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but can be an impulsive bunch and have perfectionistic tendencies. “They abandon long-term goals for immediate rewards,” says Molnar. “A person may have a report that he or she is working on and can be invested in the task, but when feeling frustrated, he or she may abandon the report to go out with friends on a nice sunny day.” As for perfectionism, Molnar says people with perfectionistic concerns, defined as those who set super-high standards and feel compelled to reach them, tend to be preoccupied with what other people think of them, are more sensitive to external pressure and criticisms and are motivated by fear of failure. “They’re so afraid of not meeting their loſty goals that they tend to ruminate about their negative feelings surrounding the task and engage in avoidance techniques rather than make meaningful progress toward their goals,” she says. These people are more likely to manage their negative feelings by disengaging from the task altogether. Consider writer’s block — “you can easily imagine a person higher in perfectionistic concerns trying so hard to find that perfect word that he or she never actually gets the word down.” (Guilty, as charged.) The point in all of this is that despite the fact that so many of us do it, there are no benefits to procrastination. “It’s self-defeating. We’re delaying not because it’s the best choice at the time, but because we can’t face the task, so we escape it,” says Pychyl. He adds that if we look at ourselves in the future — something he has been focusing on in recent research — we can actually reduce our dilly-dallying by developing empathy for our future selves, realizing that procrastination hurts more than helps. “If you’ve developed the habit as one of your go-to coping responses, you’re in trouble,” he says. And there’s the good news in all this: procrastination is a bad habit and bad habits can be broken. Here’s how to get
out of that pattern of postponement today (read: not tomorrow).
Get mood out of your head That’s Pychyl’s No. 1 tip on beating procrastination. “Being in the mood is not a prerequisite for getting things done. If it were, I wouldn’t get much of anything done,” he admits. “I can be aware of my feelings such as, I don’t want to do this, but then I simply ask myself, What would be the next action on this project if I were to begin? I keep this action very concrete so it seems easy and doable.” From this perspective, action doesn’t follow motivation (which we typically believe), but motivation follows action.
Just get started “Today I was on the ground floor of a building where I work on the 15th floor, but I had a meeting on the 18th floor. I take the stairs, but I never feel like taking the stairs,” says Pychyl. “In fact, on the way to the building my mind was busy making excuses as to why I didn’t have to today — I would be late for my meeting, I had already done many stairs, I’m tired. I accepted that my mind was doing this. When I reached the building, I simply opened the door to the stairwell and took the first step. I can always quit if I want, but getting started is everything!” That’s Pychyl’s motto — “just get started.” Sometimes that’s all it takes to avert your penchant for procrastination.
Take away temptation To Piers Steel, a professor at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary and author of The Procrastination Equation, the problem procrastinators have is oſten with temptations. He says we need to figure out what’s distancing us from our tasks — it could be Facebook, a trip to Starbucks, a time-sucking game on your smartphone, etc. — then make it harder to get to that temptation by controlling
its proximity to you. When I tell him the culprit for my procrastination is too oſten Netflix, he tells me to simply remove the Netflix app from my laptop and smartphone so that I can only watch The Mindy Project on television, making it less available to me. It’s the same reason why people who go to the gym on their way home from the office are more likely to work out — “if when you’re driving home and you go by your gym and have your gym bag in your car, there’s a much better chance you’ll actually go than if you have to go home first and pick up your gym bag.”
Get specific Sometimes it’s hard to have a firm mental idea of what we should be doing next, Steel says. That’s where goal-setting comes into play. “Define your task as if you’re explaining it to a lazy six-year- old. The more specific you can be about a task, the better. For example, don’t just say you’re writing this weekend. Say you’re writing on Saturday. Now sharpen that to the time you’re writing on Saturday and where,” he says. “And decide on a cue. Maybe it’s aſter bringing your breakfast dishes to the sink — that’s your cue to go to your computer and start working.”
Find your magic time When your energy level peaks — whether you’re an early bird, a night owl or you fall somewhere in between — that’s your magic time and it should be reserved for committing to getting the hard stuff done, says Steel. This isn’t the time to put away laundry, check Instagram or pay bills. This surge of get-up-and-go should be set aside for that specific job you’ve had trouble starting. “It will take half as long to do when you have the most energy; it will get done so much quicker that you’ll have more time to reward yourself. The more productive you are, the greater the payoff in leisure time.” — Lisa van de Geyn
NOVEMBER 2017 | CPA MAGAZINE | 17
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