Five tips for overcoming procrastination
- Visualize the benefits of accomplishing your goals.
How can we get people to be willing to do things that don't bring immediate benefits, like how can we get people to save?
The study found that when participants saw pictures of their future and felt more realistic about the future, they had very different views on saving money. Four experiments were conducted, and all subjects were asked how much they would be willing to save from a thousand dollars. If the subjects saw themselves on the computer as they were before, their brains could really feel the future, and they saved twice as much money as the others.
If you have something on your to-do list that you haven't wanted to do, as long as you carefully visualize the benefits of doing it in your mind, you'll be motivated to do it.
- Give yourself a small reward that you can enjoy right away.
If you've made a long-term plan that takes a long time to see results, then you can commit to yourself that you'll get a small prize first by completing a small step in the plan.
- Make taking the first step into a happy event.
When you're afraid to do something, you can start by finding the "minimal first step", calm yourself down, and start moving forward. If you are not afraid, but are just holding back and don’t want to do it, you can actually use this trick to make your brain think that the short-term cost is not high.
In addition, you can also associate "the smallest first step" with "what I am looking forward to today", that is to say, tie the things you want to avoid and the things you don't want to avoid. This is where a "if...then..." formula can be used, for example, if you walk through a green park that puts you in a good mood, take a moment to think about the job you're avoiding.
We can rely on small rewards to convince our brains that what we are about to do is actually an opportunity to enjoy.
- Remind yourself of the consequences of not doing it.
People evaluate the pros and cons of doing something. What if they don't? What if the status quo persists? People usually don't think about the consequences of inaction. This phenomenon is called cognitive bias. "Do nothing" feels more appealing than the other options. This is how procrastination occurs.
For example, you have a friend who is always procrastinating, so she imagines the outcome of her being unprepared and realizes this is her worst nightmare. She may shiver on stage and speak in a hard way. After imagining this, she has the drive to execute.
- You can't go back when you say it.
If #4 doesn't give you the motivation to act, you can announce to everyone in advance that you want to do something. Research has shown that when people resist temptation, some preparation and commitment in advance is more useful than relying on willpower. This is because the threat and reward systems in the brain care so much about what other people think of us. Announcing one's own plans adds to the cost of non-completion. No one wants others to think they are funny or lazy. For example, many people will tell all their friends after signing up for a marathon.