Procrastination is essentially a strong desire not to do something.  If you ask anyone why they haven’t done a job yet, don’t be surprised at being greeted with a series of logical and well reasoned excuses. Many are variations of “waiting for the perfect time to start.” Consider:

            Notice that all are factual, logical reasons which clearly blame environmental circumstances for our lack of personal activity. The worst part of a “perfect time to start” excuse is how compelling they are for us to buy into. And as soon as your mind decides “it can’t be done,” we then stop looking for new options where we could make progress. Let’s take a closer look at the two shades of impossible with:

Absolute vs Variable Limiters

            No amount of positive thinking, planning, or affirmations will help you take a ship out when the tide is low.  “Force of will” won’t allow you to charge a solar cell in the middle of the night or ski down a mountain without snow.  An “Absolute Limitation” happens when the environment makes any sort of progress impossible. 

            Most people claim something is “impossible” far too quickly and far too often.  They see something which blocks their progress and immediately throw up their hands and say it can’t be done. 

            They confuse absolute limiters with variable limiters.  “Variable” implies a range, we run from ideal to unconducive.  Unconducive conditions means a job is very difficult to do, but not impossible.  In many cases an unconducive condition make progress so difficult the job isn’t worth doing at this time.  The difference between an “unconducive situation” becomes an “impossible situation” depends on our interpretations.  

Fred and Tom

            Fred cracked the door open and smiled slightly.  He was greeted by the drumming patter of a heavy downpour.  The plan was to go for a jog; Fred needed to lose some weight and his wife set him up with a fitness schedule.  He agreed with the plan and the schedule and even with the idea he needed to lose weight.  But boy oh boy that rain looks heavy.  Besides, he reasoned, he just had a long hard day at work and deserved a break.

            Fred may continue his rationalization and convince himself that it is unhealthy to run in the rain.  The cold and wet could make him sick.  The more he thinks about it, the more the rain becomes an “absolute limiter.”

            Tom works in the same office and also had a long hard day.  Last year Tom had a brush with death in the form of a heart attack and became committed to losing weight through healthy eating and jogging.

            Tom looks outside his house and grimaces.  He hates rain.  He also realizes if he doesn’t stick to his commitment every day, he is going to skive off more often and be at risk of another heart attack.  He shrugs and reasons that a little rain isn’t going to kill him.  Besides his track suit needs a wash anyway.  As he thinks about it more he remembers that the PH balance of rain water is particularly good for hair.  Jogging in the rain isn’t ideal, but it isn’t going to stop him.  So he heads out for a jog, passing Fred’s house on the way.

            In both cases the decision was made before coming up with reasons to justify the action.  Fred wasn’t going to do it, so his mind started filtering for reasons why he couldn’t jog, to make him feel better about ignoring his fitness program.  Tom decided he was going to do it, so his mind started filtering for reasons to make the task easier.  Tom is no more motivated than Fred in a general sense, Tom had a few different experiences in his past which alters the way he interprets the importance of jogging. 

The Perfect Time eats Time

            Environmental conditions influence work and productivity.  An ideal condition can make a job easier, which means you can get more done with less effort.  However, conditions are rarely ideal.  If you really don’t want to do a job, you can always find something about the environment which is less than ideal and use it as an insurmountable obstacle. 

            While this seems reasonable, it also creates a habitual pattern of waiting (aka procrastination) which eats up time before a deadline.

            Procrastination eats up time.  As deadlines move closer, there are fewer opportunities for ideal conditions to occur.  Eventually, the noose tightens, and the procrastinator runs out of time.  Now they are forced to do the job in the last few minutes.  Conditions are still not ideal, they are under stress of time pressure, and their attitude towards the job is negative.  External motivators whip them into action.  Working “under the gun” causes them to lose all hope of doing a good job, now they only care about getting it done. 

            Yet, an impossible situation provides the ego with a foolproof scapegoat.  If your term paper comes back with an F grade; well who could fault you?  You had one evening to do it and there was a loud party going on in the dorm room beside you.  And if you manage a C grade?  Well, wow, even under these extreme conditions I can still come through… I must be a genius!  The ego wins either way. 

            Did you notice that a procrastinator’s logic never includes: “If I finished the paper a month ago, I could have gone to the party with all those hot chicks and I could have got an A grade.” Maybe it isn’t odd at all.  That logic doesn’t support the idea of an external scapegoat and doesn’t make the ego feel good about itself.

Distraction on Request

            Have you ever noticed distractions come up more often when you are doing something boring?  Friends call, alerts on social media pull your attention, a car crashes nearby, or you see a cute girl and you have a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to chat her up.  You didn’t cause any of these distractions.  It almost feels as if fate is engineering events to make it harder for you to do what you have to.  Strangely enough, this is partially true; there is an overriding intelligence screwing with you.

            To understand, take a moment to look at the opposite situation.  Remember a time you were immersed in a video game, enthralled by a book, or engaged in a riveting conversation with a friend?  You may have been surprised when you noticed that 8 hours passed.  This led to the expression, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” 

            When you are doing something that your mind registers as “fun” you possess an unlimited ability to concentrate.  This is the same kind of concentration associated with genius performance; yet everyone has had this experience at some point or another.  And there was no great effort, nor force of will. 

            How is it you can have a genius level of concentration when you are doing something you enjoy and can’t focus for five minutes on something you hate?  Why are we so ready to diagnose children with attention deficit disorder, forcing them to take Ritalin.  So, they can’t sit still for hours and listen to a fucking boring teacher who drones on.  So they easily become distracted with class assignments which they see as irrelevant and take no interest in.  Exactly what is abnormal about that?

            These same kids can focus for hours on games, sports, social media.  They have laser like attention when hacking through the CIA firewalls.  If ADD were a true neurological disorder, then they shouldn’t be able to focus on anything.  Preferences shouldn’t make a difference, except they do.  If distractions are purely a function of the external environment, we would expect to see them crop up at the same frequency, whether you like or hate an activity.  Doesn’t it seem strange that the world would wait for you to do something boring before trying to distract you?  The real world doesn’t spin faster because you like an activity or slow down because you hate something.  The real world just carries on doing what it always does. 

            However, the way you understand the world is highly influenced by emotional states.  When you are in love, everything looks beautiful and everyone is friendly.  When you are depressed the world actually looks greyer, washed out and colours are flat.  The world doesn’t change, but your perceptions of it do. 

            As soon as you say to yourself, “This job sucks, I’m fucking bored.” you express a desire to be released from the job.  The numerous systems which make up your unconscious mind interpret your desire as an order.  The reticular activating system (RAS) starts filtering the environment for more fun things to do, or to find ways to make the boring activity harder.  This provides your conscious mind with justification to stop doing it. 

            This is when you get annoyed by an electrical humming sound from an unknown device, or bothered by an insect that keeps flying between you and your monitor.  Both the hum and the insect were always present in your environment.  The only thing that changed was your state of mind (being bored) and some different priorities in your perceptual filtering system.  

            Once you realize this, you will realize that the overriding intelligence screwing you… is actually you!  The reason you get distracted is because you requested it; though you are not usually conscious of this choice when you make it.

Little Distractions Add Up

            Your mind is not a unified system.  Different drives can be in conflict with each other and add background resistance to what you’re doing.  You may know you have to do your homework.  You may have loads of reasons to do it; it is due soon, your mom is on your back about it, it won’t take long, you have time for it now, and some motivation author said it would be easier if you “Just Do It.”

            That’s all nice and good, except you don’t want to.  It’s a bloody boring assignment and you rather be playing on your Xbox.  Responsibility wins out for the moment and you begrudgingly sit down to slave away at it.  Of course the matter isn’t settled; desires are powerful and want expression.  Little distractions are called up in the back of your mind; each of which drags on your attention like little air breaks.  As they mount up, your “responsible self” has to exercise more willpower to press forward.  Eventually, the resistance frustrates you to the point where you go into “I-can’t-work-with-all-this-shit-distracting-me!” mode.  

            So you put away your homework and play on your Xbox; which is what you wanted to do all along.  Distractions magically fade into the background as your mind resumes genius levels of concentration.  This is what you need to get back on the leader boards again.

            Distractions only appear to be external because you can physically point at them.  Yet all distractions are mental tricks the mind plays on itself.  The only reason anything can distract you is because your mind interprets it as a “distraction.”

            I am a highly auditory person, meaning my mind prefers working in sound patterns more than visual images.  My family is rather noisy and I find the constant chatter so distracting that I can’t hear myself think.  This directly interferes with my ability to write.  I have two options.  I could (A) blame them or (B) see the distraction as my personal issue.

            Choose the first option and you will scream at your family to STFU!  You resort to manipulation and try to control the behaviours of others.  When that doesn’t work they become the scapegoat for your lack of progress.  They are the reason why you can’t get anything done.

            Knowing what I know, I chose option B.  This distraction was my issue; so I changed my behaviour.  I solved the problem by wearing noise cancelling head phones and listen to instrumental tracks while writing.  This drowned out all extraneous conversation and allowed me to focus on the task at hand. 

            Problem solved. 

The Answer to “Perfect Time” Procrastination:

            The answer to “Perfect Time to Start” perfectionism lies in accepting that conditions are rarely ideal.  If conditions are ideal, consider it a bonus; but never wait for a more ideal time than the present.

            Anytime you work on something important, there will always be distractions to impede your progress.  Motivation is a function of your personality more than the external world.  A motivated individual will find a way, no matter how hard it gets.  A person looking for an excuse will get stumped on the smallest obstacle.  The more you overcome obstacles, the better you get at it.  Resourcefulness, creativity and flexibility are developed like any other skill.

            Valid emergencies happen; if your child gets hurt and you have to go to emergency, you go.  As a parent, you’re going to be a basket-case of worry.  You may have an assignment due the next day, and no one is going to blame you for not doing it.  A hurt child trumps any deadlines of teachers or bosses.  In such an extenuating situation, you would expect an extension and you most likely would get one. 

            This is an extreme example, but let’s consider if this situation is an “Absolute” or “Variable” limiter.  An absolute limit means there is nothing you can do to make progress.  A variable limiter means you can make progress but it is harder to do so.  Does the situation make it absolutely impossible to make progress? 

            So you have taken your child to the emergency, registered with the nurses, and you have to wait and wait and wait.  You are probably going to be sitting in the ER room for the next 6 hours.  Sleep is not going to happen.  Panic and worry is.  What would happen if you spent those 6 hours working on your class assignment?  Perhaps you would give your mind a much needed distraction to calm yourself down.  Then when the doctor calls upon you, you will make better decisions.

            You may have loads of strong, compelling, socially acceptable, reasons for not to do something.  Productive people don’t ask: “What stops me?” because in asking, they will always find answers.  Rather they ask: “What can I do now?” 

            Get in the habit of thinking in terms of “What can I do?” The more you practice this way of thinking the more your mind will become use to generating these sorts of answers.  Then you will become one of these rare people who can make progress no matter what the world throws at them.

Dealing with an ‘Absolute Block’

            Sometimes you are absolutely blocked from doing something due to environment conditions.  If your plane is grounded from snow conditions and you are stuck in a layover for an extra 4 hours, there is nothing you can do to change the situation.  No one in an airport can control the snow.  The answer is the same as the one presented in chapter 10 (Blocked by others) except that you are being blocked by the environment. 

            If you are stuck at the airport ask: “What else can I do?” or “How can I use this extra time more effectively?” or “What is the opportunity that this new situation presents me with.” 

            Thomas Mendez, an insurance sales man, used the extra time in such a layover to introduce himself to other commuters.  As they were stuck in the same situation, they enjoyed the distraction and he made several positive contacts.  Later that week, he called on them, and managed to secure 3 individual policies.  One contact (who didn’t buy) turned out to be working for a large company which was looking for a new insurance provider.  The employee introduced Thomas to senior management where he secured his largest deal that year.  That 4 hour layover turned out to be his most productive time spent that year.

            When the wind is directly opposed to where you want to sail, accept that you can’t go that way directly.  But remember you can always tack into the wind.  Environmental conditions are what they are, but you always have a choice about how you want to proceed.

Decision Paralysis

            Americans love their choices.  Having a choice is synonymous with freedom.  Choices allow us to customize things to our own personal tastes and come closer to our version of perfection.  No choice is the hallmark of restrictive totalitarian governments, leaving us with the feeling that we are forced down a path like cattle.  Imprisonment is the ultimate “lack of choice.” 

            Choice is power, your buying decisions determine which products succeed and fail in the marketplace.  Money is a symbolic representation of your ability to make choices.  More money, more choices.  So, logically, if no choice is bad, a few choices are good, lots of choices are better, then infinite choice is best.  Is this true?

            Remember the last time you bought a computer?  You are swarmed with a flurry of technical options: How much ram do you want, what kind of processor do you need?  How much hard drive space do you want?  Do you want a faster smaller SSD drive or the larger but slower version?  How about the graphics card (insert 6 options here)?  Then there are the accessories, need a printer, scanner, what kind of screen do you want?  Do you need one screen or multiple?  Do you want VR?  How are you for that keyboard and mouse?  After a few hours of wading through all these possibilities which make you feel like you need an engineering degree to choose they hit you up with the extended warranty package… again with even more options.

            After all that thinking and haggling, your spouse calls and wants you to get some eggs.  So you stop in the local grocery store on the way home.  Now you have to decide on medium, large, extra-large, or jumbo, if you want a half dozen, dozen or family pack, are you going to get brown or white, do you want free-range eggs, omega enriched or regular?  Just give me some fucking eggs… seriously… and at the checkout you have even more options about things you didn’t know that you needed.  Since you here anyway, don’t you want a blah, blah, blah…

            Salespeople love options.  They believe the more options, the more likely they can find the needs of their clients.  However, clients are usually not experts in what they are buying.  When you overwhelm people with too much information, it leads to decision paralysis.  So you see people sitting in a restaurant unable to decide what to eat, people kicking bumpers of cars not sure which one to get, people unsure which vacation package to get because there are too many good places to go.  And therein lies the problem.  The act of making a decision means that all other options are eliminated.  To make a choice to go through one door is to close all the others.  Once you buy your house, you no longer have the option to live anywhere.  You are free to make any choice you want, but after you make that choice you are committed. 

            Now enter the fear of making the wrong choice.  When there are too many choices then the right choice becomes progressively less clear.  Think of it like a multiple-choice exam. Say you were given a battery of 100 question but there were only 3 possible answers for each question.  It would take a little time to do, but it is pretty standard and quite easy.  Imagine a multiple choice where you only had 3 questions, but each question had 100 possible options for each answers.  This would be insane.  Each question makes up a third of the exam, so there is a very serious consequence to getting it wrong.  With so many options, each possible answer would have to be carefully considered.  Students second guessing themselves would go into overdrive.

            This insane exam is the kind of stress consumers are faced when they have too many options, in a field which they know little about, and are expected to make financially binding decisions.  It is very common for people to prefer to not make a decision, rather than make a wrong one.  Sales people call this buying resistance.  Basically people are afraid of making a bad choice, and they find it physically exhausting to go through all the mental work considering each option, so they procrastinate on making any choice at all.  “I like to keep my options open.”

How You Deal with It

            We have to play with the cards we are dealt.  Our society is one of consumption, and the overwhelming excess of options are not going to go away just because they are psychologically unsound.  The only answer is to understand that this is the society you live in and ultimately it is up to you to deal with it.  As you can’t change the nature of our economic system, you have to focus on what you can change; namely you and your strategies to make decisions.

            The following strategy is based on the principle that when presented with 50 options, you are going to be overwhelmed, when you are presented with 3 it is far easier.  As terrible sales people tend to overload people, your objective is to cut out a bunch of useless options and only focus on the 3 most important for you.

The “3, 2, 1, Do” Strategy

Step 1) Accept Reality. 

Decisions can only be made in the PRESENT.

            Understand that you will never have enough time in life to make a flawless choice.  Next week you will always have more experience so you will make better choices.  Hindsight vision is 20/20; “If only I knew XYZ, I would have done it this way, or I should have done that.”  Thinking about what you could have or should have done is a trap that lands you in decision paralysis; it only makes you more afraid to try. 

            Face the fact that you are human.  You can only make the best choice given the information that you have available at the time.  If you wait till tomorrow, then tomorrow becomes today.  You are still in the same problem because the next day you will have even better information and make better choices.  This sort of delay can happen forever.

            If you are making a big decision which has serious consequences, you may want to research the various options so you get a better understanding of what is involved.  You should decide on a reasonable time frame to educate yourself and make a decision.  Very few things require more than a week to investigate. 

            If you take a month to do research, you should ask yourself if you are actually doing research every single day for a month or if you’re just wasting time. 

            Professional property investors usually include a clause on their bid that gives them one week for due diligence.  This means they check any financial problems with the property, get an engineer to do a structural inspection, and see if there is any other problems that may change their bid.  They only have a limited time before their buying decision.

            This is a very practical philosophy which you can use for yourself.  If you really need time to think about something, assign yourself a time limit.  If you want to buy a new car, say you will check out all the other models over the period of a week and then at the end you will decide on which type of car you want.  Without a time limit you will be stuck in “decision mode” forever.  

Step 2) Determine your Top Value

            Choose one key value that is most important to you in this decision.  For example, if you are a father choosing a car for your daughter, you will probably want one with good safety features because you want to keep your child alive.  “Safety” becomes your first and most important value… you think. 

            You know your daughter wants a car that “looks cute,” because she wants to impress her friends.  Your daughter’s happiness is very important to you.  So “Daughter’s Happiness” becomes another value which may be at odds with the value of “Safety.”  When you go car shopping, you quickly realize that having all the safety options you want and having something with style gets expensive real fast.  “Reasonable Price” becomes another major value that competes with the mix.

            Finding balance among different values can be challenging.  It is why so many people have a hard time making decisions.  You want the car to be safe, you want your daughter to be happy, and you don’t want to go broke buying it for her.  So which value are you going to value above others?  If it is price, then safety and child happiness are still important, but the thing you are looking most at is price.  If safety is most important to you, then you become more flexible with the money and more resistant to your daughter crying.  If you only want your daughter’s smile, then you may be spending quite a bit on a sexy little hot rod, but you better start praying for her safety.

            It is extremely useful to know your values before you start hunting for automobiles.  Sorting out your top values means you know what the deal breaker is.  For example if you have decided that safety is the number one factor, then if the car doesn’t match your safety requirements it is off the table.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a super awesome price, nor what your daughter thinks of it.  By determining your key value, you have effectively knocked out a lot of options that you don’t need to look at.

Salespeople do not need to know your key values!

            The more skilled sales person is, the more they will attempt to try to understand what your values are under the guise of “helping you” find the perfect car.  If they are aware that a competitor has a more perfect car than the ones they are selling, they are not going to tell you about it.  The job of a sales person is to secure your money with the company they work for.  As a consumer, it is your job to find the item that best matches your value, even if that involves going to another shop or doing some more online research.

Step 3) List Possible Answers

            After you have done some online searching, read a few reviews, made a few phone calls, and talked to a few people in the industry, you should have a good idea of what top products you may want to consider.  Make a list.  I usually include website names or contact information on this list so I can easily get more information if I need it.

Step 4) Circle Three and Axe One

            This is where the “3, 2, 1, do” technique gets its name.  Consider each item on your list against your primary, most important value.  Some will satisfy that value more than others.  Circle the best three options and record them on a new sheet.

            Take a good long look at those three options. One of them doesn’t match your top value like the other two.  Eliminate that one.

Step 5) Pro’s and Con’s

            Step 5 is for major life decisions; like buying a car, house, choosing a college, or getting married.  For smaller decisions you can create a reduced form of the following with fewer details.

A) Get a new sheet of paper.  Fold it vertically and horizontally, so you have a 2×2 grid.  Then fold it vertically so you can only see one column. 

B) Title the column with the name of the solution or product you are considering.

C) In the top row, create a “Pro” list.  This is all the benefits of going with that solution.

D) On the bottom row, create a “Con” list.  These are all the disadvantages associated with that solution, or why you would not want to go ahead with it.

Note: for both C and D, avoid using negative language (i.e. No, Not, or Never.)  For example, what does the idea of “not pink” tell you?  Does that mean, Red, Brown, Blue or Yellow?  You don’t know.  Negative language is a lack of an idea.  When you are going for clarity, use language that relates to specific images for both the Pro and Con list.  What is it you specifically like?  What is it you specifically hate?

E) Turn the page over and repeat B, C, and D for the other solution you are considering.

F) Record a number beside each bullet point in all 4 quadrants.

            1=not really important

            2=moderately important

            3=very important

G) Scoring: Add up all the Pro numbers and subtract the Con numbers.  This gives you a final score for each solution.  Whichever solution had the higher score wins.

Step 6) Take Immediate Action

            After you made your choice, act upon it!  Second guessing yourself, adding new points, changing the value numbers, leads to indecision and you are back to analysis paralysis. 

            Choosing not to make a decision is also a decision.  It is a passive choice, but it carries consequences.  If you don’t go to the dentist, because there are too many to choose from, then your cavities only get worse.  Time moves forward whether you choose to act or whether you choose to remain passive. 

            This method doesn’t allow you to make perfect decisions every time, but it does give you a systematic framework to cut through mental chaff.  The idea here is to focus on the few things which are important to you and ignore things which aren’t.