The Art of Manliness - #444： How to Use the Procrastination Equation to Start Getting Things Done

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00:01:40.940 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:01:59.760 Procrastination can be a big stumbling block to our success in life.

00:02:03.120 You're a student and you put off studying at the last minute.

00:02:05.160 You might not do as well on a test.

00:02:06.620 If you wait to start saving for retirement until you're in your 40s,

00:02:08.780 you lose out on the power of compound interest.

00:02:11.180 We know that we need to do certain things sooner rather than later, but we don't.

00:02:15.400 Why?

00:02:16.000 My guest today is Dr. Pierce Steele.

00:02:17.520 And in his work and in his book, The Procrastination Equation,

00:02:20.500 he's distilled all the research out there on procrastination into a kind of formula

00:02:24.220 that explains why we put things off.

00:02:26.260 Pierce explains why his approach to procrastination is different from that taken by many psychologists

00:02:30.300 and what those other psychologists often get wrong about its root causes.

00:02:33.860 He then digs into the different components of why we procrastinate,

00:02:36.360 as well as actionable advice on how you can mitigate these issues and start getting more stuff done.

00:02:40.960 After the show's over, make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is

00:02:44.180 slash procrastination equation.

00:02:46.540 All one word.

00:02:59.240 All right, Pierce Steele, welcome to the show.

00:03:02.540 I'm a pleasure to be here.

00:03:04.080 So you published a book a few years ago called The Procrastination Equation,

00:03:09.980 How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done.

00:03:12.640 In fact, you are a professor, you've got a PhD, and you decided to study procrastination.

00:03:20.580 How did you decide that?

00:03:22.260 Were you like a chronic procrastinator your entire life?

00:03:24.920 You decided, I'm going to get a handle on this by getting a PhD?

00:03:28.020 Yeah, yeah, I feel so exposed right now by you.

00:03:34.040 You saw through everything.

00:03:35.440 That's exactly actually what happened.

00:03:38.320 A lot of people say research is me-search.

00:03:41.840 So here am I struggling with it.

00:03:44.980 I had enough going on, but barely just to get into a kind of a PhD program.

00:03:50.000 And I had an opportunity to study something that was near and dear to my heart.

00:03:57.560 And I, you know, I found my passion.

00:04:02.200 So I'm curious, how did you do your research?

00:04:03.760 Like, how have you figured out?

00:04:05.860 Because like, unlike a lot of other people who've talked about procrastination,

00:04:09.280 that tend to get Freudian about it, you get a little more, I don't know what the right word is, concrete.

00:04:16.320 So what's your approach to procrastination?

00:04:18.660 Well, I could, like, I mean, there's a lot to kind of unpack here.

00:04:22.980 One of the best, like, actually gathering the raw data was I had a wired classroom.

00:04:30.260 You know those massive open online courses that exist nowadays?

00:04:33.400 Yeah.

00:04:33.600 This was an early version of them.

00:04:37.280 So it was only about 200 students, but each piece was delivered by a computer.

00:04:45.100 Now, actually back then we had to go to a computer lab, but there was lots of labs around the university.

00:04:50.180 So students can do it at their own pace.

00:04:53.060 Well, this was well known for being a hotbed of procrastination. 1.00

00:04:57.120 You know, and you could actually, though, and in a very detailed way, determine when people actually did the work,

00:05:05.600 because there were 77 different assignments.

00:05:07.960 So some people, you know, were slow and steady, but most people did it later.

00:05:11.500 And some did, I think, about 75% of the course in the last week.

00:05:15.720 So we got a lot of good information from that, because it's kind of hard to measure procrastination over any kind of really meaningful time.

00:05:22.700 Sure, you can bring somebody into a room and, you know, say you have to do this in an hour or half an hour and then see when they do it.

00:05:29.880 But really, the big ones, you want to see how people act over several months.

00:05:33.740 And this was perfect for it.

00:05:35.480 And the other technique that I'm really kind of known for is something called meta-analysis, which is essentially the study of studies.

00:05:42.760 So I'm really good at unpacking the component parts of other people's research and then reassembling them into a coherent whole.

00:05:55.660 And part of that actually eventually led to a single theory and an equation.

00:06:03.040 And there's actually a procrastination equation to explain why people do things when they do and why they put stuff off.

00:06:12.760 Well, I think that's interesting, because we've had other people, psychologists who've studied procrastination, that's their expertise, and they tend to take an approach where it's not an equation, right?

00:06:23.380 It's like, well, you procrastinate because you're a perfectionist, or you're scared, or, you know, like I said, it's kind of Freudian.

00:06:31.660 But like, you kind of look at it like, no, it's like, it's not that.

00:06:34.340 It's like, it's these specific metrics.

00:06:36.980 Yeah, there's a real problem with that theory.

00:06:38.740 Yeah, well, what is the problem?

00:06:39.840 Well, the problem with that one is that you actually go and study people who are perfectionists and see how well they're associated with, you know, procrastination.

00:06:53.700 You find actually perfectionists, this typical one, procrastinating just a little bit less, not more.

00:07:00.180 Just a smidgen less.

00:07:03.120 And you say, well, that can't be if this is a major cause, right?

00:07:06.540 And, but they tend to feel worse about it.

00:07:10.380 So what you find is, is that people who are perfectionists and they procrastinate, well, they're much more likely to seek clinical help.

00:07:17.640 So these clinicians are seeing a lot of perfectionists, procrastinators.

00:07:24.040 But that is, that's, that's just simply selection bias.

00:07:28.800 So they're based on their own personal experience.

00:07:30.880 And also, you know, people are saying, oh yeah, you know, when my perfectionist comes around, I put things off.

00:07:36.420 But there's a lot of reasons people put things off.

00:07:39.280 I mean, well, actually the most popular one isn't, it has anything to do with perfectionism.

00:07:43.520 It's, it's, it's wanting to be with your friends and socialize.

00:07:47.380 And, you know, and other weird things, I mean, 95% of the world procrastinates.

00:07:51.840 So 95% of us are perfectionists.

00:07:54.340 That means like, is there anyone not a perfectionist?

00:07:56.780 It's, it's, they had certain type of intellectual tools and mindsets available to them and they use them.

00:08:04.460 You know, when you have a hammer, you know, everything becomes a nail.

00:08:09.480 Okay, well, so let's talk about what you've found.

00:08:13.400 Well, before we get into like, why we procrastinate.

00:08:15.700 Yeah.

00:08:16.060 Let's talk about, you know, why procrastination is bad.

00:08:19.660 And like, why people go see psychologists and shrinks to be like, I'm a procrastinator.

00:08:25.300 My life is terrible.

00:08:26.320 Like how, how does procrastination affect our quality of life on an individual level?

00:08:32.180 Yeah, I got to actually to develop what's considered the definitive definition of that

00:08:36.840 one too, of what is procrastination.

00:08:39.640 And there's been a lot of different attempts over it over the years, but they pretty much

00:08:43.560 all have one thing in common.

00:08:45.300 There's got to be some type of negative aspect.

00:08:48.320 So it's, and I, there's a long version.

00:08:50.880 I'll give you the short one.

00:08:51.740 It's putting off despite expecting to be worse off.

00:08:56.900 So that it's kind of, you know, other people call it the irrational delay.

00:09:01.940 So it's not scheduling.

00:09:04.000 I mean, you wouldn't say I'm planning to go on a trip today on a lake and there's a gigantic

00:09:09.480 storm and almost certain death if I go out.

00:09:12.040 So I'll put it off to tomorrow.

00:09:14.160 And I'm saying, oh, so you're procrastinating.

00:09:15.780 No, we don't use it in that way.

00:09:17.600 So you need, you need more than just delay.

00:09:20.560 It's a particular type of delay.

00:09:22.600 It's a delay that where you think you should do it now by your standards.

00:09:26.960 So you think I should do this now, but you don't.

00:09:30.040 You look inside your heart and the motivation just isn't there.

00:09:36.000 And sometimes after that, we kind of go in, then it can get a little Freudian where we

00:09:39.660 kind of do defensive mechanisms where people then justify the delay after the fact.

00:09:45.100 First, they decide the delay and then they try and find reasons after already made the

00:09:50.160 decision to retroactively justify that decision.

00:09:54.520 And some people are pretty good at it, pretty good at basically covering their tracks.

00:09:58.780 But there's ways of kind of ferreting it out.

00:10:01.500 But that, that's what makes it putting off.

00:10:04.380 So if you think generally, no, no, no, I should do this later.

00:10:07.520 It'd be best to do it later.

00:10:09.540 You may, might playfully call that procrastination, but it's not.

00:10:14.040 You would actually have to think to yourself, I should be doing that now.

00:10:18.340 And yet I don't.

00:10:19.760 Gotcha.

00:10:19.860 And you give a lot of examples of where this can have, you know, pretty dire consequences

00:10:25.020 for people professionally with their finances, in their relationships with like their family

00:10:31.840 and loved ones.

00:10:32.500 Like, you know, okay.

00:10:33.200 Speaking of PhDs, like you talk about people who pretty much do everything they need to

00:10:38.720 do to graduate with a PhD, but they don't write their dissertation.

00:10:41.300 Yeah, the, the ABDs, the all but dissertation, which is BAD, of course.

00:10:47.340 Right.

00:10:48.460 And it's, that's, that's a common example for where I'm from.

00:10:52.440 I'm a professor.

00:10:53.040 So of course it's going to come to mind, but it's, you can think of anything from your

00:10:56.380 own life where, gee, if I didn't do that now, or if I don't attend to it now or soon, I'm

00:11:05.300 going to be in really, really dire straits.

00:11:08.560 Well, there's people who procrastinate that off beyond that to anything.

00:11:12.780 I mean, one of the, one of the, the key examples is, um, you know, health and let's say, um,

00:11:19.000 here's a common one.

00:11:20.000 A, somebody is doing a little self exam, a woman's doing a little self-examination. 1.00

00:11:23.240 She finds a lump in her breast.

00:11:24.360 Okay.

00:11:26.520 Logically, what should she do?

00:11:27.800 She should go to the doctor about as soon as possible, but that, you know, she's, she's

00:11:33.840 frightened about what she might find out.

00:11:35.580 So she kind of, you know, she said, you know, that's probably nothing.

00:11:39.440 And there are lots and lots of examples of this.

00:11:42.580 I mean, the, the, another one of that is super common is a colonoscopies.

00:11:48.660 So you really should get one pretty regularly.

00:11:52.440 And if you don't, you're kind of risking, um, you're risking cancer.

00:11:59.280 So, you know, it's kind of unpleasant.

00:12:01.160 It's a little embarrassing.

00:12:02.120 And as I say, you know, people would rather risk dying of cancer later than have the certainty

00:12:08.040 of dying of embarrassment now.

00:12:11.160 And, you know, that's just, you know, I killed my, um, actually that, in truth, I did.

00:12:15.060 I killed my, uh, uh, my stepmother.

00:12:17.380 She, she didn't get it done and she got the cancer and she died.

00:12:20.160 That's, that's actually happened.

00:12:23.240 So that is as bad as procrastination get.

00:12:27.220 Of course, no, we kind of, at the low end, it's kind of funny.

00:12:30.140 It's like the, uh, somebody still has their Christmas lights and it's coming up to April,

00:12:34.160 right?

00:12:35.220 That's, you know, there's nothing, well, just a few more months and I'll be halfway back

00:12:39.000 again.

00:12:39.300 Or a little kind of small things.

00:12:43.200 So we can, we, we procrastinate the small things and we have small costs for it and we

00:12:48.340 can procrastinate the big things and have big costs.

00:12:51.640 So, you know, dealing with problems in your marriage, dealing with health, dealing with

00:12:56.360 your finances and anything you thought you should have done now and put up later.

00:13:02.120 That's basically only the cost of procrastination is only defined by that task that you decide

00:13:10.120 to delay.

00:13:11.240 But we are so set in our way where our minds evolved that we really have a tremendous time

00:13:17.840 making the future real in the present.

00:13:20.300 It's just, it's, it's built into our DNA and our brain's architecture.

00:13:24.840 So we have to kind of, I say, you know, to defeat procrastination, you have to act and not

00:13:30.920 as nature intended.

00:13:32.680 We have to act in a way that our brains weren't really designed to.

00:13:37.080 Well, let's, let's dig into that because that'll allow us to flesh out this procrastination

00:13:41.000 equation.

00:13:41.840 So what are, what is the procrastination equation?

00:13:45.220 Like what are the elements of the formula?

00:13:47.320 Yeah.

00:13:47.540 And this is something that, that meta-analysis study studies came out.

00:13:51.520 I mean, it's, it's basically, you're bowling down the, uh, the literature and just seeing

00:13:55.820 what's the residue at the end, you know, what's the, what is the final components

00:14:00.220 and all of them came.

00:14:01.140 And there's a lot, they studied a lot of stuff.

00:14:03.020 We did study perfectionism.

00:14:04.580 You know, we studied, we even, you know, death anxiety was one of those papers on it, but

00:14:09.240 there's three factors that came up again and again as by easily the biggest predictors

00:14:17.120 of procrastination.

00:14:19.280 And it made perfect sense.

00:14:21.560 One was your kind of, um, self-confidence or, you know, self-efficacy.

00:14:25.500 And this is, you know, do you believe you can do the task?

00:14:29.880 And, you know, this kind of goes back to, and this is not a new, new thing.

00:14:33.200 It's, it's a million books, you know, and if you believe you can or believe you can't,

00:14:36.780 you're right.

00:14:37.400 That's a bit of hyperbole, right?

00:14:39.000 But, you know, the truth is, if you believe you can't, your motivation goes down.

00:14:42.320 You're just likely to put in the effort.

00:14:43.580 So you probably will have less success.

00:14:45.780 That doesn't trip off the tongue as much, but you know, the facts are there.

00:14:49.420 So self-confidence, that's a down, that's a spike downwards.

00:14:52.740 That's one, two is value or, or the excitement of the task, the intrinsic motivation attached

00:15:00.660 to it.

00:15:01.640 So when the things to think of things you're putting off, usually they're boring.

00:15:06.020 A lot of them are boring.

00:15:07.920 And though you think, well, I should be doing them.

00:15:11.060 You don't really want to.

00:15:13.020 And boredom is nature's way of saying it's not important.

00:15:16.920 It's wrong in a lot of cases because there's a lot of boring things like doing your taxes,

00:15:21.760 which are important.

00:15:23.520 But it's hard to get over that natural impulse.

00:15:27.240 So the more unpleasant or, or, or difficult a task is, the less likely we're doing it.

00:15:36.040 And this is, there's a lot of people screw that one up a lot.

00:15:40.280 I mean, one of the simple things that we can talk about this later is just simply

00:15:44.960 allegating your most difficult tasks when you have the most energy and they're going

00:15:48.140 to be the, you know, least adversive.

00:15:51.380 And there's other ways of making things better, but that would, that's, that's a big contributor.

00:15:56.700 And because we all have different things we dislike, you find you have neat things like

00:16:01.940 some people procrastinate cleaning and some people procrastinate by cleaning.

00:16:06.200 But the third one is the big driver.

00:16:10.060 This one makes everything else kind of worsens often enough in itself.

00:16:15.320 And that's, it's a, it's a personality trait called impulsiveness.

00:16:19.500 And if you're impulsive, it means that you're spontaneous, you, you know, you're great in

00:16:27.600 the moment.

00:16:28.160 You might have a great kind of wit, but it's also means that you have tremendous difficulty

00:16:35.060 focusing on the future.

00:16:37.900 Some people call it temporal discounting.

00:16:39.640 You have a high temporal discount rate.

00:16:41.600 So the future kind of is worth far, far less than the present.

00:16:46.200 So you only really feel motivation until just before deadlines.

00:16:51.140 And you can model all these three variables out into a kind of a procrastination equation.

00:16:56.280 So an expectancy times value divided by a temporal dimension, time, which is made worse by impulsiveness.

00:17:06.140 And it works really, really well for accounting almost every element and every intervention and

00:17:14.580 every situation that we see for procrastination.

00:17:19.040 Okay.

00:17:19.140 Well, there's a lot to unpack there.

00:17:20.560 Yep.

00:17:21.000 But let's do a quick recap.

00:17:22.300 So the procrastination equation determines our motivation to complete a task.

00:17:26.560 And the way the factors into that motivation are expectancy times value divided by impulsiveness

00:17:32.320 times delay.

00:17:33.400 So expectancy, I guess, is the perceived chance of us getting that reward or suffering that

00:17:38.120 bad consequence for not doing a task.

00:17:40.480 You multiply that by the value, which is, I guess, the size of the reward or size of the

00:17:45.500 bad consequence.

00:17:46.380 So if there's a good chance that you're going to get the good consequence of the bad consequence,

00:17:50.980 and the consequence is either really big positive or really big negative, you're going to be

00:17:56.440 motivated, more motivated to complete the task.

00:17:59.300 But you have to divide that by these downsides, which is impulsiveness, which is our tendency

00:18:04.160 to get distracted.

00:18:05.500 And you multiply impulsiveness times delay, which is the period, the time between now and

00:18:11.480 the task reward or completion.

00:18:12.860 So if you're really impulsive, get distracted easily, and the reward or the consequence is

00:18:18.800 way out in the future, well, that's going to bring down your motivation.

00:18:23.440 So you divide all that by that.

00:18:25.300 So it sounds like you can do different things to tweak your motivation.

00:18:28.000 So you can increase expectancy, or you can increase the value of the reward, or you can focus

00:18:34.760 on eliminating the downsides, decreasing impulsivity and decreasing delay by having more immediate

00:18:42.580 set deadlines instead of having a way out in the future.

00:18:44.960 So let's look at how we can tinker with the procrastination equation to, well, here's the

00:18:51.040 question.

00:18:51.440 Is it possible to alleviate procrastination 100%?

00:18:55.300 Or is this something that you, at best, can just manage by tweaking a few things?

00:19:01.680 Yeah, I think the latter.

00:19:04.440 It's too much part of us to really entirely eliminate.

00:19:11.080 I mean, it's almost a perfect storm between who we are and what the world is.

00:19:16.300 We've been tracking this as a society since I got some of the earliest reports from historical

00:19:23.320 records from the early 20th century.

00:19:25.780 And it's just been, and then we started doing some actual proper scientific measures in like

00:19:33.240 the 1970s.

00:19:34.360 And just from then to now, it's been about a 500% explosion in the rate of chronic procrastination.

00:19:41.320 Most people, if they start early, it's such an exception.

00:19:44.920 It's not an occasional thing.

00:19:46.300 It's all the time thing.

00:19:47.640 We're kind of want to beat it back down to an occasional thing.

00:19:50.160 So it's, yeah, I procrastinate a little bit.

00:19:53.300 If I had to say it about vices, it's my ninth, you know, or eighth.

00:19:58.680 It's down there.

00:19:59.520 I do it sometimes.

00:20:00.380 It's not a big concern, you know, and yeah, it makes me a little human.

00:20:04.620 Sometimes it's a little annoying, but it's not life defining.

00:20:08.540 That's, that's a win.

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00:22:14.280 And now back to the show.

00:22:15.880 Right, no, that makes sense.

00:22:16.780 So, yeah, we're looking for containment, looking for mitigation.

00:22:19.660 So let's talk about how we can mitigate procrastination by tinkering with the...

00:22:23.900 Oh, yeah, sure.

00:22:24.400 ...the procrastination equation.

00:22:25.320 So, like, the expectancy and value components.

00:22:30.400 Like, what can we do with those things to cause us to, you know,

00:22:36.460 more likely be motivated to start doing the thing we know we need to do?

00:22:41.080 All right.

00:22:41.460 Well, there actually, somebody, as Alex Vermeer,

00:22:44.840 actually made an infographic about it.

00:22:47.940 So when you're actually looking at the techniques,

00:22:50.400 techniques, there's literally, I think, about, you know, close to 20 of them.

00:22:56.100 I mean, about 10 per side about what works effectively.

00:23:01.280 So, you know, we can't cover them all, but there's some easy ones to do, right?

00:23:06.420 And in fact, one of the easiest ones is that there may be not any that much trouble

00:23:10.780 with your goal at all.

00:23:13.900 You know, maybe there's nothing wrong with your goal or what you're trying to do.

00:23:16.320 So it's just you're trying to do it in an environment where there's a lot of temptation.

00:23:22.040 So you can think about, well, when I procrastinate, what am I doing?

00:23:25.740 Is it something on my phone?

00:23:27.960 Is it something on my computer?

00:23:30.400 Is it something, you know, it's a TV?

00:23:32.540 And it's, okay, great.

00:23:33.160 Let's start with those temptations first.

00:23:35.000 Can we make them less reliable?

00:23:38.740 Like, instead of increase their expectancy, lower.

00:23:41.280 Instead of making them more enjoyable, let's make them less enjoyable.

00:23:44.960 And you have all these techniques.

00:23:46.280 Like, for example, some people grayscale their phone.

00:23:49.440 All of a sudden, without grayscale, you know, in the gray,

00:23:51.120 it's all those apps and stuff aren't as fun anymore.

00:23:53.820 You know, it's the color.

00:23:54.720 It's the pop that makes them go.

00:23:57.360 Or some people, one easy one is, and this is what you really, really should do.

00:24:02.580 I mean, trust me, if you do this, you'll be a much happier person.

00:24:06.360 You know, laptops and everything are getting pretty cheap.

00:24:09.360 Get a second one for your gaming, right?

00:24:12.140 Get a dedicated game.

00:24:13.040 Get another one for your work.

00:24:15.600 And don't mix the two.

00:24:17.080 You know, have, if you're doing work in your office, have it for work.

00:24:21.520 You know, have that attempt of work.

00:24:22.760 And if you want to take a break and goof off, fine.

00:24:25.080 But just do it someplace else.

00:24:27.560 The brain will eventually make associations between the location

00:24:31.780 and the activity.

00:24:33.540 Right now, when people do both in the same place, it gets confused.

00:24:37.800 It's kind of like, okay, I'm being tweaked.

00:24:39.800 I'm being cued to play or work.

00:24:44.260 And it's kind of like a cat scratching the door.

00:24:46.840 Should I play now?

00:24:48.240 Should I play?

00:24:48.720 So the moment you're weak, you kind of have a moment of weakness,

00:24:52.220 all of a sudden you're distracted and doing something else.

00:24:54.580 That happens because you did two things in the same place.

00:24:57.980 So start off by looking at your temptations and seeing if,

00:25:01.780 can I get them further away from me?

00:25:04.360 Can I make them less obvious?

00:25:07.080 You know, as I say, the cookies on the counter, nice and hot,

00:25:12.940 aren't going to be eaten quite as fast as one in the tin,

00:25:16.160 which you've put in the pantry, you know, out of sight, out of mind,

00:25:20.100 is not going to be eaten as fast as the ones, you know, right available to you,

00:25:24.840 which means if you had to go to the store and buy them,

00:25:27.220 they might not get eaten at all.

00:25:29.160 So, you know, availability.

00:25:31.440 But for actual, if you want to know, like, let's say we go through that

00:25:34.940 and we actually have a specific task that you really kind of like,

00:25:39.900 well, how can I make this more successful?

00:25:44.860 No, one is a classic, and this is one that a lot of people know,

00:25:47.900 and it's a variation of goal setting.

00:25:50.120 So you must have covered goal setting already.

00:25:52.160 Of course.

00:25:52.920 Is that right?

00:25:53.660 Yeah.

00:25:54.000 Yeah, lots of times.

00:25:54.580 Yeah.

00:25:55.080 Yeah.

00:25:55.380 Did you do SMART goals or something else?

00:25:57.220 No, we didn't cover SMART goals, but I know of SMART goals.

00:26:00.020 Yeah.

00:26:00.320 But do you know the history of SMART goals?

00:26:01.920 I don't.

00:26:02.800 I know.

00:26:03.460 You should look it up.

00:26:04.360 It's actually kind of interesting.

00:26:05.620 It comes from about a 1982 newsletter, I think, by this guy called Greg Doran.

00:26:10.160 And he was just spitballing about, you know, and he was talking about what works for team management.

00:26:16.220 And it, you know, people loved it.

00:26:18.880 And it, you know, went all, you know, people started using it all the time and re-specifying it.

00:26:25.140 But in parallel, there was probably like about a few, I'm probably not exaggerating when I said a million hours of research done in this from the science side

00:26:36.880 into actually how to kind of create proper goals.

00:26:40.640 And the reasoning is kind of like something along the lines of reverse engineering.

00:26:45.940 So let's say, when do most people have their motivation?

00:26:50.540 It's just before the deadline, right?

00:26:52.600 Right.

00:26:53.200 That's the essence of procrastination.

00:26:54.960 So let's take a look at that.

00:26:56.220 That's a naturally occurring event.

00:26:58.100 All right.

00:26:58.420 So, and then we try and devise the features with it that is associated, that allows people to kind of where they get the pop.

00:27:06.940 And so, okay, here's a naturally occurring one.

00:27:08.500 Now can we create artificial ones?

00:27:10.480 What aspects of this, this deadline that, that can we create on our own so that we can actually have motivation when it's convenient to us?

00:27:23.040 Because did you, if you didn't create that deadline yourself, that means somebody else determined when your motivation happened.

00:27:29.340 Because it happens just before the deadline.

00:27:31.000 So if you can create artificial ones that have the same properties, you can create them when you want and have your motivation when you want.

00:27:37.600 I say most people, their motivation, you know, is occurring like a fire hose just before it's due.

00:27:45.880 It's coming out like, you know, and, but like an eyedropper earlier on when it's convenient.

00:27:50.680 And really what they want is they want to be able just to turn on a tap and get a nice tall glass of motivation, right?

00:27:58.400 That's enough.

00:27:59.020 That's what I need.

00:28:00.120 But there's, it doesn't seem to be under the control.

00:28:03.540 And so they've found that there's basically three, maybe four, if you want it, key features of it.

00:28:11.240 And one was, this is controlling the expectancy.

00:28:14.720 I'm circling around now and answering that, is to make it challenging.

00:28:18.980 So you can cut a big project into smaller pieces.

00:28:23.060 And again, you know, that old adage about, you know, how you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

00:28:28.200 You can make a project into smaller and manageable and doable pieces.

00:28:33.780 But they say, you know, you don't want to make it too small.

00:28:36.020 You want to make it somewhat so there's a little bit of, you know, you know, there's something on the table.

00:28:42.080 So you want to make it challenging, but not so challenging that you don't think you can do it.

00:28:47.920 So you can control your expectancy that way.

00:28:51.180 The second one, and this is where most people fall down and don't do it correctly.

00:28:56.620 You want to make them specific.

00:28:59.100 Specific is basically how the limbic system gets communicated to.

00:29:02.920 And that's your seat of your emotions is where the amygdala is.

00:29:05.420 And that's where you have your strong kind of feelings.

00:29:09.520 So you're trying to create plans with your prefrontal cortex, but they get enacted by the limbic system.

00:29:15.840 Limbic system doesn't like anything that's abstract.

00:29:19.040 Like things like concrete.

00:29:20.480 Exactly.

00:29:21.180 When, what, where, what am I doing?

00:29:23.440 Where's the deadline?

00:29:24.920 Line of sight goals.

00:29:26.100 It loves that.

00:29:27.860 So you have to, if you're saying like, I'm going to exercise this weekend.

00:29:30.700 It's admirable, but it's not a good goal.

00:29:32.780 If you're going to say, I'm going to exercise this Saturday morning, immediately after breakfast,

00:29:40.000 I'm going to pick up my bag, my favorite fare of runners.

00:29:43.080 I've got my car keys in the corner there.

00:29:45.300 I'm going to make it to this 8.30 class, which means I'm going to leave at 8.10.

00:29:50.720 And I'm going to do the class and then come home.

00:29:54.720 Yeah, that's a goal.

00:29:56.520 And do you see that level of specificity with a later one?

00:29:59.640 That's what you need to have in order to really activate it.

00:30:03.740 And short-term is better than long-term.

00:30:07.960 So it should be more immediate.

00:30:10.840 And you can experiment with that.

00:30:12.200 Some people even have to pop, motivationally pop a kind of a particularly resistant or sticky task.

00:30:19.640 You do a 10-minute goal just to kind of get it going.

00:30:22.540 But you don't want to live a life in a series of 10-minute goals.

00:30:25.080 It gets really tedious.

00:30:25.800 And then it's best if it's approach.

00:30:28.640 This is the last one.

00:30:31.520 So avoidance goals really don't work well.

00:30:34.440 So it's like, I'm not going to eat dessert.

00:30:36.920 That's an avoidance goal.

00:30:38.300 I'm not going to watch TV.

00:30:40.220 No, those are bad goals.

00:30:41.820 Because then you have to be soon not doing something.

00:30:46.380 If you want to have it like, I'm going to approach goals like, I'm eating more salads.

00:30:52.080 I'm going to fill up in salads.

00:30:53.160 That's something you're going to do.

00:30:53.880 That's a good choice.

00:30:54.920 Or I'm going out for a walk.

00:30:58.360 Or I'm seeing some friends.

00:31:00.260 It's what you want to paper over that activity you're avoiding with is a much better way of doing it.

00:31:06.700 You need to, they say they talk about needing replacement behavior.

00:31:10.560 Much more effective.

00:31:12.380 So the thing is, we actually have all the science pretty much down.

00:31:17.240 There's very little new in the motivational field.

00:31:20.260 Very little techniques.

00:31:21.480 And the ones we've got work really, really well.

00:31:24.300 It's really now just kind of getting them out.

00:31:27.720 I often thought that, you know, it should be actually part of a high school curriculum.

00:31:32.020 Just, you know, how to motivate yourself.

00:31:34.220 Instead of having, complaining about kids about, well, they're not getting things done on time.

00:31:38.360 Hope they figure it out, you know.

00:31:41.400 We could actually give this and, you know, a dozen other effective techniques.

00:31:47.540 And get them trained up with a little bit of help.

00:31:51.140 But, you know, right now, you know, people have to kind of, you know,

00:31:53.860 if they're lucky enough, you know, they'll get some good resources on it.

00:31:58.280 Again, I like my book, but I'm not the only, I'm not the only person out there.

00:32:03.440 There's other places you can go.

00:32:05.560 But then you still have to figure it out yourself and how to apply it.

00:32:08.700 So you might have the right plan, but you don't implement it perfectly because you're doing it yourself for the first time.

00:32:16.140 And then you get frustrated and you might walk away.

00:32:19.160 But they're all really doable.

00:32:20.660 All really effective.

00:32:22.200 Right.

00:32:23.220 So just to recap, you want to set very specific goals because that fires up our limbic system.

00:32:29.060 And our limbic system is what gets our executive function, executive control going. 0.83

00:32:33.980 And then you want, what was the third one?

00:32:36.680 Oh, I tried to get this to a mnemonic, like SMART goals, because SMART goals were so cool.

00:32:44.920 Right.

00:32:45.340 So, like, how can I get this to, and the best I could do was the CSI approach.

00:32:51.680 So, you know, crime scenes investigation.

00:32:54.080 So, but instead, this is challenging, specific, immediate approach goals.

00:32:58.480 Challenging, specific, immediate.

00:32:59.820 All right.

00:33:00.040 Yeah, immediate.

00:33:00.640 Like, yeah.

00:33:01.460 So it's short term.

00:33:02.840 So we've been talking a lot of tactics to increase the expectancy of achieving the goal, the value, by making it more immediate, specific, all those things.

00:33:15.120 But then the other component to the equation is impulsivity, right?

00:33:19.080 You divide all that by impulsivity.

00:33:20.580 And as you said, that's, we're wired to be impulsive.

00:33:25.680 And so some of the tactics you talked about is put those temptations that cause you to be impulsive, like get them out of your mind.

00:33:33.040 Just basically get them out of your environment as much as you can.

00:33:36.060 I mean, what about, what about people who are like, as you said, there's like a genetic component to impulsivity.

00:33:41.220 What about those people?

00:33:42.220 Like, do they just have to work extra?

00:33:43.480 I mean, cause like, it's kind of weird.

00:33:44.560 You have to like do some front end work.

00:33:46.960 Like you have to be like not impulsive in the front end to get a handle on your impulsivity that you know you'll experience when the moment arises.

00:33:56.780 Yeah.

00:33:57.080 I would say there's, there's some things that are actually are effective really quick.

00:34:02.080 So we recommend starting that just so you can get the quick wins and that'll, you know, feel better.

00:34:07.940 And you don't have to do everything.

00:34:09.300 There are like a, a, especially impulsivity, there's like about seven different techniques.

00:34:15.820 But, and, you know, even down to making things less obvious.

00:34:21.900 I mean, when we have a lot of ones that people, for example, that really kind of hits their productivity is checking email too much.

00:34:30.980 If you actually just stop checking email and get more into flow states, and that's where people say they do the best work is we're actually when they're concentrating on one thing at a time.

00:34:40.840 And that's when we, we verified it and said, yeah, they're definitely correct about that.

00:34:46.020 But then you go check your email and you're checking your email and people, you're not really choosing to actually.

00:34:51.860 What you're doing, responding to us, to the ding, like, you know, like almost a Pavlovian response.

00:34:57.180 So the ding goes, you check your email, you'd look at it, you're getting a variable reinforcement schedule.

00:35:02.200 Sometimes there's something interesting there, most of the time there isn't.

00:35:06.340 And so, you know, you go through and you do this again and again.

00:35:10.600 And you actually get a little drip of dopamine as you're just about to check your email.

00:35:15.880 It's like, could it be something interesting?

00:35:17.820 Could it be?

00:35:18.260 No, it's not.

00:35:19.240 But that little, could it be actually is rewarding itself.

00:35:22.260 So the thing is, simple thing is go and turn off your, your, those dings, the, those cues, those visual and auditory markers.

00:35:33.520 It doesn't take long.

00:35:35.060 You can do that in 30 seconds.

00:35:36.440 And some people say, well, there, you just gained two months a year.

00:35:39.500 Very easy.

00:35:40.640 You know, some people say more.

00:35:43.260 And that didn't take any time.

00:35:45.520 But if this principle was there, was it, if you have temptations and you make them, you need to almost kind of reverse engineering that CSI approach, right?

00:35:56.780 So if you can make them from obvious, you know, specific to something a little more abstract to immediate to something delayed, their motor, their power goes down.

00:36:07.900 And there's a variety of ways of kind of, again, doing this.

00:36:12.340 The, the biggest, the ultimate goal is for all these techniques is not to use them every day.

00:36:20.100 You're kind of like, almost like physiotherapy.

00:36:22.040 If you got into a car accident, say your muscle's atrophied and you're just like, okay, well, go and walk.

00:36:27.060 So I can't, you know, I said, I need, yeah, you're right.

00:36:29.640 You can't, you need a little bit of apparatus around you to regain your strength.

00:36:35.520 But eventually you don't want to have those even bars around and you want to be able to walk on your own.

00:36:43.560 So a lot of these techniques are exactly that because ultimately where you want to get to is habit.

00:36:48.580 So if you have a workout routine and you're doing it again and again and you're making it really, really predictable, eventually just do it without even thinking about it.

00:36:59.400 It's not a big deal.

00:37:00.620 If you have a workout routine where it's, oh, what, what day is it going to be this week?

00:37:03.760 What am I doing this week?

00:37:06.040 And that makes it motivationally difficult, you know?

00:37:10.460 And so, you know, like if you say I want to go home and pick up my bag before going to the gym.

00:37:15.580 Well, once you get home, there's so much temptation.

00:37:17.700 I'll just take five minutes in front of the TV, somebody says.

00:37:20.240 We're going to make my snack.

00:37:21.380 Then that's it, right?

00:37:22.380 The day's gone.

00:37:23.580 If you left in your car and drove to the gym first, maybe just have like a, you know, a granola bar or something like that.

00:37:29.120 Give yourself a lot of energy.

00:37:31.840 Then the gym is the cue.

00:37:33.920 You know, you're not home.

00:37:35.340 It's respecting that we are vulnerable to this impulsive action is essentially the first step.

00:37:43.280 That you saying, if I go home, I know enough about myself that I am going to probably give in.

00:37:54.200 So I better not go home.

00:37:55.660 And it's people who actually acknowledge they are, have these motivational weaknesses that tend to do better.

00:38:02.820 People pretend they don't, that they're kind of do are of robotic perfection, put themselves in a situation which makes them vulnerable.

00:38:09.420 And then they give it.

00:38:11.280 So two tactics that I've used successfully in my own life that you talk about in the book.

00:38:15.240 One is to increase expectancy or the perceived chance of you accomplishing that big task is by breaking it down to smaller components.

00:38:22.260 So you mentioned earlier, you know, working just in 10 minute increments.

00:38:26.320 I've done that whenever I've been putting off an article I've been writing or my taxes or some other undesirable task.

00:38:31.960 I just tell myself, I'm going to work on this for 10 to 15 minutes.

00:38:35.480 What ends up usually happening is it sort of primes the pump.

00:38:38.760 So I keep going.

00:38:39.820 But even if I don't, like, you know, I don't want to work on it anymore.

00:38:42.660 It's like, well, I made 10 minutes of progress.

00:38:44.760 So that's helpful.

00:38:45.820 The other one is using that pre-commitment, which this is battling impulsivity and delay.

00:38:51.260 So I've used app, the website Stick to, you know, put money on the line.

00:38:55.780 I say, if I don't accomplish this task by a certain date, I've got to pay, you know, cough up, you know, some money.

00:39:02.860 And you have to make it sort of significant so it hurts.

00:39:05.020 And you can even double the hurting, the pain of it by not accomplishing the task by making the money go to an organization that contradicts some sort of core belief of yours.

00:39:16.220 So if you're a Republican, you can have the money go to a Democratic Party.

00:39:19.640 The Democratic Party, if you don't complete the task, if you're an environmentalist, you can have it go to some, you know, organization that supports oil drilling or something like that.

00:39:27.620 So those two have been really helpful for me that I've used successfully.

00:39:31.420 We've got the techniques down.

00:39:33.580 They work really, really well.

00:39:35.720 Now it's just finding the right one for you and making sure you implement it properly.

00:39:39.840 Is there someplace people can go to like find, I mean, do you have like a website where you've like laid out your research and some of these tactics?

00:39:46.520 Well, yeah, I have a website.

00:39:49.740 And of course, it's my book, right?

00:39:51.800 Fantastic.

00:39:52.300 Well, Pierce Steele, this has been a great conversation.

00:39:54.080 Thanks so much for coming on.

00:39:55.320 Oh, my pleasure.

00:39:56.080 I hope you got everything you needed.

00:39:58.400 My guest today was Dr. Pierce Steele.

00:40:00.000 He's the author of the book, The Procrastination Equation.

00:40:02.840 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:40:05.340 You can find out more information about his work at his website, Procrastinus.

00:40:09.060 That's P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-U-S.com. 1.00

00:40:13.720 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash procrastination equation.

00:40:18.080 We can find links to resources, including that flowchart Dr. Steele mentioned in the podcast about different ways to hack the procrastination equation.

00:40:25.460 We'll have a link there as well as other links where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:40:28.540 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:40:44.000 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.

00:40:48.520 And if you enjoy the show, you've gotten something out of it, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

00:40:53.700 It helps out a lot.

00:40:54.560 And if you've done that already, thank you.

00:40:56.240 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think gets something out of it.

00:41:00.000 As always, thank you for your continued support.

00:41:01.780 And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

00:41:04.720 We'll be right back.

00:41:34.720 We'll be right back.

00:41:39.340 We'll be right back.

00:41:39.420 We'll be right back.

The Art of Manliness - September 26, 2018

#444： How to Use the Procrastination Equation to Start Getting Things Done

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