“You are so screwed…”

            I was talking to myself again.  I rubbed my temples to alleviate the tension headache I felt coming on, looking over the work I needed to do, knowing full well there was no bloody way it was going to be done on time.  I felt miserable, sickened by the pressure of the looming deadline and found myself hating the sadist who created the clock. 

            And for a moment, during my panic, I had that strange feeling of déjà vu.  This wasn’t the first time I was in a shit storm.  My mind flashed back to last semester, recalling all the promises about starting early, keeping up with study, assignments, and projects.  I knew I could do excellent work if given the chance; if only I had another week.  Sigh, another sleepless night slog, maybe I’ll have something I can hand in tomorrow.  Why do I keep landing in this situation? 

            Procrastination has cost me many opportunities, socially and career-wise.  It made me feel inferior to all those lucky, successful people who keep popping up to remind me how well I wasn’t doing.  It is depressing to feel like your motivation is beyond your control.  Being a victim of your own habits is worse than being a victim in the regular sense; no one thinks you even have a problem.  “Just do it” they say, “Push yourself… Try harder… Mind over matter… Use willpower.”

            To a procrastinator, “Just Do It” is insensitive to the point of being insulting.  “As if I were an idiot who hadn’t thought of ‘trying harder’ before”… It’s like telling a person with a broken leg to just run faster.  Yes, I “Just Did It.”  Yes, I pushed and tried and used loads of willpower.  What happened?  I was exhausted and felt like even more of a failure.  Everyone on the planet seemed more capable than I was.

     Why me?  What is my great qualification in writing this sort of book?  I am a very different person today than I was thirty years ago.  When I see something that needs to be done, I do it.  I haven’t experienced the time crunch for decades because everything I do gets done well in advance.  At some point, not only did I move from chronic procrastination to highly self-motivated, but I also unlocked the secret of effortless hyper productivity.  I can get more work done in less time, with far less effort than average people.  This sounds like a boast, but it really isn’t; anyone can do it.  That is what this whole book is about.

     Thirty years ago I needed a lifeline.  Procrastination was my personal demon and cost me so much.  I can only imagine how different my life would have been had I known then what I know now.  I can’t turn back the clock, but I can throw you that life line I wish I had.

Willpower is Not the Answer

            When you exert willpower and work harder, you’re pushing a large boulder up a steep hill.  It’s a grind and if you stop, it gets even harder to get going again.  Why?  Because you’re working against gravity.  Why do you find it hard to motivate yourself?  You only need motivation for activities that run against your nature.  Everyone has boundless energy, motivation and enthusiasm for activities they want to do.  Motivation isn’t about the activity itself, but how you see yourself in relation to the activity.  When an activity is in alignment with how you see yourself, it’s fun and easy.  If not, it becomes a chore and you try to avoid it.

The Advanced Student

            In my youth, I was involved in martial arts.  The dojo I attended was based on an open monthly membership.  With it, you could attend three days per week.  The classes were divided into three hour-long sessions: One for beginners, one for intermediates, and the last for advanced students.  Students at higher levels were expected to attend their class but were invited to attend lower level classes if they wished.  So beginners could only attend the beginner class, intermediates could attend the intermediate and beginner classes, and advanced students had open access to all classes.

            This set up an interesting social dynamic; Intermediate students, full of aggression and ego, had a strong desire to level up.  They assumed the advanced class was about learning secret and deadly knowledge.  Yet they rarely took part in the beginner classes as they didn’t want to waste time working on things they thought they already knew.  Students who became advanced students always attended as many classes as they could.  Even after they became advanced, they were allowed to lead beginner classes and often act as one-on-one coaches for the intermediates.  They were never required, nor asked to do this; only invited. 

     As a youth, I had a terrible self-image and never imagined I could be good at anything.  After all, there were so many other students who were far more ambitious, willing to show off their superior skill.  I wasn’t like that, I just enjoyed “the doing” of martial arts and helping others.  Graduating to intermediate was cool because I was allowed to come to two hours’ worth of martial arts for the same price as a one-hour lesson.  I had no ambition or goal of becoming advanced; I simply enjoyed every moment in the doing of martial arts. 

            Some of our students were into competition and they were very good, giving our school a reputation for producing some of the most kick ass martial artists in the region.  Many of our advanced students went on to form their own schools, pursuing a lifetime career in martial arts.  Like most dojos, advancement was based on skill.  For someone with no interest in competition, nor hurting others, my agility and reflexes rose to frightfully high levels.  It was still a shock to me when the head instructor invited me (the guy who was always last pick for sporting teams) to stay for the advanced class.  And I, like the other advanced students, showed up for the beginner classes and stayed all the way to the end, training for about 9 hours per week.

     Our head instructor, Fred, noticed that some students would quickly gain skill and others would skip classes, eventually dropping out.  Being interested in providing the best training, he wanted to know why.  After an advanced session Fred explained the problem and asked us why we were so motivated to practice martial arts.  I remember that the group was a little confused with the question.  It was true that we attended all classes, every week, all the time, but we never had to ‘get motivated’ to come.  We never felt like we were forced to be there.  We were all there because we wanted to be… Simply: We liked it.

Seeking the Secret

            Fred was annoyed by this answer.  He was expecting something more complex, some actionable secret, which he could teach others.  “We liked it” was too easy.  Many of the ideas in this book are like that.  When you hear the truth you may say, “Nah, it can’t be that easy.”  Fred didn’t see it and I was too young to understand the implications at that time.  It was my first encounter with hyper-productivity and I never knew it.  It explained why most students dropped out and why a few went on to form their own schools.

     Motivation has nothing to do with the activity.  It has everything to do with your interpretation.

     A person who enjoys drinking and flirting doesn’t require willpower to go to a local pub. They don’t need planners, to-do lists, or stars to reward themselves for good behaviour. They don’t need affirmations to pump themselves up.  They just go.  If you enjoy playing the piano, then you play.  Interesting that you ‘play’ a musical instrument, you never ‘work’ a musical instrument.  Advanced students became advanced because martial arts was not a ‘have to’… it was a ‘want to’.

     Right now, you have activities you hate doing; you call them jobs or chores.  Does it come as any surprise that these are the same activities you procrastinate on.  You also have activities you enjoy doing; these hobbies and passion can be done for hours on end often leaving you refreshed at the end of a session.  Doing an activity you enjoy is like pushing a boulder downhill; may take a little effort to start but that sucker keeps on rolling all on its own!

Perception is Key

            It was much later in my life when I realized motivation has nothing to do with willpower.  It is a change of how you see a task or how you see yourself in relation to that task.  This is not lying to yourself by trying to talk yourself into a belief you know isn’t true.  It is not about hype either, trying to get ‘pumped up’ to do something that you really rather not.  It is about cleaning up your mind and reforging your logic so it serve your interests rather than blocks you.

     As of June 2018, the USA took the lead in being the country with the world’s fastest super computer.  Summit is about the size of 2 basketball courts, requires 136 miles of cables, and cost 325 million dollars to build.  It clocks in at approximately 143.5 petaflops.  Your brain (yes yours) is phenomenally powerful.  Experts estimate that the processing power of your brain is around 1 exaflop; or a billion, billion calculations per second.  This is several orders of magnitude faster than the Summit super computer.

     Why isn’t everyone a super genius?  Answer: our neurology is configurable.  Most people live their whole lives unaware of what their mind can do.  Most people are unaware that they can configure it.  A genius is a person who wired their mind for a more optimal performance.  They get more done with less effort.  They learned how use gravity to their advantage and roll the rock down the hill.  Everyone looks at them in amazement.  With one small push that rock rolls hundreds of feet.  They can’t believe it, so they conclude that the genius is a super human.  C-grade students often presume that A-grade students have an edge.  It must be luck, genetics, or some other undefinable and unobtainable trait.

     Hyper-productivity is simply a function of how you organize your mind.  The different sources of procrastination boil down to the same problem: bad mental programming.  In later chapters we will identify specific problems and provide you with a new way to think about activities you do.  Ironically, when you know the tricks, being productive is easier than burning yourself out with procrastination.  You are far closer to being a genius than you realize.