Kick Procrastination’s Ass: Run A Dash

Some­times we can just delay and delay and end up not doing any­thing. Some­times it’s the feel­ing of being blah and not being cre­ative enough that keeps you from work­ing, or maybe it’s the moun­tain of work that par­a­lyzes you to inaction.

What­ever the rea­son is, we have expe­ri­enced it in one way or another. This arti­cle from 43 Fold­ers dis­cusses pro­cras­ti­na­tion and how you can stop it from stop­ping you in your tracks.

Kick Procrastination’s Ass: Run A Dash
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Pro­cras­ti­na­tion can drive most of us into a spi­ral of shame that’s as mun­dane as it is painfully per­sonal. We know what we should be doing, but some invis­i­ble hang-up keeps us on the line. Unfor­tu­nately, the guar­an­teed con­se­quence of pro­cras­ti­na­tion is growth in the scale of the task you’ve been putting off—as well as the anx­i­ety that it cre­ates. All the time you’re putting some­thing off, your problem’s get­ting bigger—both in real­ity and in your head, where your col­or­ful imag­i­na­tion is liable to turn even the most triv­ial item into an unsolv­able jug­ger­naut that threat­ens to over­whelm you. And that means extra stress, more pro­cras­ti­na­tion, and the music goes round.

My favorite tonic for procrastination—which I have men­tioned in pass­ing previously—is what I call a dash, which is sim­ply a short burst of focused activ­ity dur­ing which you force your­self to do noth­ing but work on the pro­cras­ti­nated item for a very short period of time—per­haps as lit­tle as just one minute. By break­ing a few tiny peb­bles off of your per­ceived mono­lith, you end up psych­ing your­self out of your stu­por, as well as mak­ing much-needed progress on your over­due project. Neat, huh?

Why the Heck Should This Work?

By mak­ing even the most mod­est bit of progress on your hated task, you’ve done what once seemed impos­si­ble: you got started. When you real­ize how much of the anx­i­ety you’d expe­ri­enced was cre­ated in your head, you’ll expe­ri­ence huge relief and give your­self the jolt needed to get back on track.

You can do a dash any time and for vir­tu­ally any kind of project. The task has not been con­ceived that can­not be made smaller and more dash-able.

Three kinds of dashes

* Time-based dash — Most jobs lend them­selves to a time-based dash, so pick up a kitchen timer at your local drug­store. Choose an amount of time that gives you enough room to do some­thing but that’s brief enough to seem com­pletely unin­tim­i­dat­ing. For some rea­son, eight min­utes seems to work well for most of my own dashes.

* Unit-based dash — Alter­na­tively, depend­ing on the tasks you’ve been avoid­ing, you could go with a unit-based dash, dur­ing which you agree to plow through an arbi­trary num­ber of pieces asso­ci­ated with your project (such as pages to read, words to write, glasses to wash, etc.).

* Com­bi­na­tion dash — In many cases, the best solu­tion is a com­bi­na­tion dash, in which you get to stop the hated work when­ever you reach either the time or unit goal first.

Time your dash

Plan your dash based on what­ever works best for both your project and the par­tic­u­lar block that’s hang­ing you up. The key is to pick a goal that’s laugh­ably mod­est. Seri­ously, this is not the place for extrav­a­gant pre­dic­tions and overly ambi­tious goals (that’s prob­a­bly what helped land you here, right?).

Above all, remem­ber that this is all about doing some­thing, so pick a goal at which you can’t pos­si­bly fail.

Some Sam­ple Dashes

Here are a few ideas to get you started, although dashes can work for vir­tu­ally any project you’ve procrastinated—no mat­ter how monolithic.

* Messy garage — Goal: 10 min­utes or 1 full garbage bag. Spend 10 min­utes work­ing in one area of the garage. Take out old papers, break down some boxes, or move the Christ­mas orna­ments to the top shelf. When the timer buzzes at you, stop.

* Col­lege appli­ca­tion — Goal: 5 min­utes or 1 page. Start by fill­ing in the easy boxes. If you reach the bot­tom of the page before time is up, stop.

* Over­due report — Goal: 10 min­utes or 100 words. Just start writ­ing, even if it’s com­plete crap. Just keep scrib­bling for 10 min­utes or until you have a para­graph or two. When time’s up, stop.

* Hol­i­day cards and fam­ily cor­re­spon­dence — Goal: 5 min­utes or 2 notes. Grab a pen and start mak­ing with the nice. Tell them about Tyler’s big day at Com­puter Camp. Brag about Ashley-Marie’s jazz and tap recital. When you’ve hit two fin­ished cards, stop.

Feel Like Work­ing More? Well, do ya, punk?

Once you’ve made any progress on some­thing you’ve been procrastinating—even the ridicu­lously minor amounts of progress you make in your dash—you might find it irre­sistible to keep work­ing at it. That’s okay. Seri­ously, go nuts.

Although you must begin your dash with the con­fi­dence that your life pre­server is never more than a few min­utes or units away, there’s noth­ing to stop you from pad­dling for­ward if you’re mak­ing happy progress. That’s the trick, and, believe it or not, it totally works. Give it 8 min­utes, and find out for yourself.