The Art of Manliness - #356： How to Finally Beat Procrastination

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast procrastination

00:00:19.780 we've all done it and we tell ourselves we'll never do it again so we come up with elaborate

00:00:23.700 time management systems to get us back on track only to find ourselves continuing to put things

00:00:28.560 off while some procrastination can be mildly infuriating chronic procrastination can be

00:00:32.920 financially professionally and personally devastating overdue bills result in calls from

00:00:37.600 collection agencies late reports result in getting fired and undone chores turn your house into a dump

00:00:42.860 why do we procrastinate despite our best intentions not to and despite knowing the fact that it hurts

00:00:48.020 us well my guest dave are clinical psychologists who have spent their career working with

00:00:51.800 procrastinators their names are jane burka and lenora yuen they're the co-authors of the book

00:00:55.960 procrastination why you do it what to do about it now and today on the show we begin our

00:01:00.220 conversation discussing the difference between procrastination and strategically putting things

00:01:04.600 off or postponing things they then take us through the cycle of procrastination that we've all been

00:01:08.560 through and explain why it's such a vicious loop we then transition to talk about why we procrastinate

00:01:12.940 and why faulty time management isn't the actual root cause of most procrastination jane and lenora

00:01:18.140 argue that if we don't tackle the true origin of procrastination which can range from fear of failure

00:01:22.640 to perfectionism to fear of success no amount of time management or planning will help you we dig

00:01:27.220 in on how to tackle these roots so you can exit the procrastinator cycle and get stuff done this

00:01:31.560 podcast is filled with great insights and actual advice don't put off listening to a dude today after

00:01:36.120 the show's over check out the show notes at a1.is procrastination jane burka lenora yuen welcome to the

00:01:45.800 show thank you brett hi nice to be here all right so you two are psychologists who have

00:01:51.120 specialized in procrastination which i think is interesting so it's an interesting topic to decide

00:01:56.880 you know you're gonna that's what you're gonna go in deep so i'm curious how did you two get

00:02:01.680 interested in studying that particular experience and how did you two connect and start working

00:02:05.620 together to write this book back in 1983 and then you know doing a second edition update edition

00:02:10.700 you know almost 20 years later 25 it was the 25th anniversary yes

00:02:15.480 well we met when we were both on the staff at the counseling center at the university of california

00:02:23.320 berkeley and decided to offer a procrastination group for students and as you might imagine

00:02:32.060 procrastination is pretty much rampant on every college campus so it was a very popular group

00:02:39.060 but why procrastination well jane and i each had a lifetime of experience of personal insider experience

00:02:50.460 of procrastinating yes for example when i went to graduate school in new york it took me 10 years

00:02:59.160 to finish to get my dissertation done i i sped through classes and then when it came time for the

00:03:07.020 dissertation i just couldn't do it and so it was a very painful experience actually because people

00:03:14.400 who started after me were finishing i had a job i was working in my field but i didn't have my phd i

00:03:21.640 couldn't be licensed i couldn't hang out my shingle and so it was a very difficult struggle and it got to the

00:03:29.540 point where i didn't want to talk to my advisor then i didn't want to go to the building where my advisor

00:03:35.540 was then i didn't want to get off the bus near the building where my advisor was you know i was really

00:03:41.700 in major avoidance and so both lenora and i know what it is to suffer when you put things off and we

00:03:50.540 also know i'm happy to say what it is to mostly overcome that problem because both of us now are

00:03:57.220 really pretty good so were there a lot of people researching procrastination back when you originally

00:04:01.620 published your book no not at all there were a couple of books about procrastination that basically

00:04:08.720 said okay just do it you know don't be you know be rational be reasonable and you know it's very simple

00:04:17.560 just manage your time and set goals and just do it um there was no research to speak of at that time

00:04:24.840 not at all really yeah and now there are probably well over a thousand research studies maybe many

00:04:32.940 more than that and many people around the world who are actually studying this so we feel very proud

00:04:40.020 actually to have had a part in highlighting a problem that really can plague people on the surface

00:04:49.200 it can look you know like not a big deal or something to joke about i can't tell you how many

00:04:55.180 procrastination jokes we've heard people you know try to find a way to make light of it but really as

00:05:02.340 jane was saying people can suffer really significant consequences and let let me also say that procrastination

00:05:11.720 in and of itself isn't good or bad it's not even always a problem you know we all procrastinate on

00:05:18.000 little things or things that don't really matter to us but what we're talking about here is the

00:05:24.820 procrastination that we do in addressing things that are really important to us that we really want to

00:05:33.660 do or that we need to do and then when we don't do them we end up suffering consequences in the world

00:05:41.480 or consequences within ourselves of feeling just awful that really end up being self-defeating so one of

00:05:49.780 the things that we've said for decades now is that we are not anti-procrastination but we are anti-self

00:05:57.740 defeat because procrastination is self-sabotage and so you know people think that especially people who

00:06:08.260 don't procrastinate they don't understand it at all like you know i can get my work done why can't you

00:06:13.260 but procrastination when it has this self-sabotaging function is much more psychological than it is about

00:06:21.780 just being rational or getting things done in a timely way you know being being behavioral but the

00:06:28.100 research now around procrastination is interesting because we always talk about procrastination being

00:06:35.640 related to perfectionism and some of the research has indicated that procrastination and perfectionism

00:06:43.740 are not related but we challenge that because those research studies use self-report they ask people

00:06:53.520 are you a perfectionist and then the people say yes or no well most procrastinators don't notice that

00:06:59.380 they're perfectionistic in fact they say i'm not a perfectionist i don't get my work done on time

00:07:04.280 but perfectionism is an attitude so we we are clinicians and that means that we have seen

00:07:12.060 perfectionism in most of the people we see who have a problem with procrastination so even the

00:07:18.280 research that has come out isn't always clinically accurate in our opinion so yeah i'd love to get into

00:07:25.100 some of what you guys see as the root causes this idea is procrastination being self-sabotage but let's

00:07:30.020 go back to this idea what is procrastination and you mentioned sort of you have a good definition

00:07:33.920 but i'm curious i'm always whenever i'm looking at my to-do list and i put something off i'm wondering

00:07:40.000 is this procrastination or am i tabling this because it's just not the right time to do this

00:07:45.960 so how do you how do you all differentiate between like tabling an item and okay you're now officially

00:07:51.520 procrastinating well you know as i said earlier sometimes procrastination is not a problem and

00:07:58.080 sometimes tabling something is really the very best thing for you to do you know let's face it we're

00:08:03.960 all way too busy these days we all have too much to do you can't do it all something's got to give

00:08:10.940 so if you table something because you have more important issues to deal with or actions to take

00:08:17.960 that may be a good thing if you table something because you really need to take a little more time to

00:08:25.620 think it through and weigh your options that may be a good thing i think the way to tell whether you

00:08:34.800 are entering this territory of self-sabotage or self-defeat with procrastination is to look at the

00:08:42.440 consequences you know are you getting yourself into trouble are you being passed over for promotions

00:08:49.420 are is your partner getting pissed off at you all the time because you're late all the time or

00:08:56.240 you know your partner asks you to do something and you don't and then they feel thwarted and they're mad

00:09:01.760 are you having to pay penalties to the irs because you didn't file your taxes or maybe even not collecting

00:09:10.140 refunds that are due to you because you haven't filed your taxes you'd be surprised how many people

00:09:16.220 don't file their taxes even when they have money coming back so lenora is talking about the external

00:09:23.800 consequences the consequences in the world in your job or in your relationships but then they're also

00:09:32.180 internal consequences and those are the kind of feelings and upset anxiety shame humiliation

00:09:42.940 the feeling that you're a fraud you know if you manage to pull it out at the last minute and it's good

00:09:48.820 enough you know then you feel like well i fooled him so you can be you can get it done but you have a

00:09:55.560 feeling of fraudulence there's so much anxiety connected to procrastination as the deadline approaches

00:10:04.060 and you haven't done it there's a lot of shame in feeling like you're behind again and so the internal

00:10:12.940 consequences of bad feelings that's part of it and then there are also physical consequences sometimes

00:10:19.640 you know if you build up a lot of anxiety you can get an ulcer you can get headaches you can get high

00:10:24.360 blood pressure i think that if you look at the consequences on a continuum the more serious the

00:10:31.640 consequences internal and external the more likely procrastination really is a problem and you know

00:10:37.680 brett i also would like to say that sometimes people don't think of it as procrastinating but it was

00:10:45.800 very much avoidance like for me that took one of the the forms that took was math anxiety my father

00:10:54.860 was an engineer and math was easy for him and it was not easy for me and i avoided every complicated

00:11:03.340 math class that i could because i only wanted to get a's and i knew that i wouldn't get a an a in math

00:11:10.760 so that is a more subtle form of procrastination but it's avoidance nonetheless gotcha so in the book you

00:11:21.100 talk about this idea of the cycle of procrastination when you describe this cycle it's like i've been

00:11:26.900 there so can you kind of walk us through that cycle and how does this cycle perpetuate itself well

00:11:32.920 it perpetuates it's the cycle of procrastination is this typical pattern of a feeling in the beginning

00:11:40.380 like well i know i'm supposed to do something but i don't have to do it yet and there's more time and

00:11:46.540 maybe the deadline is not really very firm and you don't really take it that seriously and then as

00:11:52.740 time passes and you realize that really it is something you should be doing then there's the

00:11:58.540 buildup of anxiety like well i better get going and some people at that point go to the movies you

00:12:04.820 know and some people at that point actually might start but maybe they haven't really allowed enough

00:12:09.800 time so as the deadline approaches there's this this terrible buildup feeling of well i just have to

00:12:17.860 get it done now you know and i'm going to pull an all-nighter i'm going to spend all weekend i'm going

00:12:22.600 to do whatever it takes and when somebody finally gets started most of the time there's a feeling like

00:12:29.240 you know this isn't so bad i don't know why i waited so long to do this and then when the time comes

00:12:36.600 that the thing is over if you have achieved it you feel like oh thank goodness i finally made it

00:12:43.260 and i'm never going to do this again i'm never going to procrastinate again and then this the it's

00:12:48.600 also possible that the deadline passes you haven't done what you needed to do you didn't turn in the

00:12:55.160 application for the job you know you didn't pay on time and then you feel terrible about yourself

00:13:01.980 you know i'm such an idiot why did i do this to myself again so that's the cycle and it perpetuates

00:13:09.480 itself because there's a kind of a magical feeling that next time it's going to be different and if

00:13:16.900 you don't do anything different or think through things differently it's not going to be different

00:13:21.780 next time that's wishful thinking and you all talked about earlier how when you first started with

00:13:26.640 your research most of the books about procrastination out there about like oh you procrastinate just do it

00:13:31.680 get a better time management system prioritize your tasks etc etc but you all argue that the problem

00:13:38.340 runs deeper than that you can do those things and it's probably not going to help you so let's dig into

00:13:43.180 the root causes of procrastination we'll we can go into specifics later on but what is generally the

00:13:48.240 the big overarching reasons why people procrastinate well i think that probably what we would say

00:13:54.900 is that the big issue is a feeling of unworthiness that takes the form of feeling afraid of feeling vulnerable

00:14:08.500 of feeling as jane mentioned earlier a sense of shame about who you really are or what you really can do

00:14:18.300 and what you really think and so procrastination becomes a way of managing

00:14:26.060 very vulnerable feelings and fears that you're really not good enough a fear of insufficiency of one

00:14:37.460 sort or another and and i think for men there's a lot of fear about being weak or about not somehow not

00:14:47.760 being big enough strong enough not measuring up not measuring up procrastination can be a way

00:14:56.860 not to quite feel those feelings directly and to and and to retreat and avoid those difficult feelings

00:15:05.460 so what we're saying is the procrastination oddly enough it's kind of paradoxical it's the lesser of

00:15:12.600 evils because you get upset with yourself for procrastinating and that's something that's very

00:15:19.420 ordinary and that people can accept about themselves you know i waited too long i should have started

00:15:25.360 sooner i didn't leave enough time those are acceptable self-criticisms whereas i'm afraid i'm afraid i'm

00:15:34.760 not good enough i'm afraid if i give all the time i have and try my best and it's still not good enough

00:15:41.900 that's something they don't have to face when you procrastinate so it's kind of a paradoxical solution

00:15:48.360 to a problem of self-esteem so yeah so there's a fear of failure is one of those things and i think

00:15:54.580 that's where the perfection comes in right perfectionists they're afraid of failing afraid of

00:15:59.080 being less than perfect and so to protect themselves from that feeling of failure they put things off

00:16:05.200 right you know we you bring up fear of failure the main three fears that we have unearthed are fear of

00:16:11.740 failure fear of success and fear of feeling controlled so fear of failure as you say is really rooted

00:16:19.860 in that basic feeling that you're not good enough and the anxiety that that is going to be known that

00:16:29.740 you're going to be exposed as not good enough and so you feel like everything you do has your whole

00:16:36.940 worth riding on it and so if you wait until the last minute and then you do something and it's it's okay

00:16:46.640 you can feel like oh well i'm really terrific and and then i'm not a failure but if you wait a long

00:16:53.600 time and it's not good enough that's a terrible terrible feeling so people delay in order not to

00:17:01.200 do their best in order never to test whether their best is good enough because they can say well you

00:17:07.820 know if i had more time if i got started earlier it would have been better but i you know i i did good

00:17:12.460 enough for the amount of time i i had that's right so paradoxically procrastination allows you to

00:17:19.680 relax that standard of perfectionism you know because when you wait till the last minute you

00:17:26.060 you can't do it perfectly anymore you know all you can do is just get the darn thing done and so

00:17:33.020 what's being evaluated really is your skill at brinksmanship rather than what is your best effort

00:17:41.920 your best effort stays hidden and unknown to other people and sadly to yourself and i thought the

00:17:50.360 interesting thing was the fear of success because like you're thinking oh it's success why would why

00:17:54.300 would anyone be afraid of success so first off like why are people afraid of success and how does that

00:17:59.480 perpetuate procrastination well everybody makes the assumption that we all want to be successful and

00:18:05.060 more successful and more successful but actually success is like a rose with a lot of thorns on it you

00:18:11.460 know there are real dangers to success for some people for example if you are the first person in

00:18:19.580 your family to go to college and you do well in college the consequence of that is that it puts you at a

00:18:27.120 much greater distance from your family they don't know what your life is like they haven't been through

00:18:32.860 this experience you can't talk to them get advice from them so the farther you move away and become

00:18:40.200 more successful than people in your own family the more difficult it is it feels like a threat to

00:18:45.180 relationship and in other relationships you know for many people there's an experience of competition

00:18:55.120 now the competition may not be overt it might just be in your own mind but you know there it feels like

00:19:02.400 they're winners or losers and theoretically you'd want to win but what if you do what if you end up being

00:19:11.320 at the top for for some people being the winner brings with it worries about being envied or having other

00:19:22.480 people want to really compete with you and bring they want to be at the top and they want to get you

00:19:28.820 out of the number one position so there's again a sense of exposure and a kind of vulnerability

00:19:37.080 in being at the top that some people avoid with procrastination you know one young man we talked to

00:19:45.640 many years ago said you know success is kind of like an escalator you take a step on and there's no

00:19:52.920 place off until you get to the top and what if you don't want to be at the top you know what if it

00:19:59.880 makes you anxious to think about being at the top procrastination can be a way not to get on that

00:20:06.900 escalator to success it's another fear of success could be the fear of like added responsibility

00:20:12.540 added responsibility exactly and also then you know being closer to the decision makers and sometimes

00:20:20.120 you might want to be a person who you know carries out decisions but you don't want to be the decision

00:20:25.680 maker i worked with someone who took a job really liked his boss didn't very much like the guy who was

00:20:33.860 above his boss and after about six months on the job his boss left and went to a different position

00:20:41.000 he was now moved into that slot so that he had to deal directly with the guy at the top and it was not

00:20:49.620 an easy relationship and it really affected his feelings about his job and he slowed down his work

00:20:57.580 he he didn't really want to be in that position he started procrastinating on his work the guy his boss

00:21:04.060 got irritated he got in trouble you know his job went from being a pleasure to being miserable so even

00:21:09.820 though he got a promotion it was not a promotion that he wanted or enjoyed or did well at and i think

00:21:15.100 connected to this fear of success is like the fear of control because as you get more successful yes you

00:21:20.200 gain some freedom but you also become more constricted in a lot of ways because you have

00:21:24.440 these added responsibilities so let's talk about that that fear of loss of control well you know

00:21:29.880 for some people i mean we all need to feel like we can control some of the aspects of our lives if if we

00:21:38.900 don't it's a very kind of hopeless helpless feeling to to feel that you have to be passive but there are

00:21:47.560 some people who have a lot of sensitivity to the issues of control and who define their own sense of

00:21:56.400 their self in terms of their capacity not to be controlled or to or their their feeling that they

00:22:05.680 are autonomous nobody can tell them what to do the rules don't apply to them you know so for these

00:22:15.320 people procrastination can be a way to assert autonomy and preserve a sense of strength and power

00:22:25.920 now it's all indirect it's not directly saying you know i've got control but indirectly you say

00:22:34.080 you can't make me do what you want to do i'm gonna i'm the boss and i'm only gonna do what i want to do

00:22:41.800 and at the time i want to do it right it's passive aggressive yes that's right because you don't say to

00:22:50.080 your supervisor um i don't like the way you're talking to me i don't like the way you're treating me i think

00:22:56.700 you're giving me too much work and too little time which of course is very common nowadays but you don't have

00:23:02.300 the conversation you just don't do the work or the same may happen with a spouse that happens a lot

00:23:09.760 of the time you know that people rather than having direct conversations about negotiating you know

00:23:17.800 tasks in the household or priorities that may be different between the two spouses and trying to work

00:23:25.140 out those differences simply go into this mode of saying yes and but not doing what you've agreed to do

00:23:34.780 you know and if you are someone for whom cooperation feels like capitulation

00:23:44.540 then working out differences is going to be really difficult because it ends up feeling like

00:23:51.540 you lose every time that if you go along with the other person that again that you are diminished

00:23:59.800 you are disempowered you are weak and what are these fears like where do they originate is it like a

00:24:07.120 childhood thing is it you're rearing like are there different things that cause maybe a fear of failure

00:24:12.380 or a fear of success or a fear of fear of control well you're right that these things do start in the

00:24:18.080 family i think there's no direct correlation that will create one or the other of these anxieties

00:24:25.060 but there's a general feeling in your family as you're growing up that your value is not just because

00:24:34.440 you're a great kid you know that you're you as a person are not what makes you worthwhile that what

00:24:42.120 makes you worthwhile is something else like did you get an a did you get an a plus you know a lot of

00:24:49.040 pressure to succeed did you hit a home run right right or strike out and so if you know if you feel

00:24:57.540 like your value is based on your performance then there's a lot of anxiety about how well you're

00:25:04.120 going to do and that can lead to a fear of failure then it's possible that growing up there were people

00:25:10.820 who were envious of your talents and so maybe you were successful but you got mocked for your success

00:25:18.360 or you were told not to brag too much because it would upset one of your siblings you know or you were

00:25:26.180 given opportunities that your family hadn't had and even if they want you to do well on some level

00:25:33.700 they're also envious and you can sense that so that's where you learn that success can be dangerous

00:25:41.180 you know when you're successful you can be a target and of course the issue of control

00:25:46.800 in in many families kids grew up in a very controlling environment they are they feel controlled rather than

00:25:54.840 guided and when you have grown up feeling like you know you are just fitting into someone else's

00:26:02.940 system and you don't get to make a lot of choices for yourself then that's where your autonomy feels

00:26:11.260 compromised and preserving your autonomy your freedom your sense of individuality becomes way more

00:26:17.020 important than getting things done on time and besides these psychoanalytical reasons for procrastination

00:26:22.520 is like i guess the nurture part you also highlight research that biology or nature might play a role and

00:26:29.220 interact with our environment to you know you know create the habit of procrastination so can you talk a

00:26:35.000 little bit about that sure you know we all have different genes we have different brains the way our brains

00:26:45.100 work is different most of us have what we call neurotypical brains you know kind of everyday

00:26:51.740 capacities capacities to manage our workflow to plan to organize to monitor ourselves but some of us have

00:27:03.980 real difficulty we talk about this as executive function a lot of the organizational capacity of

00:27:13.320 our brain to to get ourselves to work toward goals people who have executive function problems with the way

00:27:24.040 their brains work will often have trouble with time you know people with attention deficit disorder

00:27:31.960 are notorious for being blindsided by time you know they're kind of bopping along you know getting

00:27:39.640 distracted by this and that and having a an immersive experience in whatever present moment shiny thing is

00:27:47.660 captivating their attention and they forget the deadline is you know coming up and boom all of a sudden

00:27:54.660 they're hit by something that feels like it's coming completely out of the blue and when you have

00:28:03.460 trouble being aware of time and monitoring time procrastination is going to be a much more likely part of your experience

00:28:15.040 it's also true that there's a difference between objective time and subjective time so objective time

00:28:24.540 is clock time calendar time inexorable it just keeps moving whereas subjective time is a person's

00:28:33.320 experience of experience of time and that's another sort of biological contribution because

00:28:39.700 your experience of time varies based on your emotion your arousal your own circadian rhythm you know

00:28:50.120 time can seem to go really fast in the morning and then at night it feels like it goes on forever

00:28:56.700 the um when when you have a subjective sense of time that is off from clock time different from clock time

00:29:06.780 you can think to yourself well you know it's only 15 minutes it doesn't matter if I'm 15 minutes late

00:29:13.500 because to you that's true and to somebody else if you're 15 minutes late buddy you're late

00:29:18.960 so one of the things that's really complicated with this issue of procrastination is that there are

00:29:25.260 many many many underpinnings for it and many different pathways to the position of struggling with getting

00:29:36.440 things done most all procrastinators I think are unrealistic about time in one way or another

00:29:45.320 they often tend to either overestimate how long things will take so that the task looks so horrible

00:29:53.180 and so unapproachable they just feel overwhelmed and they won't do it or they tend to underestimate

00:30:00.420 how long things will take and so they expect to breeze through like you know as Jane was saying

00:30:05.700 oh you know that'll just you know 15 minutes that's all I need and then it takes them three hours

00:30:10.960 so there can be psychological aspects to being unrealistic about time as well as you know sort of

00:30:22.660 some of these biological components that make it very hard to monitor time and then you know that

00:30:30.040 issue of control that we were talking about earlier you know some people want to say time is has no

00:30:37.200 control over me you know I'm not limited by time I'm not defined by time and I mean it's a grand

00:30:46.680 delusion that gets them into trouble but that sense of being autonomous and powerful is so important

00:30:54.900 that even facing the reality of the inexorability of time is unbearable I just want to add to what

00:31:04.520 Lenore is saying about reality because that is a theme that underlies a lot of what we're talking about

00:31:11.640 that procrastinators are really not good at accepting certain realities they may be very well

00:31:20.160 oriented to reality in a hundred ways but not oriented to reality in very specific ways like

00:31:27.020 the reality of time passing the reality of how long things take the reality of limitations you know we all

00:31:35.360 have limitations we're better at some things than others we can only go so far and yet if you a

00:31:41.800 procrastinator really does not want to accept limitations so that's part of avoiding doing your

00:31:49.340 best and having it evaluated because you don't want to know where your limitations are and also there's

00:31:56.040 the reality that people don't accept that different brains work differently like Lenore said you know if

00:32:02.960 if I think that I have to be good at everything but my brain isn't gonna let me I personally Jane I'm

00:32:13.540 terrible at spatial relations I'm in the bottom three percentile on spatial relations so if I'm trying

00:32:21.560 to do something that involves spatial relations like find her way to a location yeah exactly north south east

00:32:29.940 west what's that so I can't do it and that makes me want to avoid having to deal with anything that is

00:32:37.960 going to demonstrate how bad I am at spatial relations so you procrastinate on things that you're not good

00:32:45.700 at but if you can accept that there's some things you're better at than others that my brain works very

00:32:51.420 well in terms of vocabulary but not very well in terms of spatial relations if I can accept that that's my

00:32:57.660 weakness I can compensate for it I can have maps now thank god they have Siri you know I can find my way

00:33:04.640 but I can do that now without getting mad at myself for being so bad at spatial relations and you can hear

00:33:13.200 in what Jane was talking about the way in which shame complicates this whole picture because if facing reality

00:33:23.520 means to you means to you that there's you're having to face your own insufficiency in some way the way some way in

00:33:34.400 which you are less than you should be then in feeling so badly about yourself and feeling that you're not a good

00:33:44.500 person or you're not really lovable because of having these quote defects then you know uh facing the reality is

00:33:56.880 unbearable but if you can connect to really it's a common humanity the fact that everybody has limitations that having

00:34:07.480 limitations is not something you need to be ashamed of and that you can still have a lot to offer you can still be

00:34:15.540 loved you can still be respected you can still be strong even with limitations then in that kind of acceptance

00:34:26.320 there's the possibility of you know being kind to yourself rather than as Jane was saying you know completely denigrating

00:34:36.480 yourself and being really harsh and self-critical and it's possible to then find ways to make life work really well

00:34:49.540 for you and to be full of all kinds of pleasures and satisfactions so just to make sure I understand what you guys are

00:34:56.480 saying here what you're saying is that you might be a procrastinator but only in certain aspects of your life that's true

00:35:02.960 people usually don't procrastinate on everything you know usually there are some areas that they

00:35:10.020 procrastinate on and not others and sometimes that can be a real entry way into understanding

00:35:18.300 what it is that is at stake for you emotionally and psychologically so if you find that you put off

00:35:28.580 things that other people ask you to do versus if you put off things that are just for you those are two

00:35:34.720 very different psychological pictures and so it's likely that those have different psychological roots

00:35:41.080 so if you put off what other people ask you to do we're now dealing with the area probably of control

00:35:46.560 and if you put off doing just things that are for you you know then we have to look at

00:35:53.020 perfectionism fear of failure fear of success so it's very important to identify the areas where

00:36:00.980 procrastination causes you the most trouble and that is as Lenora said an entryway into understanding

00:36:08.300 what's underneath yeah I think that's an important distinction to make because I think often what

00:36:12.140 you'll see procrastinators do not all but they'll see themselves procrastinating in one area of their

00:36:16.620 life and then they universalize it like oh I'm a procrastinator in all aspects of my life well it's no not

00:36:22.120 really it's just that one part and so you end up feeling worse which perpetuates the cycle of

00:36:26.540 procrastination right exactly you feel less and less of a person really you know and then feeling worse

00:36:35.200 you're more likely to keep avoiding more things that's yeah Lenora were you going to say something

00:36:40.580 well I was just thinking about a time in my life that was really revelatory for me it was a specific

00:36:50.200 moment I like Jane struggled with my the writing of my dissertation and I also started avoiding my

00:36:59.160 advisor I wouldn't call him and I wouldn't you know he was there to help me but it didn't feel that way

00:37:05.760 to me it felt like he was there to judge me and scold me and so I was you know walking around in quite a

00:37:14.000 conundrum and I remember walking down the street in San Francisco and suddenly having this realization

00:37:24.320 that I felt scared and I'd never really thought about that before and I hadn't started doing

00:37:33.060 procrastination groups with Jane you know so we hadn't been talking about that before but it was

00:37:38.660 just like oh my gosh I'm afraid of to call this guy and suddenly when I had a name for this sort of

00:37:49.680 agitated feeling of dread and anxiety and whatnot I felt freer it was sort of unexpected but once I

00:38:02.340 actually was able to say to myself I'm scared and I'm afraid that he's not going to

00:38:08.560 like me anymore and he's going to think that I'm stupid instead of thinking that I'm you know a

00:38:14.280 really smart student I suddenly could think to myself well you know what everybody is scared

00:38:21.340 being scared is actually a very human experience and you can do this anyway you can do this even though

00:38:31.040 you are afraid and and that becomes you know it touches on another aspect of the perfectionism a lot

00:38:39.840 of times people feel like they cannot take action unless they feel a certain way you know they feel

00:38:46.840 completely confident completely certain about what they're going to do waiting for all the stars to

00:38:53.620 absolutely for me it was you know feeling certain about what grade I was going to get in a class

00:38:59.960 you know ahead of time before I even enrolled in the class I wanted to feel certain about the

00:39:05.600 rate and if you can let go of the idea that you have to feel a certain way then if you're feeling scared or

00:39:17.220 anxious or guilty or whatever you can still take action and actually so that that moment was an

00:39:25.500 important moment for me because when I thought about that I actually then went and called my advisor and

00:39:31.320 we set up an appointment and he was really glad to hear from me and he said how can I help you

00:39:35.120 and I think one of the things I also have realized since then I didn't think about it at the time

00:39:42.420 but since then I've really come to understand that in terms of my own family background you know my

00:39:51.240 parents were very good parents in in many many ways they loved me a lot they did expect me to be the star

00:39:59.400 which was quite a burden but when it came to feelings of vulnerability they were really

00:40:07.980 uncomfortable with those feelings so if I was scared about something or anxious about something

00:40:15.040 usually those kinds of feelings were met with either dismissiveness something like oh there's nothing to

00:40:24.860 be afraid about or oh you're not afraid you're not really afraid you can do you know or something

00:40:31.740 worse contempt like don't be ridiculous you know why would you ever feel that or those feelings were

00:40:40.940 simply ignored so fear in my family wasn't it wasn't acknowledged it didn't exist as a feeling that was

00:40:51.700 valid or understandable or normal and I actually learned not to turn to my parents for comfort when I was

00:41:00.100 afraid and feeling afraid and feeling afraid was something I was ashamed of you know it was easier to feel

00:41:07.340 anxious and guilty about being late or frenzied at the last minute I'd feel a little ditzy or something

00:41:12.740 like that rather than to feel afraid and become the object of scorn you know I didn't even let myself know

00:41:21.740 that I was afraid until that moment that I was walking on the streets of San Francisco

00:41:27.980 and had that realization that I just plain old was scared and that that was okay I think that a lot of

00:41:37.340 people when we talk about these fears fear of failure fear of success fear of feeling control they don't

00:41:43.940 necessarily recognize fear you know it's like they think that we're you know overstating it but people

00:41:53.040 don't recognize fear partly because of what Lenora is saying they they're not allowed to know that

00:41:59.820 they're afraid it's not a language of emotions that has become part of their vocabulary so when we say

00:42:07.860 fear of failure we don't mean that you're shaking in your boots we mean that there is some deep level of

00:42:15.900 anxiety or uncertainty about your worth so you know it's important to know that sometimes you're afraid

00:42:24.760 but you don't recognize it just like Lenora was saying so it sounds like the first step of beating

00:42:30.220 procrastination and getting to the root of these psychological causes is recognize the fear name it

00:42:36.080 but what else can you do after that I mean I guess there's different probably different things you need

00:42:40.360 to be doing and different those different fears the fear of failure well and I would also Brett say that

00:42:45.500 you know I I would take issue with the question of is it the first step for many people the first step

00:42:52.960 is actually to set up some action items some to-do steps the problem and and those you know all of

00:43:01.720 those time management techniques all of the goal setting techniques one of the kinds of things we do

00:43:07.560 talk about all the time with people is to set your goal to break it down into small steps to use small

00:43:16.380 bits of time 10 minutes 15 minutes all of those kinds of techniques they really are valuable and they work

00:43:26.340 but they only work if you use them and the thing about procrastination is that as people take action

00:43:35.840 what they're moving into what they are going to confront are these fears and anxieties that they've been

00:43:45.280 avoiding when they've avoided the action this this is why simple time management techniques or symposia don't

00:43:55.640 really work because we tried this when we first did our procrastination groups we thought well we'll just have

00:44:02.100 people set goals and you know we'll try to make the goals very specific and something very observable

00:44:08.740 and concrete and realistic yeah not vague and off in the clouds and you know I'm going to change my life

00:44:14.540 tomorrow so people would set goals and they would say here's what I'm going to do for next week

00:44:21.060 and almost all the time they didn't do it and they were surprised they sort of thought well you know

00:44:28.460 if you tell me how to go about this that'll take care of it but it almost never happened there are

00:44:34.740 few people who can really take these techniques and apply them and use them and you know I think for

00:44:40.040 them time management and goal setting books are really extremely valuable but for the people where

00:44:46.680 procrastination has gotten them in trouble it's that's not sufficient and so we would find out that

00:44:54.160 people couldn't do these rather simple I mean on the surface simple steps so in a way it's important

00:45:03.320 to try to do these technical things you you make a goal for yourself that makes sense it's realistic you

00:45:13.460 can do it in a limited amount of time you figure out what your first step is you spend 15 minutes on the

00:45:19.280 first step and then see what happens so we view goal setting as an experiment it's not like homework

00:45:27.400 it's an experiment you try it and you see what happens and that's going to give you a clue about how much

00:45:34.840 of a stranglehold procrastination has and seeing what happens includes trying to pay attention to what

00:45:44.140 your own inner experiences because most people don't really reflect on what are they thinking about

00:45:53.180 what are they feeling so part of the experiment is trying to get to know yourself and we really see

00:46:01.740 the behavioral techniques as something that need to work hand in hand with self-understanding

00:46:10.980 and ultimately an attitude of self-compassion because procrastinators are really judgmental of

00:46:19.740 themselves they're putting themselves down all the time and actually in you know the recent years

00:46:25.760 there's been a body of research that has demonstrated that being self-critical actually does not help

00:46:34.000 you achieve you achieve goals that you want in fact it makes you want to avoid tasks more than keep

00:46:41.600 working at tasks even though a lot of times people think that by being self-critical they're being tough

00:46:49.400 and they're pushing themselves ahead and they're really going to keep themselves on track and

00:46:54.220 they're going to you know be really beat this thing it turns out that being self-critical works

00:47:02.720 more often against you and being compassionate toward yourself being accepting and forgiving of mistakes you

00:47:12.080 make or ways in which you don't quite you know achieve the goal that you set exactly the way you thought

00:47:19.760 you would that will help you you know keep going and and really this is a long-term process it's not glamorous

00:47:30.160 it's not magical it's not instantaneous it's daily work of taking one step at a time and valuing

00:47:40.480 every step that you make you know Lenora mentioned getting to know yourself better and there are some of

00:47:49.460 the techniques that we recommend in our book that encourage people to get to know themselves better

00:47:55.080 so for example we talk about looking at your calendar for the coming week

00:48:00.580 and take note of all the things that you already know you're going to do

00:48:05.960 so if you fill in your calendar with all the things that happen every day

00:48:11.140 and the meetings you have and when you take the kids to school and you know when you go out for a drink

00:48:16.380 after work or you know everything that you do then the time that's left over

00:48:21.080 that's the most amount of time you have to work on something that needs to be done

00:48:27.180 and that's one of those things that comes as a surprise to people

00:48:30.820 how little time they actually have that isn't already accounted for

00:48:35.500 so that's a way of getting to know yourself to know how your time actually is spent

00:48:41.620 and you can get to know yourself also in terms of this tendency your tendency to either overestimate

00:48:51.040 or underestimate time by picking a goal making a guess as to how long it will take you to do it

00:48:59.820 especially you know a small modest step and people are often surprised because their estimates are way

00:49:08.600 off base so that is another way to get to know something about who you are and the way that you

00:49:17.160 are likely to distort reality yeah i love that what you all said earlier about treating this all as an

00:49:26.660 experiment because experiment like there's no stakes right like you know uh if you fail there's

00:49:32.460 information that's useful if you're success great i've noticed when i've when i've gotten stuck on

00:49:37.880 something the like the really small experiment that i do is like okay i'm just gonna like if i have

00:49:42.160 a big article to write or when i was in law school and i had my law review to work on like

00:49:46.220 just thinking about writing the law review articles like oh my gosh just fills you with dread

00:49:50.660 i'm sure it's sort of like a dissertation but not as bad um oh it could be but i was like okay trust me

00:49:56.400 yeah but i was just like okay i'm just gonna write for 10 minutes that's it exactly and i kind of

00:50:02.200 i would free write and it was just complete garbage i would give myself permission to write

00:50:05.560 garbage it was interesting after 10 minutes i put a timer on i would i was like oh this actually

00:50:10.120 feels pretty good i'm in a groove here i'll keep going well that yeah that's actually one of the

00:50:13.720 things we recommend to people is to set a timer for a small amount of time just to get started what

00:50:20.640 you were able to do was just get started and very often when you do that you find like you said you're

00:50:27.640 in a groove you can keep going people put off getting started but actually it's very helpful and the

00:50:33.980 other thing you did that was so useful is you said i gave myself permission to write garbage

00:50:39.960 you maybe would be surprised as a professional writer how many people cannot bear to write garbage

00:50:47.500 you know they can't stand to have the first paragraph be anything but perfect and so they're

00:50:53.180 writing the first paragraph over and over and over again so in fact that makes me think about a woman

00:50:59.720 in one of our very first procrastination groups who was suffering terrible writer's block on her on a

00:51:08.540 paper and what she said was i feel that the first draft has to be of nobel prize winning quality

00:51:19.180 when you've got that kind of demand who can write anything right and you got yourself out of that

00:51:28.240 dilemma right right but you know a lot of people don't realize that a first attempt is not what is

00:51:36.680 going to be visible see when you procrastinate then yes your first attempt often is what's visible

00:51:44.420 because you've waited so long but you know lenora and i have both published and i've had people say

00:51:50.760 to me well i can't i can't write anything that that comes out well when i write it it's terrible and i

00:51:56.940 say my writing is terrible i'm a bad writer but i'm a good editor so i know that my first draft is going

00:52:05.740 to be boring and then lenora or somebody else can help make it better or i often can go back and make

00:52:14.880 it better but i have to tolerate you know writing something that i know is bad in order to get to the

00:52:21.100 point of doing it better and if you don't allow enough time not just in writing but in any project

00:52:26.020 to give yourself a chance to mess around with it to do it in a messy way in an imperfect way you know in

00:52:35.360 an approximate way and then have the confidence that you can make it better that's the procrastination

00:52:42.740 doesn't allow you to do any of that well jane lenora this has been a fascinating conversation

00:52:46.820 a great one we covered a lot of ground i feel like yes we did well this is a very complex topic

00:52:51.880 and there is a lot of ground to cover and there's a lot more to cover where can people go to learn

00:52:56.780 more about the book in your work yeah that's what i was going to say in our book we we elaborate on

00:53:01.520 all of these themes the book is called procrastination why you do it what to do about it now and it's

00:53:09.120 available on amazon it's available in kindle form there's an audio tape so those are ways with there's

00:53:18.120 a blog on the psychology today website about procrastination so we our book has a website so

00:53:26.120 those are all ways you can find out more fantastic well jane lenora thank you for your time it's been a

00:53:30.260 pleasure pleasure for us too a really good interviewer we appreciate it thank you so much

00:53:34.660 my guests today were jane burka and lenora ewan they are the authors of the book procrastination

00:53:39.320 why you do it what to do about it now it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere

00:53:43.460 you can find out more information about their work at procrastination why you do it.com also check out

00:53:48.580 our show notes at aom.is procrastination where you can find links to resources where you can delve

00:53:53.240 deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more

00:54:09.720 manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com

00:54:13.480 you enjoy the show i've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate you taking one minute to give us

00:54:16.700 review on itunes or stitcher helps that a lot and if you've done that already please share the show with

00:54:20.580 your friends the more the merrier around here as always thank you for your continued support until

00:54:25.380 next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:54:28.280 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#356： How to Finally Beat Procrastination

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