment and how prone are you to distraction through your own internal emotional triggers, right? Like you want to work on both sides of that coin, right? You want to reduce your internal emotional triggers and you also want to reduce your external environmental triggers so that you’re you’re kind of like hitting it from both sides. Um, so that feels like it’s missing. And then also, I know we’re gonna get to emotional regulation in a second, but it it’s a huge piece like if you are not good at managing your emotions, right? Like if you are the type of person who when you get angry, you just [ __ ] lose your [ __ ] for an entire day and become extremely impulsive. Or when you get anxious, you just like panic and like run to, you know, whatever the the nearest bucket of chocolate is. like it is the the intensity of your emotions plays a huge factor in this and the ability to regulate your emotions to come down from them to uh to cope with them effectively um is a huge part of this as well. Yeah. And this doesn’t even get into the physical side. Like it’s like if you haven’t slept, right? Like if you haven’t if if uh you know if you’ve got an injury or if you’re sick um I mean like there there it’s well documented and everybody’s experienced it that it’s like if you are physically not in good shape um your willpower is just basically gone entirely. Yeah. cultural norms too. Those aren’t captured in this uh either, you know. So, it’s really hard to that impulsivity one, I agree, is kind of like it’s a catch-all. Yeah. Uh category for any sort of emotional influence that would go into procrastination or whether you or motivation. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s limited in that regard. I definitely think so. Yeah. I it is kind of I I really want human behavior to be boiled down to like an equation. That would be awesome. Wouldn’t it be nice? Yeah. Yeah. And I’m sure there are there like this equation, it does capture a lot of uh procrastination or motivation in certain situations, but it’s not it’s still not complete. And I, you know, whether we ever get to a fully complete view of it or not, I don’t know. But this is definitely a step in the right direction. So, I don’t want to knock it by any means. So, where are we at now? What what is u what’s our current best understanding of procrastination and why it happens? Well, Mark, I hate to tell you, but it comes down to emotions. I know. I know. We have to get squishy with this. Why? See, you just need to be hugged more. That’s why you’re not That’s why you’re not doing your term paper. You haven’t had enough hugs. Well, that could be part of it. Yes. In the early 2010s, late 2000s, early 2010s, uh there was one researcher in particular, uh Tim Pitchell, who started to notice that actually this isn’t just a a problem that boils down to these four factors. It’s a much deeper emotional mood regulation problem. And in 2013, he wrote a book about it and um it’s very accessible and great book if you want to check it out. And then his uh one of his proteges was Fuchsia Sewa who we interviewed um for the show too and she has kind of carried the torch since then. Tim’s uh um he’s retired now. Fuchsia is now living in England and she’s carried on. She’s kind of the world’s foremost researcher on procrastination. And there uh the core premise of the emotional regulation theory of procrastination is that it is first and foremost procrastination is a mood regulation strategy that we use and an emotional regulation strategy that we use to avoid these nasty negative feelings that we associate with any given task. That a lot of what we’ve already talked about. But they say that is the point that right there is where procrastination starts and where we need to focus um our our resources and our ability and our higher cognitive powers and everything we’ve been talking about. This is actually where we really need to focus on. Um the the research findings point to the negative affect triggers that we have around we’re more likely to delay tasks that we just find unpleasant. Makes sense, right? There’s task aversion as well. anything we perceive as unpleasant or overly challenging, it gives us this kind of urge to procrastinate almost. Um, we also prioritize mood repair, right? So, procrastination typically serves to like kind of quickly improve our current mood that we have. We’re like, “Oo, this feels bad. I just want out of this. I want escape.” Basically, um, research backs all of that up. There’s a lot of individual traits, too. Um, we’ve kind of we’ve kind of mentioned that you’re uh if you’re more impulsive or not, that’s like one individual trait that might um influence the way you procrastinate or whether you procrastinate on anything. Um, and uh there as opposed to something like conscientiousness, which we haven’t really talked about, but that’s an individual trait, a personality trait that can influence all of this. There’s varied personal experiences, too. We’ve talked a little about, you know, your childhood upbringing or anything like that. they incorporate that into this framework as well. There’s also just a kind of a a personal nature to all this. So, it’s both universal emotional processes, but then also the individual differences. So, it’s kind of trying to tie all of that together into this um picture of how we regulate emotions on a even momentto moment basis. Not just day-to-day basis, but a momentto moment basis. Procrastination is a strategy for mood repair and just wanting to not feel bad. Yeah. Essentially. Yeah. So when you say procrastination is a strategy to for mood regulation like explain that like I’m five. Okay. What does that mean? Okay. So Mark Marky Marky poo in case people like don’t really because it’s emotional regulation is one of those things that like everybody’s heard the term but like it’s fuzzy. Yeah. What what does it actually mean? Yeah. Yeah. Let’s just take an example of when you are going to procrastinate on something. You have a work task you want to do or you’re you need to do. Okay. You don’t want to do it. That’s kind of the point, right? When you approach this task all like you might get an anxious feeling. Um dread. Dread. Boredom. Yeah. Or the perfectionism can even come in at that point too. Like oh my god, am I not going to do a good job at this? And if I fail, anxiety. Anxiety boils up and it anger. why the [ __ ] do I have to do this? Yeah, any any negative emotion associated with the task will um increase your likelihood of procrastinating in that moment. And so what we do is we look into usually into our immediate environment or past strategies that we might have used as well uh to alleviate those um uncomfortable feelings that we have and that’s when procrastination takes over. Okay, I I’ve approached this as a task that I find unpleasant. Don’t like that unpleasant feeling. Get me out of here. Let me do something else. Let me distract myself with, you know, these days it’s your phone or whatever it is. Yeah. Uh or you know, this is why you can also like people will procrastinate by cleaning their houses or something like this. Something some boring task because they find that even less awful than whatever they’re they’re going to be working on. Right. Right. Does that make sense, Marky? Yes. Okay. I was going to call you Daddy Drew, but then I was like, we’re not gonna go there. Yeah. Yeah. That gets weird. It gets really weird. Please do not call me that. But ever early on in this this when this framework was being developed, a lot of the the psychologists called it giving in to feel good, right? So you look for whatever feels on a relative basis, whatever feels better in the moment than whatever you’re uncomfortable with and you go and you go to that and you give in to that urge. Yeah. There’s some impulsivity around that. Totally as well. There’s environmental factors that go into this, but at at its base, at its core, it is that that emotional regulation, that moment when you choose between, do I need to do the thing that needs to be done or do I need to I just want to remove this anxious, uncomfortable, angry feeling that I am, bored feeling, painful feeling, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. I I still it’s funny because I didn’t think about this when we were researching the episode, but like now that we’re talking about it, I’m kind of like seeing it in my mind. Again, it’s kind of two sides of a coin. Yeah. One is managing the environment, managing giving yourself fewer opportunities for that avoidance, right? Like clearing the junk food out of the fridge, turning your phone off, turning the phone off, leaving the phone in the other room, all those things. And then the other side of the coin is is that that emotional management, the awareness, understanding the emotions that are coming up and then understanding perhaps why those emotions may be arising for unnecessary reasons, right? Like are you being too perfectionist? Are you protecting your ego? Um are you rationalizing past behavior? Um are you trying to impress somebody? Do you is the reason you’re motivated the reason you want to do this thing a shitty reason and it’s actually not very motivating at all? Um like all of those fact all those things that we’ve talked about do you do you have a lot of shame around this and you just like don’t it makes you feel icky and horrible about yourself and so you just find any any way you can to get away from it. All of these factors that we’ve been talking about up to this point almost all of them are factored into that emotional negotiation of like why do I feel this way? Is it reasonable to feel this way? And now that I feel this way, how do I manage it? Well, that’s one side of the coin. And then the other side of the coin is the how do I give myself as few escape routes as possible. Exactly. Yes. Right. And that’s the behaviorist stuff, the environmental design stuff. Right. Coming back to the skill thing that that it’s the two sides of the the procrastination skill coin, right? It’s like on the one side it’s the environmental design, the uh managing your triggers, managing your nudges, and on the other side it’s managing your own emotions, right? Understanding why you you you associate certain things with a task and how to kind of manipulate the levers or dials in your head to make the task feel easier. Whether that’s through breaking it down into smaller chunks, whether that’s gamifying it, whether that’s finding accountability with somebody, rewarding yourself with something, there’s all sorts of levers you can pull to like manage those internal emotions. Right. Right. That everything we’ve talked about does, it crosses that point of emotion regulation that you have to manage. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Um there’s uh it’s and it does it goes back to it’s a short-term relief for uh long-term uh detriment. Right. Right. All of this is it what it comes down to is I don’t have to feel that discomfort right now if I just do something else. Yes. All of those things are kind of like getting at that. Right. like if whether it’s in your environment or just a an emotional well and and what’s amazing too is that like all of the thinkers that we talked about through throughout this entire episode from Plato to Augustine to to Aquinus to to everybody it’s not that they got it wrong right it was just incomplete right it’s like Augustine said he’s like it’s it’s the failure is is you are you are sacrificing your higher level value the thing that is more important to you but difficult to do for the thing for the lower level value the thing that easy to do but much less and less valuable and less important. You know, Plato saw it as like a a an ignorance of the repercussions of your decisions of like not understanding like how your behavior like the what what you were doing in that that very moment. Uh even to like the Buddhist perspective of like not being aware of what your internal triggers are like this is this is what I found really interesting when I looked at the Buddhist side of it. Like again it’s correct. It’s incomplete but it’s completely correct. like and in fact I actually found a meta analysis uh of 14,000 participants of who practice mindfulness and meditation um and they showed significant improvements in time management task initiation and uh and also a sense you you talked about that sense of like how long it will take to complete something their sense of how long it would take to complete a task actually got more accurate after the mindfulness as well and so again it’s like makes total sense emotions tend to be funhouse house mirrors in our brains, right? So like when you’re angry, things that are small appear very large and things that are large appear very small. You know, it’s like when you’re anxious, there are other things that things that appear very close are actually very far away and vice versa, right? So it’s it’s understanding that you’re looking at a funhouse mirror. You know, meditation is a practice of like developing the ability to recognize the funhouse mirrors and adapt to them and still navigate through them. And uh whereas when you’re just you know I think where Plato was correct is that the the actual ignorance is just believing the funhouse mirror is real. Yeah. Like that’s the ignorance. Yeah. Definitely. And the the one of the big recommendations from this group of researchers Tim Patrol especially and and Fuchsia sir uh is more mindfulness around these things. So um we can talk about this this now the uh the rain method. Uh this is what uh this was an article that Tim Pitell wrote and he’s wrote written about it in his books as well. Um but it’s a mindfulness tool um that gets you um figuring out that funhouse mirror kind of brain that we all have. Yeah. And and being able to deal with it. And he calls it the RAIN method because it’s an acronym. It’s recognize, allow, investigate, and non identification. Okay. So it’s just a very basic kind of I I believe it’s from Zen Buddhism even maybe actually too but it’s recognizing in the moment y when you do feel that resistance those those uncomfortable feelings that that pop up I think most people like when those that pops up your initial reaction is to look for a distraction this says okay wait just recognize when it’s happening that’s all you have to do at first this is I’m approaching a task I don’t like I’m just going to sit with that right and that’s actually the second step is allowing uh those emotions to just exist and not push them away, not reach for distraction. Just allow them to be there. Um, and don’t flee from it. The I in it is investigate those emotions. Get curious. Why? Why do I feel this way? You, that’s something you just said, too. Like, why am I feeling ashamed about this? Why am I feeling anxious about it? Angry about it. Are my expectations reasonable? Am I blowing things out of proportion? Am I just tired? Did I sleep last night? Like, yeah. Start asking all those questions. Ask those questions. Investigate. Get and get deep with it, too. right there. And then the last one is non identification with the emotion. This is a very Buddhist thing. Very Buddhist thing. Yeah. Which is uh you know I am not this anxiousness. I I feel anxious. I am not this anxious. Don’t you don’t want to fuse your identity. Like you just said if you fuse yourself with that funhouse mirror image that you have in your mind then everything becomes like a funhouse mirror room. Right. And to Freud’s point you’ll protect it. Yeah. Right. If you if you decide that you are anxious and perfectionist, then you will you will actually protect that self-defin. Yes. Uh which will cause you to like actually your procrastination will become part of your identity, right? And it’s it’s we talked about that earlier about people who identify as like oh I just work better under pressure. What they probably don’t realize they’re doing is that they are they are incorporating their procrastination as a part of their identity. And so now they will start unconsciously protecting it, right? and and continue to procrastinate to show like this is my identity to prove to themselves and others. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that um as far as practical takeaways go, I that for me after realizing that I I realized I did some kind of version of this or bits and pieces of it. Uh when I really did need to get something done, I would kind of like, you know, buckle down, be like, “Okay, I don’t like this. Why don’t I like this? All right, I just get going.” Putting it all together like that though has been super super useful for me. Um, and especially the non-identification part, that last part is very important, I think, too. Like you just said, don’t wrap your identity up in whatever you’re doing in that. Totally. For sure. Well, speaking of identities, I’ve got like a fun exercise for us. Oh. Before we wrap up with like the the the tactics and strategies for everybody. Dr. Linda Sappin, and she’s a clinical psychologist. She wrote a book in the 90s um called The Six Types of Procrastinators. And so, she has six types that she has identified through her clinical practice. Fun. And I thought it could I I thought it would be fun to kind of like now that we understand all the frameworks, right? Like I think it’d be fun to go through these six types and kind of identify what the factors are like that lead to their procrastination. Um and I imagine that listeners will see themselves in at least one of them. So the first one which I know I know you’ve dealt with is the perfectionist, right? Fears imperfection, sets unrealistic standards, um refuses to accept good enough. Yeah. And um h it ends up having to use time limits to avoid endless revisions or redoss. Do you feel attacked? Yeah, I actually I feel like I’m getting better at it. I I This was kind of my This is my beast display this year, I think, was the perfectionism. I I actually feel like as I’m getting older, I’m letting more things go. I’m like, “All right, that’s not going to be perfect.” Do you think that’s just from accumulating so many imperfect Yes. experiences? Yeah. I don’t I don’t think I’ve actively worked at like getting over it’s just been I like now accept reality for what it is. Yeah. Yeah. All right. The second one is the dreamer. Loves big ideas but struggles with details. Breaks goals into steps and needs to use structured plans to maintain consistent habits. Tends to wait for inspiration rather than just take action. I relate to this one a little bit. Like I I my mind definitely I like to dream big and like have these kind of giant aspirations and that’s fun and that I think that is like overall it’s a net positive to have like big goals and dreams but the the drawback of that is the intimidation factor because it’s like if you have this massive worldchanging plan that is going to take 10 years to execute and then you wake up on day one it just feels so minuscule and insec significant. And so, yeah, it says here that that these the dreamers have to break break their goals down into steps. I I am like, as you know, I am a an evangelist for this. Like, this is my number one go-to for any anytime I’m procrastinating. I mean, I to the point where like if I’m procrastinating writing this outline for this podcast, I will tell myself literally just write one word. Yeah. That’s all it takes. start with a word and then go to a sentence and then go to the paragraph, right? Like it’s it it creates the momentum. It removes the intimidation. It like generates emotional momentum. Um it it’s it’s the way to go. Like my my brain tends to just want to make everything as big and ambitious as possible. And so it’s it’s like I’m the the work for me is constantly breaking things back down and making them smaller. Yeah. Well, so that makes sense to me when it’s something like do a a podcast outline. Where I struggle with that though is okay, I’m breaking something down. Makes sense. It’s doable. I have self-efficacy around it. I can do this thing. My problem of often comes in when it’s tying that back to the bigger picture. Oh, yeah. You know, it makes sense with like a a podcast outline because that’s a tangible thing, but it’s like if it’s more abstract, further in the future maybe, and I’m doing this one little task, I I have a really hard time marrying what I’m doing that like writing a sentence about something with like some grand goal that I have. So, I’m I’m actually I didn’t expect to do this. I’m I’m gonna bring Eisenhower back into this. Oh, okay. So, Eisenhower has a great quote that I love uh where he says uh uh plans mean nothing, but planning is everything. Okay. And I truly believe that like planning, projecting, forecasting, 99% of it’s [ __ ] Okay? You know, it it’s like none of it’s going to come true. Um, it’s funny because I just uh I just worked with uh uh our head of operations on on like a projection for 2025 and 26. And I mean I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m like this is [ __ ] Yeah. None of this none of this is going to come true. But it’s still useful. I still do it every single year because it does exactly what you just said, which is it like it ties this individual podcast. shooting this segment of this podcast is now tied to this episode, which is tied to the projection for the podcast this year, which is tied to the overall business strategy, which is tied to like our overall mission and goals, right? So, it’s like it lines all those things up. Um, that’s what I find is that like it’s like the numbers don’t matter. Like it’s nothing ever plays out the way you expect it to, but the act of creating that plan or projection ties all those things together in your head. That makes sense to me now. Okay. Uh, next one. The worrier avoids risk due to fear of failure. Struggles to reframe fear as growth. Needs to take small, manageable step steps and challenge catastrophic thinking with more realistic outcomes. I am definitely not this person. I don’t think you are either. No, maybe a little bit, but nah. I’ve definitely known people like this who are just like almost like uh doomsayers. Like they they just think everything’s going to go wrong. They’re worried about everything all the time. Um, and it is it like freezes them in place kind of. Is it like a like a fight orflight response or um more of a fight flies freeze response? So they’re freezing or what is it that makes them procrastinate about this? I definitely think uh you know if you think fight or fight or flight I think it’s the flight side of it. Like I mean procrastination is essentially just the flight in the fight or flight. Um, but yeah, for people who are prone to worry and fear chronically, I could see how it’s just like you just don’t want to do anything because what if it goes wrong, right? You know what? Like they’re just kind of always imagining the worst case scenario. Yeah. Which you would think it’s kind of like almost a perfectionist thing, but it’s not. It’s it’s more because the perfectionist is like, well, what if I don’t do it perfectly or what if I, you know, what if it what if I’m embarrassed by what this is? Like, what if it just everything just the worst case scenario comes to mind? What what if it goes wrong? What if it it what if I’m worse off than I am that? Like yeah, the perfectionist is like here my bar is way up here. What if I don’t hit it? Whereas like the worrier is just like what if things get worse because I tried this thing? The crisis maker, so we talked about this. Thrives on last minute adrenaline, enjoys the emotional rush of doing things last minute. um needs to create earlier artificial deadlines, needs to work in scheduled sessions, and needs to reward themselves for finishing ahead of time. I think we’ve covered this person quite a bit here, but it is interesting to see them show up in the list here. The next one is the defier. I definitely relate to this one. Yeah. resists imposed tasks, dislikes authority, struggles to reframe actions as personal choices, needs to identify with the direct benefits, use autonomy to stay in control rather than react passively. Uh I as a person who just chronically hates being told what to do to the point like is just like unnecessarily contrarian at times. Big cultural component of that one though too, you know, where if obedience or um at least tradition or um service to Yeah. your family, society, whatever it is, there’s there’s a big cultural compon. This feels like maybe a little bit of a a privileged procrastinator. Like it’s could be surveying too many uh college kids. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like it’s just I mean my personality has always been like if somebody tells me to do something, my first reaction is like no, I’m not going to do that. Yeah. Right. And then finally, the overdoer takes on too much. Uh tries to accomplish too many tasks at the same time, unable to manage their energy effectively. The they must learn to say no, delegate their tasks, focus on high impact tasks, prioritization, which we talked about, and then set boundaries to reduce overwhelm and burnout. This is me. Yeah, definitely a little bit of me in there, too. like it just you you try to take on a lot you do. I I have a hard time saying no. So yeah, I definitely see this one in myself. I to me this feels like the if there’s one of these that I I imagine is has grown over the last 10 20 years, I could see it being the overdoer just because there the opportunity of things to do and engage in has grown exponentially. So the need to create boundaries and say no has also grown exponentially. And it and those are hard things to do. Like it takes takes there there’s quite a cognitive load to like turning something down or refusing to do something. So So yeah, those are the six types of procrastinators. I think it’s it’s a little bit useful before we get into all like the specific tips and strategies and stuff like I think it’s it’s useful to kind of ask yourself where you are and u what you need to f what each of us needs to focus on um to improve this for ourselves. Absolutely. All right, Drew. So, now that we’ve beat people over the head with a trash can full of information, it’s time to bring this home. It’s time to now we get to the end of the show. We get to the part we’re like, okay, what are the takeaways here? Like, what do we actually use and implement into our lives? How do we actually fight procrastination within ourselves? And so, you and I, we like to do this section. We like to start this segment of the podcast with a a section that we call the 8020 of procrastination, which is what is what are the 20% of actions or behaviors that are going to give you 80% of the result. Like what what’s the highest leverage implementation here? So you and I we’ve got a list of a bunch of things. You know, we we’ve talked through at this point dozens and dozens of different ideas. These are the most useful, the most verified, the things that have the most evidence behind them, and also the things that you and I have personally found the most leverage with when we’ve implemented them. So, let’s let’s go through them one by one. I think it it could be useful kind of returning to that external versus internal framework like managing your external environment versus uh dealing with your internal environment. Let’s start with the external first. Sure. Right. So, why why don’t you kick us off? Let’s talk about environmental design. What is a what’s a good way to implement environmental design to help with your procrastination? The core premise of this is altering your surroundings um so that the desired behavior that you’re targeting is just easier or the one that you don’t want to do is much harder um distractions and stuff like that. We’ll so we’ll talk about um how to do that. So set up your environment so that uh for success basically right um some of the ways like we’ve mentioned right now if you being procrastinating on your diet don’t buy junk food don’t keep it in the house that’s like an easy win you can have right there if it’s more workrelated get your work stationation set up put the phone in the other room get all distractions out of out of sight and out of mind that’s that’s a good place to start with that you can use like you you mentioned you use website blockers There’s a lot of software that um so if you’re the type of person who’s like prone to just going down email rabbit holes or YouTube rabbit holes or sports website rabbit holes right um you know one piece of software is called freedom there was another one called uh I believe it was called self or no it was called focus there was another one called control u there’s a bunch of them use and then there’s all sorts of accessibility things like on your phones like you know the iPhone and Android they have like these are working hours so you turn off all the um notifications. Honestly, just keep your phone in the other room if if you’re really serious about that. But if you need to have it on you, um I would say definitely use those that hack back notifications on your phone, too. I don’t know why people like I look at some people’s phones and they’re just there’s like 90 notifications on them. Like why from like an app they downloaded four years ago that they don’t even use and turn and turn off your notifications. Just turn off I your text messages maybe a couple other things and that’s it. Yeah, it’s it’s if your phone is chiming or buzzing all day, like you’re basic that’s like putting crack in front of a crack addict. Like you you’re doing yourself zero favors. Yeah. I I think I think one thing that’s really useful to think about this too, like there’s kind of I would almost put this in two different categories. One is there’s actually physically altering your environment. Like you said, get rid of the junk food. Uh one of the things that I like a really extreme example of this uh that my friend Neyel did and by the way his book on this is excellent environmental design go to that that’s a bible for that his book indistractable it’s excellent if you’re if this is if distraction is a huge issue for you like that is the best book that I can recommend uh one thing that he did in his own house is that he put all of his Wi-Fi routers he put on these plugs that you could put on timers Yeah. And so he like programmed the timers to shut off I think at like 7:00 p.m. or something every night. And so his like the internet in his house just went off every evening at 7:00 p.m. And it’s such a pain in the ass to get up and like replplug in the router and like do all this stuff. So he just he never did it. And and he sure enough he stopped using the internet past a certain time and he would start he was reading more books and he was spending more time with his family and he was doing all the behaviors he wanted to do. So there’s there’s kind of like actual just physically alter your environment. That’s kind of the first category. And then the second environment or the second category I think is creating rules for yourself. You know, like when you were saying things like, you know, leave your phone in the other room or uh um you know, people will say stuff like, “Oh, only check email after 2 p.m.” Something like that. Like it’s I think it’s really useful to get explicit of like this is a rule that I live by. Like this is a rule that I have for myself. Um because if you try to I I think the the key principle here is that when you leave it up to your own decision-m you can’t trust your own decision making right and not in the moment at least and not consistently over a long period of time. You might you might get it right the first day or the first week but like eventually you’re going to start making the bad decision and as soon as you make the bad decision once that’s going to justify every future bad decision. So it’s just like you have to create a rule. I’m not allowed to have my phone in my office. Mhm. period. Right? Or I don’t check social media until after 4 or whatever. Email, too. I only do email at 2 or 3 p.m. in the afternoon or at the end of the day, once a day. Clear the inbox, then it’s done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the physical side, the physical environment side, too. There I’ve done things like um well, for a long time, I really I didn’t even have a TV, which just didn’t even have it in the house is like, you know, not having junk food in the house. Same type of deal. Um I’ve also in times where it’s like, okay, I need to get a lot of work done. And since I do work from home, there are those distractions. So, I’ve taken like the the power cord to my TV and like given it to a friend, right? Keep it at my friend’s house. I can’t even have it. Like, just hold on to this for next two weeks. I was just imagining you like ringing a doorbell just like handing a power cable to somebody like I’m going to come back for this. I not too far off what it was. But um again it goes back to I mentioned earlier that you know um that interview I listened to with Pier Steel where he said the people who are most honest about these things. Yes. About they they know themselves well enough to be like okay I know I don’t have the requisite willpower to fend off the TV or the fridge or whatever in these certain moments and so I’m just going to accept that. I guess another thing is that there’s a self-acceptance to environmental design that you have to be really okay with, right? You have to accept that you’re flawed and that and that you’re not going to change your own nature. I think that’s something, you know, I think a lot of chronic procrastinators, they like have this unreasonable expectation that there is going to be a day where like they are able to turn down every temptation and they are going to be impervious to distraction and they are going to be able to put their phone away whenever they want. And it’s like no, you’re not. Never gonna happen. You’re human. You’re not you’re not going to you’re not going to defeat 100,000 years of biology. You’re just not. So, you might as well work with it and create rules and structures and an environment for yourself that like nudges you towards success. I’m curious like what is your personal biggest environmental design win that you’ve had? Yeah. Besides the not keeping junk food in the house, like that’s that’s a that was a big one. Um but also separating my my workspace from other parts. So, I just have there’s one room now in my house that it’s just for work. Like, and now I I’ve seen after a while, it’s been a couple years now that I’ve had that. It’s when I enter that space, that’s work space, right? And I try to keep the phone out. I try to do all that. So, uh separating your your workspace from your kind of like your play spaces, you know, I guess you could call them. That’s been a big one for me, too. Um and then keeping that space. So, I and I try to keep it clean because for me anyway, if I see clutter on a desk, that’s a reflection of my mind. Um, so a a big one for me is just uh yeah, using those cues too. So it’s like it’s like I enter that room and my brain automatically goes into work. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a big win for me. And it’s great because now when you leave you’re like it’s done personal time. Yeah. Not worrying about it, not checking email, not Yeah. Mhm. That that took a while. Um I’ve been working remotely for a long time and I’ve had a boundary issue a little bit of like where does work happen and where does leisure happen. So yeah. What about you? For me, uh, I mean, obviously the junk food stuff’s big, the phone stuff has been big in the past. Uh, I would actually say home gym was Oh, yeah. Okay. a absolute gamecher. And it’s funny, too, because I remember, you know, when I moved to my place here in LA and I started putting together a little home gym. You know, it’s a really small room. It’s like half the size of this studio probably. And so, there’s not a whole lot in there. There’s just some free weights, a bench, and like a small squat rack. Yeah. And I was like, you know, it would just be kind of cool to have this. I I at first I I was going to keep my gym membership. And the idea was like I just kind of work out at home as like the supplement. Yeah. It was such a massive game changer because it the simplest thing is I no longer had any excuse, right? It’s like come home at 5:30, I’m tired, long day of work or whatever, big day of shooting, and I’m like, “Ah, I should work out today.” Like, and normally I’d be like, “Well, I don’t want to get back in my car and go to the gym and have to change and like do all this thing and shower and all this stuff.” And it’s like, “No, now the gym’s like 20 feet away, motherfucker.” Like, you have no excuse. It’s right there. Go do it. It doesn’t matter what time it is. It doesn’t matter how tired you are. It’s right there. You can get something in. And at first, it was a little bit of like a It’s like, h, why did I do this to myself? But now I’m I’m just so happy it’s there. And actually, I quit. I cancel my gym membership like within a month or two cuz I’m just like this is so easy and it’s so even dumb things like um you know like I’ll be like sitting on my couch watching a TV show with my wife and she’ll get up you know we’ll pause it and she’ll get up have to go do something for 10 minutes and I’m like wonder how many pull-ups I can do curls just like walk into the gym start doing pull-ups I’m like ah all right yeah it’s not bad you know like it’s just it has been such like just having it right there the convenience the ease and the elimin home gym huge up even if it’s like small and simple and like not not even it doesn’t have all the equipment that like a normal gym would have huge game changer. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the big kind of takeaway from this then is using friction strategically. remove it for the things that you want to do. Like have a home gym that’s frictionless. You get right into there and then add it to places where you don’t want to do a behavior. Don’t have junk food. And that there’s a whole bunch of friction with not having I got to go all the way to the grocery store just to get a bag of chips or or you know a candy bar or whatever. Strategic friction is really the key here, I think. Yeah. And it can even go as far like one thing I learned when I was kind of going through my health journey, don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. Oh yeah. Like that’s a that’s an easy one. And then also another one like this this one my my health coach pushed on to me because I’m like well yeah you know and then I’m in the grocery store and I I’ve got my list but then I start walking through the aisles I see all this stuff it looks good and he he was like you know what don’t even go sign up for Instacart. Yeah put your list in when you’re like while you’re eating lunch while you’re full put your list into Instacart. Don’t even give yourself the chance to again it’s like removing those decision points like the the the the more brain deadad simple you can make the good behavior the more likely it is to happen. Yeah. So absolutely cool. So similar to environmental design um another big one is social accountability. M we talked a little bit about the Confucianism and you know we’ve we’ve kind of skirted around this you know with all the talk of of emotions and behaviorism and conditioning and all this stuff the ego stuff we haven’t addressed it really directly but like it is worth understanding that probably the strongest driver of our emotions period is other people right it’s the people in our lives that we like that we trust that we respect that we want to win the respect of or the trust of uh they are some of the strongest levers on our own behavior and you can utilize that I mean first of all on a very abstract level is being conscious of who you let into your life you know there there’s this old saying that you are the average of the five closest people to you um I think there’s a lot of evidence that that is true right it’s like if the five closest people to you in your life have absolute [ __ ] habits and they get nothing done and they’re always complaining and laying around on on the couch and brain rotting. Like that is going to nudge you into those behaviors because that is what is going to get you social validation and approval. And fundamentally we’re human. We all need social validation and approval. So surrounding yourself by people that you admire, people that have good work habits, good health habits, that have the habits that you wish you could have, just by spending more time with them, you are more likely to adapt a lot of those behaviors. But then on a very like tactical level, finding somebody who has the same goal as you and is also struggling with that goal is and then like working on it together, it is it’s just your your chance of success rises exponentially. like the difference between say um I don’t know trying to learn a new language by yourself and trying to learn a new language with a friend your chance of success is going to like five or 10x if you do it with a friend. And I think that’s true of pretty much anything. And a big part of that is just more fun and interesting, which we’ll get to in a second. But I think the biggest thing is just accountability. Like you don’t want to be the [ __ ] who like skips French class. Like you don’t want to be the you don’t want to be the the dick that like paid for, you know, convinced your friends to like join a CrossFit gym with you and then never shows up. Like it just that’s embarrassing. That loses respect that you know people stop trusting you as much. And so like that is a huge lever that you can pull within your own brain. I do have a quick story about this. Um so that friend that we mentioned earlier uh Nayal that book I recommended indistractable. He he was writing that book while I was writing my second book, Everything is [ __ ] And we were both having trouble finishing our books. And so we agreed that we were going to meet up, I think it was twice a week for writing sessions. And we set basically we both gave ourselves the deadline of the end of the year. I think this is 2018. And we made a bet that if I don’t remember how much money it was, but it was like if one of us finished our books and the other one didn’t, we had to give whoever didn’t finish the book had to give the other one I think it was like $5,000 or $10,000. It was like a very painful amount of money. It was a very painful amount of money. And we like wrote it down and like had like a contract and everything and and and we did it. And it it was I mean we both we both got it done. I mean like let’s just put it this way. We we we were more effective I think in those four or five months than we were like the entire year prior to that. So I I’ve heard Near tell that story to other people and he said his hand was shaking when he handed you the like because I think you each wrote a check or something or a contract whatever it was. He said my hand was shaking you I handed it over because it is that powerful that think about that emotional uh space he had to be in for for that. He’s like oh god now my ass is on the line. Yeah. And it was it’s funny because there was kind of that looming threat of like oh my god I have to get this done but it it actually turned I mean he and I are really close friends now and a lot of it is because of that because we started meeting up and writing together every week and and it and it just became there was a lot of kind of soft accountability that happened in the interim right like there you know it’s like I’d go over there on a Monday and we’d spend a few hours writing and and then afterwards we’d have lunch and kind of look at each other and be like well how’d your session go and be like Oh man, I didn’t is a disaster. Like I got nothing was usable, right? And then we kind of talk through it and be like, “Oh yeah, that’s how last week was for me, but like today was pretty good, you know?” And like it was just nice to like validate each other and reassure each other cuz you know it’s if stuff like that happens when you’re by yourself, like let’s say you have a horrible writing session or a horrible workout or something. Again, the tendency is like the inner funhouse mirror warps it so so it feels more catastrophic than it is. Whereas when you’re with somebody else, they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there. Yeah, I felt that way last week, but you know, you just try again and it’ll be fine.” Um, you know, it’s like having other people around reminds you that it’s not as big of a deal as you thought think it is or it it things aren’t falling apart the way you fear they are. Yeah. And and I want to highlight something you already mentioned um with regard to that though, but finding people who are in a similar situation and place that you are is really important in this case, too. Yes, you can find somebody who’s like, you know, get an accountability coach, like somebody who’s in fitness or something like that who’s really good and they’re way advanced than you. There’s some accountability there. But I think it’s a lot more enjoyable and relatable when you find people who are at a similar um spot as you are. For example, too, like when I started CrossFit, it was me and two friends. Um we started and both of us, all of us, none of us had done CrossFit before. All of us kind of probably hadn’t been in a gym for a little while. And so there is that kind of commiseration that you can all do around it. and you’re like, “Oh, this person’s in the same spot struggling with the same thing that I am.” And you kind of feel that sense of community around it. So, I think that’s really important, too. Something to highlight. Yeah. And it’s funny because we talked a little bit about how like students are the biggest procrastinators. And it’s funny because this is the easiest solve for them, you know, like you were constantly surrounded by people who in the exact same situation as you, struggling with the exact same procrastination as you are. And my first two years, well, first year uh first year of college, I I was at music school, but you know, first year out of music school, my grades were okay. Like I up and down. Um but then my last three years I I was like a straight A student. And the primary reason it was two of these things that we’ve talked about already. The first thing that I did is that I realized that like if I went back to my dorm, zero studying would happen. Like absolutely nothing would happen there. you know, the guys down the hall would be playing poker or something and next thing you know, I’m at a party on a Tuesday night and then I’m like drinking till 4:00 a.m. So, like nothing useful would happen at the dorm. So, I eventually developed a rule for myself that when my classes ended, I had to go to the library and I had to spend at least two hours at the library. Didn’t matter if I just sat there like stared at the wall, I had to go to the library. And sure enough, once I’m in the library, it’s like, well, I got all my books. I might as well like start studying or you know do that like start working on that assignment that’s due in two weeks that uh you know I haven’t really thought about and I started doing that and sure enough like grades immediately went through the roof and then you know jump a year or two ahead later and I like started telling some of my friends like oh yeah I have this rule I just go to the library and a bunch of people I knew were like can I come with you like yeah sure I’ll be there at 1 pm on Thursday like I’ll be there till at least three and like sure bunch of my friends started coming and meeting me at the library and and again it’s that account accountability right it’s like well the my friend’s there she’s studying for her history exam like I’m going to look like an idiot if I’m not studying for my exam so I might as well study for my exam and you just again you you start nudging yourself into the right behaviors yeah I had a very similar experience in college too like yeah I wasn’t very good at studying the first year or two and then after that I did find uh like especially in the more difficult classes was you’d find a group of people in there and be like, “Hey, we’re going to meet at the library.” It was always that and that like I look back on college, I remember those study groups very very vividly like and so leveraging that too. Just the social connection that you get really brings it all home too. It’s strange how it like Yeah. It becomes fun. Yeah. I don’t know like when when you’re young you kind of think like you need to be like drunk or doing something crazy to have fun and No, seriously. Like a stats class um that we took that was just horrible. our study group that went to the library like I remember that we had a lot of fun like about stats you know like yeah you’re absolutely nerd I know totally was cool all right so that’s the external stuff those are the external factors that we can manipulate to help our own procrastination let’s start talking about the internal stuff um you know so let’s let’s start with the big question I think you let’s take let’s take opposite starting points why why don’t you start with like the big hairy questions and then I’ll I’ll kind of like break it down into the small questions. Okay. Okay. Well, first uh we we talked about purpose and finding a why for your actions, right? And I think that’s just foundational and fundamental as we already discussed to getting things done and not I mean procrastination kind of becomes an afterthought when you really have a strong purpose tied to what your daily actions, right? Um so you reconnecting whatever task or job or whatever it is to a deeper sense of meaning and purpose and what is this doing for me in my life that is going to bring like a greater sense of purpose around things that um starting there. So kind of finding your why the Simon Synynic thing you know you could um dig into that. Why why is something important to you? really digging into the reasons like okay why is this I have this job or I have this task or um I have this creative project I want and finding the underlying drive and value that you associate with that so go back and listen to the first uh episode on values that’ll give you a very good foundation for this as well um but starting there starting with why why am I doing any of this and like really getting into and digging into playing the why game with yourself like a three-year-old why why why am I doing this why why why I think that’s a really good place to start anyway I think too like having a basic understanding of like what a good why is versus a bad why. Oh yeah, we didn’t really talk about that, did we? Yeah. Um but I I generally speaking I think I think the best way to characterize like a good why is that it’s something that is bigger or more important than yourself. Yes. You know I think if you if you dig down and ultimately you find that your why is just pointing back at you. It’s like, oh, I’m doing this because I want people to respect me or I’m doing this because I want to impress, you know, this group of people that I wish were impressed by me or, you know, whatever. You’re that’s going to be a weak why. And generally, the strongest wise are the sorts of things that you’re like, you know what, I don’t matter, right? I will do anything for my kid or I will do anything for my church or I will do anything for uh the environment. You know, like it’s like when you find something that is greater and more important in yourself that even if you die, you hope it continues on past you. Like that is generally indicative of of some some a good form of why. The other good form of why I would say is um is around creativity. Like it it like if there’s an action that you appreciate just in and of itself, like if it’s um if it’s something that you would do if nobody was watching and nobody knew you did it, right? Like it’s it’s then that’s probably a good why. It’s just like the pure enjoyment and satisfaction of that thing, right? It’s like I would still play music if nobody ever heard me play. It’s just because it’s like the pure joy and satisfaction of playing is is fundamentally uh enriching in my life. That’s a good why as well. You know, it’s like try to stay aligned with that, right? Yeah. We talked a little bit about in this section too. We talked a little bit about this where if you do start out with a why that you later find that, oh, this isn’t a very good why. Uh the example I gave anyway was yeah, I started working out because I wanted to look good, right? But it eventually did change into something else. Sometimes that can happen. So sometimes we need to abandon something if we don’t have a good why for it. But sometimes the why can change too, right? Um so like in that case it changed from my vanity and which is if I’m honest it’s still important to me right on some level. But really the what it grew into was oh this is a lifelong skill that I’m developing that’s going to help me until the day I die. basically like one of those 80-year-old people like my great uncle who I’m still out there skiing and I can do the splits and all of that kind of stuff. So your your why can change. Uh but sometimes you also just need to let something go because it’s just there’s no foundation for your your why and your purpose. I think that’s a really good a really good point though is that like those those weaker wise don’t go away. Yeah. Yeah. You just need to find the bigger stronger one like Yeah. you you never will stop caring. You you will always want, you know, the cute boy or girl to like find you attractive. You will always want respect from your peers. You will always want to impress certain people like that. That’s a very natural and human thing. It’s just like that’s not sufficient. You need to find something bigger than that because if if that’s your only why then you’re you’re just on a very ugly treadmill and it’s it’s not going to get any slower. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So, yeah. Zooming in a little bit here. So, zoom in. So we’re going that that’s the super big picture. Now cutting in super super tight. Um I have this concept that I I’ve called for many years the minimum viable action which is this is this is the breaking down or or chunking down you know actions into smaller component pieces. I call it the minimum viable action because it’s basically what you do is you take whatever you’re procrastinating, you break it down into subactions and then you continue to break it down to the point where it stops feeling intimidating and then the the the point where it stops feeling intimidating then you say okay cool I’ll go do that. So really simple examples like let’s say I want to develop a meditation practice and I wake up one morning and I’m like oh man 20 minutes of meditation like that’s a huge pain in the ass. And it’s like okay well let’s break that down like what about 5 minutes of meditation? It’s like uh yeah it’s still kind of like okay what about one minute meditation right? Like just go sit on the [ __ ] floor. How about that? You don’t even have to just sit on the floor and just do like 30 seconds. And it’s like, okay, yeah, that’s not intimidating. So then you go do that. And then what you find is that once you do the tiny action, once you’re on the floor for 30 seconds, then you’re like, well, I could do five minutes. And then you do the five minutes, and then you’re like, I could do 10, you know, and then you do 10, and you’re like, I could do 20 or maybe not, you know, maybe you just do the 10, but at least you did 10 because 10 before you were in a place where it was either zero or 20. If you sit down and do five, that’s better than zero, right? So it the minimum viable action is always it helps guarantee that something gets done even if it’s not as much as you would hope or imagine. It’s just that something gets done. I’ve applied this in almost every area of my business and my productivity. Like this is just this is my absolute go-to in my personal life. Anything that I am struggling with or I’m I’m delaying, this is the first thing that I go to is I’m like how can I break this down into something that’s not intimidating? So, with workouts, I did this just the other night. We had a long shoot day. I got home like 6:00 p.m. I’m like, I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m supposed to work out today. I don’t want to do this [ __ ] And I like looked at my workout and I was like, you know what? Just do one set of each exercise. Like, you don’t have to do the full workout. Just do one set of each exercise. And I was like, all right, I can do that. And yeah, I did one set of each exercise. And that’s better than nothing, right? You know, when I’m writing a book, books are really [ __ ] intimidating. And some days you sit down and you’re just like, I don’t know how to start this chapter. I feel like this whole section is terrible. I don’t want to deal with this right now. And I just look at it and I say, just write one sentence just to just put together one nonshitty sentence. Like doesn’t have to be good. Doesn’t have to sing. You don’t have to be himming way. Like just put together a sentence that like makes that is readable, right? And then you start there and you’re like, “Okay, well that I kind of know what the next sentence is.” and well, let me just finish this paragraph. And you know, next thing you know, you’ve got two pages written. So, minimum viable action, use that momentum to carry you forward. To me, this is like the most the biggest tactical hack that I’ve kind of ever found, you know, aside from the environmental stuff. Like, this is the biggest tactical hack that I’ve ever found for my own procrastination. Yeah. Yeah. You’ve been recommending this one for a very long time. Long time. Many different ways. And it what really clicked for me when doing this episode was that how that really um helps with the the emotional side of this. So what you’re really addressing is kind of like this overwhelm that happens when you have this big task in front of you. And we mentioned in the previously, you know, it was actually, this kind of came out of the time management crowd, which a little bit surprising, but if you think about it, they went from, okay, we’re in a factory, you know, we want to build a car, but we have to break that process down. Yeah. And so they’re like, this is, you know, this is how you should do it. What they missed was it’s because it’s an emotional problem, not a tactical, rational problem. It’s an emotional problem. You have this big huge task in front of you and you need to break it down into more manageable emotions that are attached to this task. Right? Like we keep saying procrastination is an emotional problem. Self-control is an emotion emotional problem. Like this is not it’s not a problem of information. It’s not a problem of motivation. It is a emotional problem. It’s managing your own expectations, managing your own self-perception. And so yeah, this is just the most effective trick that I’ve ever come across to do that. Yeah. And with the minimum viable actions too, don’t underestimate h like a small win, the the impact of a small win. Yeah. um that can have an outsized emotional impact on you, especially if you go from man, I’m just not feeling like I’m getting anything done to even just getting one or two things done. It’s a huge Don’t don’t underestimate that. It’s not linear. It’s it’s exponential and how good that feels. Absolutely. Yeah. Not not to get off on too much of a tangent, but like I Yeah. I’ve noticed that so much throughout my career that like you’ll get these people who have been stagnant for a long time. And I think what happens when you feel stuck and stagnant is that you start developing this story in your head that like I’ve got to do this drastic thing to turn my life around. And it’s like actually no dude, you just need to go get like yeah, go get a couple small wins under your belt. Like that will actually that that will move mountains for you. Like it just it will open things up for you way way way more than you would ever anticipate. So absolutely 100%. All right. What’s the next one? Okay. Yeah. So, the next one is addressing those underlying emotions. That this is kind of the crux of it. This is where we want to end up and be able to um really uh address what’s going on, dig into what’s going on. Why are we putting this task off? Why are we anxious about it? Why are we angry about it? Why are we bored? What’s so painful about this task? Um and addressing those uh emotions that we attach to these dreadful tasks that we have to do or perceive dreadful tasks. So, we talked about the the rain method. This is one way. It’s really just more about mindfulness though. Um being aware. So your your rain method, remember to recognize, allow, investigate, and nonattachment to those emotions. So it it’s just a way to be more mindful at every single stage of what’s going on during procrastination. Yeah. And you can I mean there’s there’s different ways uh you could be more mindful around this, but this I I’ve found any way just on a momentto moment basis when that does pop up, this is a really good way to just get like really get in there and be like, “Okay, what’s going on here? Why am I feeling this way? Where am I feeling this uh in my body? Why am I feeling it there? All the things you think about when you you hear about mindfulness practices. That’s uh yeah, that’s how you can start to address the underlying emotions. And I I think it’s important to emphasize because I I imagine that there’s some subset of listeners right now who like just went through four hours of information and the history of procrastination and theia uh and they get to the end and they’re like, “Ah, [ __ ] It’s about emotions. are you you mean I got to go to therapy to like get my work done? And it’s like no no you don’t have to. Like sure it would help but like you you don’t have to. Like this is ultimately it’s more about it’s not about fixing your emotions or like solving your emotions. It’s more about becoming aware and accepting of your emotions like not being hijacked by your emotions. just like as you said like recognizing what’s going on beneath the surface so that you can work with it instead of against it. Right. So if anxiety comes up, you can like alter the action or the expectation in your head and to until you get it to a point where it’s not so anxietyinducing or you know or if there’s like a despair or sadness or whatever like you can kind of play with you know your goals or or your the the way you approach an activity to to try to find a way that makes it a little bit more exciting or fun for yourself. So like it’s just until you’re aware of the emotion that’s that’s underlying the the procrastination, you can’t really adapt to it or use it in any useful way. Yeah. And I mean a lot of this too this these all tie together, right? And so if you have like an environment that’s bringing up a lot of these emotions too and fixing that will help. Um but again it still just goes back to the mindfulness part of that. You have to be aware of those triggers in your environment or maybe it’s a person or uh you know work situation that happens a lot too. Um but yeah becoming more self-awareness. We talk a lot about self-awareness in a lot of different areas and um that’s a skill too that you develop over time and self-awareness around why you do and don’t do things. Um, I think that you have to find some method whether that’s through med more meditation or maybe you do need to go through to therapy just to get a little more self-aware around your emotions. Yeah. But at the end of the day, yes, I’m sorry. It’s about emotions and you do have to address it. You have to figure out a way to address them. And it again, it goes back to um being honest with yourself. Like me, I just know that there’s certain things that I do procrastinate that I like and I have these emotions that I don’t like around them. But I was like, look, accept that. That’s just how it’s going to be and it’s probably never going to change. I’m never going to have this like real big excitement to, I don’t know, clean my house or whatever it is, but that’s okay. You got you got to work with that. So, you’re telling me there’s no notion template to solve my uh my anxiety? I’ve tried them all. I have tried them all. That’s that’s a good point you make, though. That’s a million dollar idea. Get this notion template to solve all of your anxiety issues. Right. Right. I I I think that’s a way we avoid the underlying emotions around all of this is trying like we’ve we talked about this trying to find the new app or the new system or whatever it is. Oh yeah. This that that is avoidance. That is not addressing the underlying emotions here. You’re recognize that what you’re doing in that situation is you’re saying, “I want a way around this uncomfortable feeling. Please just give me the fix. Just give me the one thing, the one hack, the one trick. It’s not there. It’s the appearance of progress without actual progress. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. For sure. Well, let’s talk about how I deal with my unpleasant emotions, which is I just find a way to make it fun. Yeah. Party boy Mark. There you go. Uh so, uh friend of the show Ali Abdalah has a great book about this called Feel Feelgood Productivity. And I I for me my favorite thing about that book, it’s one of it was reading that book. It was one of those things that that I had personally believed and felt for a long time, but I didn’t really know how to say it. And I had never really seen it said well anywhere else. And I feel like he was kind of the first person to say it, which is like you can find a way to make boring things fun. There are actual ways that you can apply certain principles that just make something that’s that’s dredgery feel more interesting. I think you mentioned CrossFit earlier. I think CrossFit is like a prime example of this, right? Like most people don’t enjoy working out. So what did CrossFit do? They gified it. Like they created systems and achievements and goals and and challenges and they have you track your progress over time and then they put you in a social environment and they put you in teams and the teams are competing against each other. Like these are all just like really basic how to make it fun 101 techniques. And you can do this with anything. You can gify anything. You can track progress on anything. You can um again, if you’ve got social accountability, you know, you you can set up a little game with your friend of like, okay, let’s see who can study more hours this week or um who can learn more French words this month. You know, create little friendly competitions between yourself and somebody. And um track your progress over time. Create little rewards and incentives for yourself. I it’s, you know, human nature is pretty simple. And if you understand how to how to leverage it, um, you know, you can get a lot further. Yeah. What are some of the examples? I don’t use this one as much. Um, maybe I hate fun or something. I don’t know. But what are some examples specific examples you’ve used around? I mean, you’ve been on a big health journey. I know just tracking in general you think is fun, which is, you know, some people might not think just tracking is fun, but I think I think progress is fun. Progress. Okay. Yeah. So, one thing that I find very fun, I I’m a very competitive person and one of like I agree tracking is annoying. I don’t the tracking itself I don’t enjoy. What I enjoy is the competition with myself. Okay. Right. So, it’s like I I know uh how much weight I lifted on every on every exercise last week, right? And so, it’s fun for me to go into the gym this week and be like, let’s see if I can do one more rep, right? Like, let’s see let’s see if I can do this. Let let’s see if I can add five pounds to this. Like, let’s see how that feels. I mean, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not like skipping to the gym every morning, you know, like hopping out of bed, but like it makes it interesting enough that it it’s it it’s not as hard to go and it’s not as hard to finish the workout. It takes what would be a pretty dull and and boring workout and it makes it interesting and and exciting. The other thing you can do is you can pair like you can batch activities with each other. So, um, you know, if you, let’s say there’s a podcast you love, like two handsome men talking about procrastination for 4 hours, you can you can you can make a you can make a rule with yourself that like you can only listen to the Sol podcast while you’re doing housework. Like this is I’ve got a couple podcasts that uh are just frivolous and fun and I I they’re my chores podcasts. Like I don’t listen to him at any other time. It’s like when I’m doing the dishes and taking out the trash and you know cleaning the office like that’s when I put this podcast on cuz it’s kind of it takes what is normally just a painful boring experience and it makes it interesting for me. And you can lump activities together like that. you know, if if if you love audiobooks, you know, make a deal with yourself that you can you can only listen to audiobooks either while you’re working out or while you’re getting ready for bed, you know, and it’s there’s no other time. Okay. So, I did think of actually ways I have made things fun. Um, for me though, it’s more of a it combines the social aspect to it too though. So, CrossFit being the example that you gave, but I I like it instead of having a home gym, I just I don’t like having I need to leave the house for whatever reason. But what I’ve realized is that it’s actually really fun for me to go to CrossFit and see those people. The workouts themselves are brutal and they’re, you know, intense. But you go and you start, you kind of get your little CrossFit friends, you know, and um there’s a social aspect to that. I used to do jiu-jitsu, too. Like you go, there’s a very social aspect to that obviously, too. Um so yeah, for for some people, for you, you have fun with competition with yourself. Um, for me, even though I’m also introverted in a lot of ways, I that social there’s still some social reward in a lot of in my yoga studio I go to too, there’s Yeah, there’s that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s I mean, so what’s fun for you could be fun for somebody else. Yeah. Everybody’s fun is a little bit different, but you know, the principles are the same. I think Ali even goes through this. He’s like, gamify it, make it social, and then like batch it with something that you enjoy, right? You know, so like those are three tried and true methods. I think he has a couple more in his book. I’m probably not thinking of at the moment. So, all right, last one. And I know this is this is the the spicy one, but uh just really quick. Productive procrastination, okay, with an asterisk. Yes, this is personality dependent. Uh if you are an ADHD person like me, you might get a lot of leverage out of this. Be careful. Like it is it is like juggling steak knives. Uh you can hurt yourself if you’re not if you’re not very focused and adept at like what you’re doing. the productive procrastination, it can get out of hand very easily. So, just to review really quick, it’s when you uh you procrastinate one task by doing some other task that is also intimidating or difficult to do. And uh it can be very effective if it’s honed well and honed correctly. Uh, it can be extremely effective, but you can also waste a lot of time spinning your wheels, doing a bunch of [ __ ] that seems useful, but is not. And like you said, it’s like another subtle form of avoidance. Um, so the the difference between productive procrastination and just unproductive procrastination is like a very fine line and I would urge people to consider it, but also be very very careful about it. Right. All right. Last section, a drum I’ve been banging on for a long time now is that everything in life is a trade-off. There’s no there’s no win. No win is 100% a win. There’s always some downside somewhere with it. Yeah. So, in that spirit, we like to finish every episode with what are the hidden costs or what is the hidden trade-off of solving this area of your life? And so, what what are the hidden costs of getting a handle on your procrastination? like what are the unnoticed sacrifices or things that you’re going to have to give up if you actually get over this issue in your life? Get a handle on it. Yeah. The first one that I put, and this is something that I’ve experienced quite a bit myself, is that you have to accept that you’re you’re probably going to lose hobbies, interests, or diversions. Like there are going to be certain things in your life that you do genuinely like and appreciate uh that you’re just going to have to let go of. And that could be anything from like, you know, the gaming Discord server that you hang out in to the sports websites that you frequent to um, you know, the the Tik Tok Yeah. channels that you you enjoy watching. Like, you’re just you’re going to have to let some of those go. That’s the price. That’s the price of admission of just getting this area of your life handled. And that can suck. I experienced this a lot with uh video games. Like one rule I had I discovered I had to create for myself uh was no multiplayer video games because I’m too competitive. A single player video game I can play for an hour and just put it down and like go on with my life. A multiplayer video game I’m like no [ __ ] you dude. I’m going to practice. I’m going to like I’m going to grind. I’m going to get so good at this. I’m going to beat all of you. You’re going to talk trash on your headset. You’re going to I I have literally wasted months of my life like trying to get good at at certain video games. Uh, so I I just don’t let myself do that anymore. And and I miss it sometimes. Like I really do miss it. Like I I have very fond memories of certain games that I did get very good at. And uh but that’s just that that’s the price of you know it’s not worth giving up uh my business and my career and my marriage. Uh so I’ve I’ve chosen those things. Yeah. Over it. That we we’ve talked a little bit already about trading a lower value for a higher value. in the previous episode, but um that it’s pretty clear example where it’s like, okay, yeah, I probably shouldn’t be playing these multiplayer video games or video games in general. I should be doing this other thing. There’s that clear trade-off. You know, you should make it it’s a struggle, but you do. Sometimes though, you also like in my situation, I’ve I’ve had to adjust where I don’t feel like I’m necessarily trading a lower value for a higher value. I’m I’m sacrificing something that is genuinely genuinely meaningful for me, but I guess at the end of the day, it is a higher one. So my example is when I did finally start to address my health stuff and stop procrastinating on working out and eating right and all of that that takes up a lot of time. So workouts and I usually work out in the middle of the day because it’s just that’s how my brain works and so it takes up kind of a a big chunk of time in the middle of the day and I’ve had to sacrifice um some of my like woodworking has kind of uh I haven’t been able to do as much just because I have less time now um for that and that’s kind of a big like I love woodworking and it’s great and it’s it adds a lot of fun and enjoyment and meaning to my life. Um, but I guess I did realize that uh taking care of my health long term is probably more important right now and then will be more important in the future and I can woodwork longer hopefully. You know, it’s a physical activity. I’m going to need that when I’m old, you know, when I’m an old man in the wood shop. And so, yeah, sometimes it’s really clear that, oh, I need to give up this kind of lower value, this lower um fun that I have in my life for something that’s more important. And sometimes it’s not quite as clear-cut, though, too. So, it can be ambiguous. All right. What What do you have? Yeah. Um, so this one might get a might ruffle a few feathers from a certain type of person, but you got to lower your standards and accept your limitations. I know there’s a certain type of person out there that’s going to say I’m what? No. Like I’m not going to lower my standards. Like that’s not what productivity is. That’s not what getting your life together means. It’s raising your standards. And actually, you know, there are certain situations where you just have to accept reality, I think, is really what it is. And um like we already mentioned one thing, celebrate those like little wins that probably don’t look very sexy on the outside or to anyone else, but that’s a that’s a win. Like a win is a win here. And like lower your standards from I’m going to get 10 million things done today, you know, to I’m going to get one or two things done today. And they don’t look like it’s um making a whole lot of progress, but it is actually in the grand scheme of things when you step back, this is how it works. And you’re you are speaking on this this one. You were speaking as a recovered perfectionist. That’s right. Like this is I think this is the one that the perfectionists like really struggle with is like like no I it has to be excellent. It has to be perfect. And and it’s that is that is self-defeating, you know, before you even get started. There is a fantastic book on this friend of the pod Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks. Fantastic book. That’s one of the most recommended books I I recommend to people. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just it is it it’s the the subtitle is called productivity for mortals. Um which I love. It’s it it’s all about this. It’s all about like you can’t do everything. Yeah. You and and accepting your finitude is kind of way he puts it. Yeah. Yeah. Like not and not only can you not do everything but like a coming to that realization and then b like properly prioritizing the things you can do is a very difficult thing. And this kind of like it a lot of it’s a critique of just kind of the the productivity industry in general or like the mentality of like bro you just got to you just got to hustle man. You just got to like get this new system and like you can do it all dude. Like you you don’t have to don’t make any sacrifices. You don’t need to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it’s just like no actually the game is sacrifice. Like that is the game is like what are you willing to give up for your goals? And by the way, you you know, if you really are trying to do something ambitious and great, you probably only have the capacity to do a handful of things like that in your entire life, right? So yeah, you you have to like get very realistic on on timelines and and capacity and and time management and everything. So huge fan of that. Here’s a drawback that I think a lot of people are won’t consider. uh which is that if you handle your procrastination, you’re gonna have to give up your excuses. You’re gonna have to that we hold on to so dearly. You’re gonna have to own your [ __ ] You’re going to have to own suddenly some of these stories and narratives that you’ve had maybe in many cases for your entire life kind of explaining your own underperformance or why things didn’t work out the way you thought they would or, you know, why you haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to this thing as you thought you would. Yeah. You’re gonna have to let that go. Yeah. Yeah, it’s like again it comes back to the the pure steel thing about about reality. It’s like the the best the best people uh at not procrastinating are the people who are the most realistic and who understand they’re like yeah that’s just the story I tell myself to justify like not doing the thing I don’t want to do. And that sucks. Like it’s it’s it’s the sort of thing that like when you let it go it’s painful but then once it’s gone it’s liberating. Right. So yeah, that goes back a little bit to we can uh sneak forward back in here if we want to. The defense mechanisms, right? Uh you have to let go of those and recognize that that’s what you’re doing is you’re just protecting your little ego and letting go of those that can be a painful thing, too, because those defense mechanisms, they’re defensive. They protect you in some way, but they’re protecting you in a way that’s holding you back. So recognizing that, like you said, at first, yes, it’s painful. Rip the band-aid off, you adapt. Comes back to the the ego flexibility and Yes. Um and and not building an ego around the lower values, building them over o over the higher values. Yeah. All right. What’s the next one? Uh disconnecting from bad influences. So we mentioned this a little bit already, but there’s going to be people uh and situations in your life that are not conducive to you getting things done and you taking care of uh what you really want to get done in your life. And you’re going to have to remove yourself from some of those situations or some of those relationships that you have. And that’s also painful. those relationships have served some sort of purpose in your life. May it might not be a healthy purpose but have served some purpose in your life and you’re going to have to uh leave those in some way, shape or form and that will be painful. If there are, you know, certain work there’s going to be situations too where it’s like in work situations where you might not be able to get away from somebody. You’re going to have to set up some boundaries that might be a little bit have some uncomfortable conversations with these people. It’s going to be there’s a there’s more opportunities for you to manage emotions. Let’s just say that in these situations. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s you know in some cases it will be removing the people from your life or or reducing your exposure to the people in your life and in other cases it will be managing that relationship in your life and even more important than simply like who’s in your life and who’s not. It it’s really paying attention to who are you seeking validation from. Ask yourself are you do you respect the person you’re trying to win respect from? Because in a lot of cases you don’t. So like why the [ __ ] are you trying to earn their respect? It makes no sense, but it is very human, right? Like we kind of default to just wanting to be approved by the people around us, right? So I if the people around us are actually people that we don’t really respect or uh value their judgment highly, we should have a difficult conversation with ourselves of like why am I trying to win the approval of this person? Like I should find somebody a little bit more admirable to uh try to get validation from. Yeah. And I I I do think there is a little bit of a misconception in just self-help in general, which is that like there’s like a cliched advice of like, you know, stop seeking validation from others. I I think that’s impossible. It’s it’s not you don’t stop seeking validations from others. You you seek validations for from better people and for better reasons, right? That they’re more in line with your values, more in line with what you want to get done, with who you want to be, right? So again, it’s like finding that lever to push you in the right direction. All right, last one. As we’re talking about uh relationships with with other people, and this is going to this is definitely a champagne problem. Yeah. uh you will have this problem. You you will not mind having this problem. But it is a problem nonetheless, which is the more effective you become as a person, the more productive you are, the more successful you are, the more you get things done, accomplish your goals, the more the people around you will expect of you. Yeah. Yeah. The higher the standard you will be held to by others. And in some cases, people will not like holding you to that stand. They won’t like that you’re that productive or that effective. And so they might there might be a little bit of backlash among some people, but for the most part, people will respect and admire it, but they’ll also, you know, you’ll set the bar high for yourself. And that can be stressful and intimidating at times. It can feel unfair at times. Uh but it’s also again, I think it’s a positive social pressure, right? Like if the people around you see you as somebody who performs well and is diligent and is reliable, that puts social pressure on you to be those things. And ultimately that’s a good thing. Yeah. So it’s a it’s an example of a desirable stress I would say. In fact I would say most of these are desirable stresses. I would say most of these in most cases are things that you would like to trade off. So don’t don’t get the wrong idea that this these are any reasons to not fix your procrastination. We’re just trying to be realistic of like hey if you get your procrastination handled here’s what you can expect on the other side. Right. Yeah. And with the higher expectations one too that you got to be careful because then you lead into the situations where you’re not saying no. Um and we talked about that the certain type of uh procrastinator uh who who takes on too much at that point too and then you just end up procrastinating more. So yeah that’s it’s a it’s a hazard but it’s a good hazard. Yeah. Good hazard. Yeah. All right we’re at the end finally. Before we sign off, Drew, uh, I’m curious in all the research and prep and recording that we’ve done for this episode, um, has anything have you been inspired to change anything in your life, has there been any like kind of tangible takeaway for you going through this process? Yeah, I’m I’m so researching this a long time ago, right? Um, I did my own little experiment and um I borrowed a Nintendo Switch from a from a friend and I said it it’s like not too far away from my office so it’s really easy for me to go in and out. I was like, “Okay, how how bad are these distractions?” So, we’re talking about the environmental side of it. It’s bad. It’s very, very bad. And what it did for me is it really made me get uh again get honest. I knew that being honest with myself was actually a key to this. You know, don’t don’t buy the food. Don’t don’t buy the junk food and put it in the fridge. all that kind of stuff. I already knew that. I though realized really the impact of environment really came home for me and in a lot of this. But what the I took it one step further too and it was very surprising to me just to learn how important emotions are. I mean I knew they were important. I knew procrastination on some level was uh was an emotional problem. But I think we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all an emotional problem. It’s not it’s not there’s an emotional component to it. It’s just baseline an emotional problem that you have to deal with. Yeah. All this other stuff, environment, social connections, relationships, even ego stuff, like it’s only relevant in so much as it alters and affects your emotions. Right. Right. Like your ego is only a problem with procrastination if your ego is causing negative emotions to to prevent you from actually doing the thing you want to do. Yeah. In so far as though what I’ve I’ve changed specifically, I’ve used more of the mindfulness, like the rain method. And um I’ve I’ve definitely implemented that into my daily um habits and routines. Now when I start to procrastinate on something, I’m I’m much better at it now, too. Just stopping catching myself. Okay, what’s going on? And achieving that last step in the rain model, uh which is nonidentification. I’m like, oh, this is what I’m feeling right now. I’m not gonna identify with it so much that it’s just going to derail my next hour or day or whatever. So that’s been a huge win for me. Anyway, that’s funny cuz it’s Yeah. prepping for this episode is I mean I’ve been thinking about it for a while like as you know I’ve been I’ve gone in and out of meditation quite a bit throughout my adult life and done it very intensely for periods and done it not at all for periods. I’m currently in a not at all period but it’s funny prepping for this episode. It’s making me think that I should kind of get back on the meditation train. Um, you know, I I’ve done it on and off mainly to kind of help manage the ADHD. I’ve definitely noticed over the last year, year and a half. I am becoming a lot more distractable. Uh, and I I am a lot like I’m the stimulus junkie in me is like is getting is is is becoming a little bit of a a dope fiend. Um, and it was just interesting going through all this research and and really seeing the importance of that self-awareness, the importance of boredom, the importance of being able to sit in stillness and recognize emotions and and you know that gap. So in Buddhism they they talk about the gap between the emotion and the action, you know, and it’s like the more you meditate, the wider that gap gets. And I’ve definitely felt my gap shrinking over the past couple years. And um I I don’t think I I don’t think it’s resulted in a huge problem with procrastination. I’ I’ve been very productive recently, but just in terms of like mental health and general well-being and happiness, it’s kind of inspired me a little bit to uh maybe get back on the mat. Yeah. And and put some time in again. Yeah. I recently uh heard that that gap the way that was described was the gap between uh uh whatever happens to you and your reaction. in between is your interpretation and that’s what you can control. Yeah. And that definitely through all of this too has been kind of a a motto of mine as well. It’s like okay you can’t control what happens to you. Sometimes you can’t like your reaction uh is sometimes not what you control either but the interpretation in between and then it can um obviously influence the action that you take. So that that’s been a big one for me too. Another mindfulness little trick that Yeah. Cool. That’s it. I think so. We made it. We made it. We will be back next month with an episode on emotional regulation. Yeah, since it is we I think we realized researching this one, we’re like, yeah, if this is all about emotional regulation, we should probably just do an episode. That’s going to be a foundation. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, all right. And finally, if you have listened to all of this and you want to start taking some action on this stuff, we have an amazing online community that is designed to do exactly that. So, we break every episode down into 30-day challenges with daily exercises and implementations. We also connect you with like-minded people who are doing the same thing as well. The community is called Momentum, and it’s it’s incredible. Honestly, it’s just it’s full of the smart, hardworking people who just want to get this area of their life solved once and for all. So, in momentum, the whole point is to build a habit of action. It’s to get those small wins, get the momentum towards doing something. Too many people sit around, listen to a bunch of podcasts, and don’t ever do anything. We’re trying to fix that. Too many people also think that the solution to their problems is a huge transformational moment. No, it’s actually just getting up and doing a little bit more each and every day. It’s gaining that momentum. So, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast and you want to know how to implement these lessons into your life, check out the Momentum Community. We have a 30-day course that breaks everything that you just heard down into bite-sized, actionable chunks. so that you can actually make some progress on it and get more [ __ ] done. To learn more, go to findmomentum.com/procrastination. That’s find ndmomentum.com/procrastination. The link is also in the description below. I will see you all there. [Music]
47 Comments
wow nice 🙏
you really think people going to watch a 5 hour podcast on how to stop wasting time? smh
This is an immense amount of work you and your team have down for this. Thank you so much. I can get so much from this and apply it.
Hi mark, the podcast was great, I just want to add one more point to the “hidden cost of overcoming procrastination”, you did mention that as you do more and achieve more, others expect more from you. But it’s true in reverse as well, because you are overcoming procrastination, you start to almost feel frustrated by people who keep making excuses or find reasons to procrastinate. I have seen it as a common pattern and it should be mentioned how to deal with this frustration that comes from others around you procrastinating while you are doing everything you can.
Gotta see every episode through. Thank you guys for doing this good work. Very helpful and well thought.
Please make it in Hindi dubbed audio, pleasee search on the Internet that How many billion people speak Hindi, Across how many countries, Thank you.
Excellent, excellent, excellent!!!!😊😊😊😊 Can't wait to watch the next one!❤❤❤❤
Mark, how much money do you need to earn to feel happy?
I'm asking because it seems like you're focusing more on monetization now than on genuinely helping people.
Instead of talking for four hours, why not just show what it really means to break procrastination — not with words, but with action.
I found meaning in your books. I found meaning in how you used to approach and help people in real life.
But now, it feels like you've become just a talking head — not the superhero I once imagined.
I’ll always love your books and admire the way you used to live.
But please, stop talking — do something real. That WILL help.
Also make a SOLVED about Addiction
I would procrastinate but I'm too lazy
This video + Procrastination Rewired literally changed the game for me. I used to waste hours just overthinking and doing nothing, but after applying the techniques from the book (and your tips here), I actually started finishing my projects! Can’t recommend this combo enough.
My brain : So we have 3 Physics finals in the upcoming week, so why u not watch a 4 hour video about procrastination?
Me: Sure let's do that
Cool 4h? I'm gonna listen before the laundry
Really like this new format excited for future episodes
Please the next podcast should be on" how to learn information" Active Recall
I will keep this open in a tab for the next months and watch later
Halfway through this episode, I realized I wasn’t lazy, I was stuck in fear loops and identity conflict, just like they said. Pairing this with The Secret Signs of the Universe from Zeptiverse helped me reconnect with why I started in the first place. Procrastination stopped being a battle and became a signal. Anyone interested in shifting their life for the better should check it out asap.
I just can’t believe have this on free what era we living. Thank you guys may God bless you 🙏
I thought I understood how the world works—until I read The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel. It felt like someone ripped the blindfold off my eyes and showed me the architecture of control that’s been here for centuries. This isn’t just a book. It’s forbidden awareness in printed form.
They bury this kind of knowledge for a reason. The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel doesn’t just talk about truth—it bleeds with it. I couldn’t sleep the night I finished it. Not because I was scared… but because I finally understood why we’re kept distracted.
While everyone argues over politics and news, The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel quietly explains how the real game is played. The moment I read it, everything around me looked different. It’s like it gave me the decoder ring for reality.
Again, another life changing podcast from mark!!❤
I’ve spent years chasing answers in documentaries, podcasts, even ancient texts—and none of it hit me the way The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel did. It’s like it was written for the few who are ready to break the illusion and remember who they really are.
You ever read something that feels like it was never meant to be in your hands? That’s exactly how The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel felt. Ancient wisdom, modern exposure, and a terrifying amount of truth packed into one single source.
No algorithm will show you The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel by accident. I found it when I needed it most—when I was questioning everything. And now I realize, that was no coincidence. This book finds the seekers.
After reading The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel, I started noticing things I used to ignore—symbols, patterns, systems. It’s like it turned a light on in a room I didn’t know existed. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Forget what you think you know about power, influence, or history. The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel doesn’t play by those rules. It shows you what’s beneath them—the skeleton of truth that’s been dressed up and hidden from public view.
They call it “exiled” for a reason. The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel doesn’t give you comfort—it gives you clarity. The kind of clarity that shakes you, breaks your old beliefs, and dares you to build something stronger from the ashes.
This isn’t a book for people who want motivation or feel-good quotes. The Exiled Principles of Power by Kairo Vantrel is for those who want to see the raw mechanics of reality—the codes, the lies, and the power behind the curtain. It’s not safe. It’s real.
pomodoro works for me more like the "do something principle". Would be: okay I'll do 20 mins of my uni assignment now and I would get faster into school work mode than if I just said "I'll write one sentence of this assignment" cause if I'd just write one sentence I would quit and get a nice sandwich instead
It's the first time I sit down and watch a podcast, I like the visual references that are included. I feel like I don't need to research anything regarding the topic, that everything is truly covered really carefully with enough context, it's wonderful. Great content!
Where are the notes? I visited the website and can’t find anything.
embrace niksen.
Great work guys!!! AT 68 not sure how to use it all. Used alot of this to have the momentum in my career…for some reason I still want to do MORE….but lose now the motivation…. I do new things then crap out and stop….. Been with you since the start Mark and will stick with it….TRedd
People like him make a living on the back of the self neglect. Making "content" that actually is harmful. Are you really going to watch a 4h video on procrastination? Thats ironic. No video on youtube is going to change your life. They are brands, paid to keep you watching their illusion crap.
You want to help yourself ? Listen and be true to yourself. You wont need anything
Alright a 4 HOUR LONG video/podcast about figuring out procrastination. Let’s go!!
Still waiting for an episode on relationships aka Models sequel.
Mark, your take on Augustine is really squinted, for this man did not claim that he didn't sin after that particular conversion. And I would love for you to actually read the whole confessions. You'll pretty much realise that God isn't a finger wagging bearded man in the sky, he's actually a kind father who sees the faults of each one of us in perspective. Please read his commentary on the prodigal son.
Hey Mark Manson, really enjoyed this video! Just a thought — repurposing clips like this into short-form videos (Reels, Shorts, TikToks) could massively boost your reach. I help creators do that without needing to film anything extra. Let me know if you’d like to explore it!
Brilliant. Love the effort and risk taken to mix up the formula of the internet's systemised "for views" approach to self-help. Shows these people actually care about what they're telling you.
WHY COMPLAIN SO MUCH ABOUT A 4-HOUR VIDEO?
I can't understand why people complain so much about a video that's four hours long. What's the big deal? Have you never been to school? Didn't you sit in a chair for 5 hours watching lectures? This video is a lesson. You sit down and watch it. What's the big deal? And you can watch it bit by bit, over several days. Don't you watch 8-hour series on Netflix? Don't you watch 3-hour movies?
Whether the format is effective or not is a question for Mark to resolve. Does watching take work? Yes, but living is work.
I am Loving the in depth long form! Thank you!
1:32:06
No one says pot-aahh-to. Ever.
STOP WASTING TIME… By NOT watching 4+ hour podcasts.
Please make videos that are between 60 to 90 minutes. Podcasts that respect my time become podcasts that I listen to.
'Emotions tend to be fun house mirrors' – it's a wow analogy and just great reminder.
This episode is a self reflecting episode.