Procrastinating 101: Catching Up to the Can We Kicked

This week's Procrastinating 101 deals with Chapter 7 of Dr. Timothy Pychyl's book, The Procrastinator's Digest:  A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.  Chapter 7 is entitled "Why Getting Started Isn't the Whole Solution."

At this over-halfway mark, Dr. Pychyl warns that "just getting started," as he advised in the previous chapter, engenders positive feelings.  Wait.  Warns?  Positive feelings?  All good, right?

Wrong.  Because those positive feelings can come back to bite us, setting us up for another round with those "biases in planning and thinking" that we know so well.  You might say (if you want to ring an over-used chime in this seemingly endless political season) we've "kicked the can down the road."

And so, says Pychyl,

we have to recognize other points at which we typically abandon our goal pursuit.  We have to be prepared to address each of these as they arise, otherwise we will fall back into habitual ways of responding. . . . [because] [p]rocrastination is not just a failure to get started.

And specifically

We have to be prepared to deal with changes in our mood related to setbacks and disappointments.  We have to be prepared to deal with distractions.  We have to be prepared to overcome obstacles.

Pychyl puts forth two main strategies to deal with this "delayed onset procrastination."  (As a runner who has suffered DOMS--delayed onset muscle soreness--I contributed this term.)  Here again, predecisions and implementation intentions are key.

The first approach is to "predecide" to eliminate/limit distractions--proactively.  The second is to formulate "if/then" implementation intentions to deal with distractions, obstacles and setbacks.  Ala this chapter's mantra--"I need to be prepared to deal with distractions, obstacles and setbacks."

Pychyl provides the following table to help us identify the distractions, obstacles and setbacks we typically experience with respect to or main procrastinated task(s); and to formulate a strategy to head them off proactively, or to resist the urge to procrastinate when they occur.

Distraction, Obstacle or Setback	Remove Proactively?	Implementation Intention
Example:  Email	Yes, shut it off before I work.
Example:  Friends’ Invitations		IF my friends call to invite me out this weekend, THEN I will immediately say “thanks but no, I’m committed to finishing my work.”
Example:  Stuck on my work and don’t know what to do		IF I get stuck, confused and worried because I don’t know what to do, THEN I will stay put and list what I do know to be sure what it is I don’t know.  Once I know this, I can seek help if needed.  I won’t give up.

Next week, willpower.  In the meantime you're missing some great cartoons, and lots more detail if you don't read the book.

Procrastinating 101: Just Start, to Finish

Okay.  It's Tuesday.  I don't know about you, but I'm still a procrastinator, in some form or another.  So it's time, once again, for Procrastinating 101--our (mostly) weekly survey class-type discussion of the findings and writings of experts in the field.

At present, we are making our way through Dr. Timothy Pychyl's blessedly boiled-down treatment, The Procrastinator's Digest:  A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.  We are up to Chapter 6:  "The Power of Getting Started."

And the mantra for this chapter?  "Just get started."

So, let's begin.  

Pychyl tells us that "getting started changes our perceptions of a task," according to research he has conducted.  Specifically, once we have gotten our feet wet with respect to a dreaded task, we see that task as significantly less unpleasant, onerous, daunting, etc.  And we feel differently about ourselves, too, once we get started--"more in control and more optimistic."  So if we

'prime the pump' by making some progress on our goals, the resulting increase in our subjective well-being enhances further action and progress.

(And now that I am a few paragraphs into writing this post that I couldn't get to earlier today--thanks to a barfing grandson, a moody spouse, and the usual unanticipated work obligations and other interruptions--I feel more positive than when I began.  The post seems more "writeable" and I feel more capable of finishing it.  Dr. Pychyl and his academic crew seem to have gotten this one right.)

At this point, Dr. Pychyl returns to his advice, set out more generally earlier in the book, that we use the device of an implementation intention as a cornerstone of our strategy for change.   This time around, he provides a bit more detail:

As defined in the well-developed psychology of action created by Peter Gollwitzer (University of New York) [mentioned in an earlier post drawing on the book Switch:  How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath], an implementation intention supports a goal intention by setting out in advance when, where and how we will achieve this goal (or at least a sub-goal within the larger goal or task).

 An implementation intention that aims to interrupt our procrastinating behavior pattern could look like this:

IF I say to myself things like, "I'll feel more like doing this later" or "I don't feel like doing this now," THEN I will just get started on some aspect of the task.

Pychyl cautions us against going all Nike--"Just do it!"--lest we get overwhelmed.  We are "pre-deciding" only to start, after which "the 'doing it' will take care of itself."

I was particularly taken with Dr. Pychyl's reference to meditation as an example of something that takes continual "re-starting," as we return our wandering attention to the breath.  He uses this as an analogy for the process of starting on a task, not just once, but again and again throughout the day.

He goes on to provide research-based advice that we need to think concretely about a project, and to begin with a small, tangible action.  For example, we might begin a writing task by typing a title, or assembling references.  I might begin a blog by finding an image, or choosing labels.  

Tucked ever-so-subtly under this positive section describing writing, sculpting, farming, and carpentry as beginning with  "roughing" in, is this bit of "tough love" from the man whose students have dubbed him "Dr. Procrastination:"

Honestly, if you are not ready to make this first step, to just get started, on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, then put this book down now.  You are not committed to change yet, and nothing else I have to say will matter in your self-change.  Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to discourage you.  I am just being honest.

If we are still hanging in after that "talking-to," Dr. Pychyl directs us to begin concretizing a project on which we have been procrastinating, using the following table:

Goal or Task
Priority or Order of Completion	List of Sub-tasks

   


And now that I've reached the end of this post, please excuse me while I proceed to fill in the cells with every trivial thing I can think of which might move me closer to the completion of my novel.  Of course, sharpening pencils is not only the most tired of cliches, but also anachronistic.  But what about cutting out pictures for a story board?  Or replacing the lamp in my work room?  Or . . . .

Procrastinating 101: Tomorrow--You're ALWAYS a Day Away

In Annie's rose-colored version of the song, tomorrow is a haven for hope, a raincheck, something to pin one's dreams to when today disappoints.  Dr. Timothy Pychyl, author of The Procrastinator's Digest:  A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, would have us sing it differently. 

Annie's view is that "Tomorrow is only a day away."  We don't have long to wait.  Dr. Pychyl points out that tomorrow, as a repository of new energy, better mood and motivation, never comes--it's "always a day away."

That cheery observation is the main message of Dr. Pychyl's Chapter 4, "Why We Won't Feel Like it Tomorrow." In today's Procrastinating 101 we continue digesting Pychyl's digest--kind of like a crib sheet from Cliff Notes.

Pychyl's formula should be familiar by now.  Each chapter includes a mantra.  Chapter 4's is "I won't feel more like doing it tomorrow."

His exposition of the issue presents some useful terms from the psychological literature, which were new to this reader of all things procrastinational.

The first is affective forecasting, which is basically our flawed attempt to plan actions based on how we think we're going to feel in the future.  In the case of procrastinators, this usually consists of a false expectation that the task that is so onerous today will be less so tomorrow--a tomorrow which Pychyl has warned us against waiting for.

And we go wrong in forecasting our future feelings because of 

• focalism--"the tendency to underestimate the extent to which other events will influence our thoughts and feelings in the future" and
• presentism--putting "too much emphasis on the present in our prediction of the future."

And here's the "catch"--"when we intend a future action, our affective state is often particularly positive."

Pychyl's strategies for dealing with this human foible?

Strategy #1--Time travel

What he apparently has in mind here is getting more specific about the future.  For example, in thinking about retirement, he recommends we chart and spreadsheet our way to a more realistic picture of how current decisions will affect our future economic wherewithal.  

Although this practice might prove useful, Pychyl is concerned that us ditherers may engage in second-order procrastination--i.e., putting off the planning exercise intended to ward off procrastination.  Ah, there's a term for this troublesome behavior of mine.

Never fear, however.  There's a back-up strategy.

Strategy #2--Expect to be wrong and deal with it

As we have gotten used to doing with iffy weather forecasts and downright unreliable economic predictions, we can learn to discount our lousy predictions.  Pychyl outlines two approaches to doing this:

Approach #1-- Accept that "My current motivational state does not need to match my intention in order to act."

As Pychyl asserts, "This is a common misconception about goal pursuit; we believe that we have to actually feel like it.  We don't."

Approach #2--Similar to #1.  Kind of the difference between sucking it up today, and sucking it up tomorrow.  Realizing that when we do arrive at tomorrow, our mood is not going to be as good as we anticipated yesterday when we made the plan to act, we can plunge in anyway.  

"[T]he thing to do it to remember that this is a transient mood."  "And to know that this [being dismal at mood prediction, and having to pay the piper] is a common problem with being human."

The hope is that motivation will follow behavior.  Once we get going, we will feel more like continuing.

As Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, tells of her father's running program, which depended on the minimal commitment to "put on his running shoes and close the door behind him," behavior can produce attitude/motivation, as well as the other, perhaps more usual, way around.

The whole thing seems to me to amount to calling our own bluff.  For those of us who have fallen prey to our own fairy tales about "the day to come" more times than we care to admit, this sort of wising up should not be rocket science.

Procrastinating 101: What We Have Here is a Failure to Self-Regulate

In this week's Procrastinating 101, we continue to learn from Dr. Timothy Pychyl, author of The Procrastinator's Digest:  A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle.  His third chapter asks, and answers, the question "What's the Most Important Thing We Need to Know About Procrastination?"

And the answer is . . . 

Procrastination is an issue of self-regulation, or impulse control--which we have read about before.  Pychyl says our procrastinating is directed at "short-term mood repair," and that it is self-reinforcing.  We put off a dreaded or unpleasant task; we feel better; we learn that putting off tasks feels good; we are more likely to do it again.

So what does Pychyl see as the way out of this cycle?

Step 1:  Get smarter emotionally.  Pychyl defines emotional intelligence--a term widely used since its academic emergence in the mid-1980s, and having trickled into popular parlance by way of talk shows, magazine articles, blogs, even elementary school curricula--as "the ability to effectively identify and utilize emotions to guide behavior."

Apparently, "[r]ecent research has shown that lower emotional intelligence is related to more procrastination" but, thankfully, "[w]e can learn to more effectively perceive, understand and regulate our emotions."

Having recognized the emotional morass that leads to procrastination (and to other "poor choices," as grade school teachers are known to point out), the challenge is to get it together and stop acting out about our feelings.  As in

Step 2:  Learn to deal with the negative emotions associated with the tasks we tend to procrastinate.  Here's where the mantra for this chapter comes in:  "I won't give in to feel good.  Feeling good now, comes at a cost."

Using this statement to remind ourselves of what we know, we can stay put instead of fleeing the scene of an impending task, and "suck it up."  "If you turn away in an effort to make yourself feel better, it's over," warns Pychyl. 

Pychyl sums up his approach this way:

THINK:
IF I feel negative emotions when I face the task at hand,
THEN I will stay put and not stop, put off a task or run away.

He references the work of Peter Gollwitzer on implementation intentions, which take this IF/THEN form.   The stay put admonishment made me think of the Butt in Chair writer's guide developed by Jennifer Blanchard, author of the excellent, now-defunct-but-still-archived blog Procrastinating Writers. 

Dr. Pychyl softens the "suck it up" bromide with this suggestion.  We can overcome our discomfort with the negative emotions engendered by unappealing tasks by accessing some of the other thoughts and feelings that are also part of our "inner landscape."  For example, instead of focusing on the fear triggered by a daunting project, we can center our thoughts on the anticipation of success and reward, or on our interest in the content, or on our capable self.  

Again, a pithy treatise.  And because it's short, I still have time to get to some of the things I've been avoiding. . .  

"I won't give in to feel good.  Feeling good now, comes at a cost."

"I won't give in to feel good.  Feeling good now, comes at a cost."

"I won't give in to feel good.  Feeling good now, comes at a cost."

Procrastinating 101: Charting our Way Out

So it's Tuesday morning, and time, once again, for Procrastinating 101.  And between now and dinner time, I have to bake a requested Red Velvet Cake for my Valentine's Day birthday child, who turns 21 today.  And shop for its ingredients, and some other stuff.  And deposit my paycheck so I can pay for the shopping.  And find the check I've mislaid since picking it up yesterday.  And report to work for three hours.  And prepare dinner, and a room to eat it in.  And pick up our in-for-repairs-AGAIN car on the other side of the city.  And figure out when and how I'm going to exercise.  And pay an overdue bill.  And work on my clients' projects.  And finish this blog post.  And. . . and. . . and. . .

At least some of this workload is the result of things put off earlier--though I probably couldn't get them done before because I was dealing with that day's backlog.  Was there some original sin of procrastination that has set this all in motion?  Am I doomed to be playing catch-up ad infinitum?

In any case, I'm ready to learn what Dr. Timothy Pychyl's The Procrastinator's Digest:  A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle can teach us today.

Chapter 2--"Is procrastination really a problem?  What are the costs of procrastinating?"--begins with the ponderous mantra "Procrastination is failing to get on with life itself."  Sounds like a pretty big, all-encompassing problem, not the minor irritation of stand-up comedy legend.  The kind of thing likely to cause some serious regrets, as Dr. Pychyl learned from a psychologist expert in grief counseling.  

The regrets of omission related to our procrastination were most troubling in the grieving process.

And procrastination has a negative effect on the quality of our work (Pychyl cites Dr. Piers Steel's meta-analysis); our feelings (research shows that, even though we are ostensibly choosing an initially more pleasant state, in fact we're not enjoying it all that much, as feelings of guilt and dread intrude); and our health (as a result of stress, and failure to deal with health maintenance in a timely way).

But the bigger picture cost of procrastination is at the heart of the chapter's mantra.  As Pychyl exhorts us

When we procrastinate on our goals, we are our own worst enemy.  These are our goals, our tasks, and we are needlessly putting them off. . . . When we procrastinate on our goals, we are basically putting off our lives.

Dr. Pychyl is brilliantly concise, as befits his small book, in characterizing procrastination as 

a symptom of existential malaise . . . that can only be addressed by our deep commitment to authoring the stories of our lives 

and reminding us that

[t]o author our own lives, we have to be an active agent in our lives, not a passive participant making excuses for what we are not doing.  When we learn to stop needless, voluntary delay in our lives, we live more fully.

I don't know about you, but he makes me want to get off my butt and get on with it.

As a strategy for strengthening our commitment to act, Dr. Pychyl sends us once again to the chart.  This one directs us to reflect on costs and benefits related to those goals we have been putting off.  I have filled mine in in a preliminary, cursory fashion below, working as I am with limited space and time.  (And planning to avoid too much public self-incrimination.)

Task, project, goal, activity	Costs associated with procrastination	Benefits of acting in a timely fashion
Working on my novel	Someone else has already written some of the books I could have done	The satisfaction of being who I want to be, doing what I supposedly want to do
Tackling the basement	Continuing irritation, inconvenience, and potential injury	Finding long lost stuff, friends, whatever else may be lurking there
Researching/implement Living Trust	Dread of battling children scarier than death itself	Peace of mind
Meditating	Feeling harried too frequently	Lower blood pressure; feeling calmer
Making travel arrangements	Higher costs of plane tickets purchased within days of departure	Savings; more travel choices
Making medical appointments	Exacerbating physical problems	Recovering sooner; limiting damage

Go ahead.  Try it yourself. We have nothing to lose but our time--which some of us aren't making the best use of anyway!

Dr. Procrastination Recommends This Video

Procrastination from Ryan Perera on Vimeo.

According to Facebook, Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation--and head of that "research team at the University of Calgary" referenced herein--"loves" this animation, and so do I.  If it goes by too fast for you, as it did for me, I've "freeze-framed" the advice here:

Simple Methods to Help Fight Procrastination:

• Organize your to-do list by task importance.
• Set time limits for yourself.
• Get rid of distractions.
• Create a reward system when you complete big tasks.
• Break down bigger tasks into smaller portions.
• Single-task rather than multi-task.
• Save your most exciting tasks for last.

Don't bother breaking out the popcorn.  This little jewel is one minute and twenty-seven seconds long.  You'll have plenty of time left to implement the advice after watching.

Procrastinating 101: Winding Up the Lateness Cures

If I were due to be someplace at 12:00, the minute hand on the clock face at the left would be in the "Whew!  Just made it!" position.

A position I'm hoping to confront less and less.

Likewise the "Yikes!  Not again!  What lame excuse should I offer this time?" configuration, with the minute hand (and in my defense, almost never the hour hand) several points on the wrong side of the appointed hour.

So what can I take from the final pages of Diana DeLonzor's  Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged as we conclude our Procrastinating 101 consideration of her work?

To set the stage for an appreciation of the difficulties ahead, this quote from H. L. Mencken, presented by Ms. DeLonzor to head her chapter on habit change:

For every complex problem, there is an easy answer, and it is wrong.

Okay.  So nice and easy's off the table.

DeLonzor provides "three keys to successful habit changing," which shake out to more like six keys.  They are:

• Developing the right attitude
• Observing yourself
• Setting your goals and rewarding yourself

and also, under "Developing the right attitude,:

• Go cold turkey
• Don't expect it to be easy

and under "Observe yourself,"

• Keep track in writing.

All pretty self-explanatory.  I would add that, with the cold turkey recommendation, Ms. DeLonzor aligns herself, along with The Happiness Project's Gretchen Rubin, with those changers Rubin calls "abstainers."  Abstainers are the cold turkey crowd.  Moderators, on the other hand, approach change incrementally, avoiding lines in the sand. 

I suspect, from my vast experience of attempted habit change, some successful and some, well, not, that I am a moderator in abstainer's clothing.  That is to say, I am more successful when I persist in acceptance of the gradual nature of change and the inevitable (for me, anyway) slips.  However, I continue to operate out of an abstainer's mindset, and to pay the price.  When my perfect change doesn't work out as planned, I am prone to gradual abandonment of the goal.

Given this recognition, I think it unwise to adopt DeLonzor's advice that I shoot for immediate whole-hog timeliness.  (Am I detecting a barnyard animal theme in my approach to this subject?)

DeLonzor's "Final Note" (which isn't really, since it is followed by a final chapter for those early birds who have to deal with the likes of us, and Appendix A's 20-item "Action Plan for the Perfectly Punctual," and Appendix B's pretty useful "Meditation Instructions") is a little pep talk in which she sends the reader off, armed with new insights and awareness, identification with "one or two" lateness types, four or five appropriate exercises, written goals and an action plan, to "start practicing what you've learned."

She cautions against energetically rushing on to tackle other personal flaws and/or habits (should we have such things) before consolidating the practice of being on time.  And she suggests that the services of a personal coach (which she happens to be, so she should know) might prove useful should we bog down along the way.

She ends with "Good luck" wishes and an Emerson quote.

In retrospect, I think the book includes some good practical advice about taming our inner Mad Hatter.  For myself, I think it may be time to stop attempting across-the-board personal reformation and accept that I will probably to continue to struggle with lateness.  But now I understand some of why that is.  And despite the lateness of this final posting on DeLonzor's manual, the laxness of my approach, and my lack of a strategic plan, I have begun to observe small occasional instances of being on time.  And to learn how to experience them more frequently.

Procrastinating 101: Lateness as an Evasive Move

Available from Zazzle

Procrastinating 101 again.  (Funny how nearly two years into this little online seminar, we're still at the survey level, the introductory 101.  But then we are still accommodating late arrivals.  And some of us--ahem--are still working on basic knowledge and skills, even after all this time.) 

This week, we are focusing on "Cure Seven:  Respect Yourself," in Diana DeLonzor's prescriptive Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged.  Theoretically, if we have been employing DeLonzor's good advice, we should be nearly cured by now.  I suspect, however, that some cases may prove a bit more intransigent.

The current chapter paints a portrait of The Evader latenik which many of us will recognize.  Ms. DeLonzor tells us this kind of problem with showing up on time is really all about low self-esteem, which can contribute to punctuality difficulties in one of three main ways:

• When you suffer from low self-esteem, you tend to expect less of yourself.  Because of those low expectations, you may set lower standards for the way in which you live your life.  Chronic lateness, unreliability, and procrastination can be part of those lower-than-normal standards.

• Low self-esteem can cause feelings of anxiety or depression, prompting you to engage in the type of actions I refer to [as] the "evader syndrome," in an effort to relieve that anxiety.  The urge to soothe yourself can take priority over being on time.

• Low self-esteem can cause you to fear success or failure and to engage in what is known as "self-handicapping."

No self-assessment quiz this week.  I guess we're expected to "know it when we see it."  Though I would venture to say that I know lots of people whose self-esteem is low enough that they would compliantly apply virtually any negative label to their own behavior, but who are not, in my view, especially prone to lateness.

DeLonzor advises this five-pronged strategy for improving the condition--evasive lateness--if it indeed inflicts us. 

• Expect more from yourself--do what you know is right.
• Learn to manage your anxiety.
• Overcome fear of sucess or failure by challenging yourself.
• Do something you love.
• Build and maintain friendships and family ties.

As we have come to expect, Ms. DeLonzor presents a series of "exercises" which she says will help us begin to improve our self-esteem, and to change the lateness behaviors that stem from its less than ideal state.  I can already give myself credit for having practiced one of them religiously for years, though in isolation it has not yet had the effect of making me more punctual.  Here's how she describes it:

Let go of perfectionism.  Every day for the next week [or for several years] practice leaving the house or office without making things perfect.  You might leave the bed unmade or your desk in a mess [or the entire place looking like a cyclone has hit it].  Notice how it feels to "chill out" and let things go.  You'll probably find it liberating.  [I don't.]

 So, one down.  What else can I do to effect this "cure?"  Oh, yeah.  The exercise that would have us doing something courageous, something outside our oft-noted "comfort zone."  Like oh, say, competing in a triathlon, or two?  Been there, done that, still late for too many important things--though not for the race.

In fact, as I look over DeLonzor's list of 13 exercises, designed to help us begin to implement her five-pronged approach to a cure for low-self-esteem-based lateness,  I see that I have been doing much of what she suggests--recognizing negative self-talk; replacing it with positive self-talk; identifying my purpose and setting short-term goals related to it; nurturing relationships with family and friends.  Perhaps the difficulty is that I haven't been specifically targeting lateness.  DeLonzor does concede that some of us may have gotten to a point in life where our self-esteem level is fairly reasonable, but we may retain some residual habits and patterns which originated with since-resolved self-esteem issues. 

At this point in our reading of DeLonzor's book, we have run through all seven of the promised cures.  And I am coming to the conclusion that my lateness problem may have been caused originally by nearly all of the syndromes and character defects she outlines.  But the real difficulty is the habit of lateness that is deeply ingrained in me.  I believe that "treating" or "curing" whatever may have caused my lateness in the first place will not be enough to make me on time.  I need to change my habits.

But Ms. DeLonzor is one step ahead of me.  Next week's chapter:  "A Few Words on Habit Changing."

Procrastinating 101: The Rule of Three For Rule Breakers

This week's  Procrastinating 101 deals with "Cure Six:  Play by the Rules" from Diana De Lonzor's Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged.  In this chapter, Ms. DeLonzor explores the lateness issues of those individuals who fit her Rebel label.  If my husband had a problem with lateness (besides the challenge of hanging with a latenik spouse), this would be him.

To begin with, it is curious to me that a treatment of the rule-averse would be so strongly governed by the "rule of three"--according to Wikipedia

a principle in writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. The reader/audience of this form of text is also more likely to consume information if it is written in groups of threes. From slogans ("Go, fight, win!") to films, many things are structured in threes. Examples include The Three Stooges, Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Three Blind Mice.

In Ms. DeLonzor's case, we have, not goats, stooges, or blind mice (see, I used three examples!), but rather:

three underlying motivations for the Rebel's lateness;

• The desire to feel powerful  [DeLonzor calls this type "Power Players."]
• Difficulty accepting authority ["Authority Resistors," in DeLonzor's parlance.]
• The need to feel special or unique [DeLonzor's "Special Seekers."]

three common characteristics, shared by these three types;

• Unlike those in other tardy categories, rebels often feel little remorse.
• More men than women seem to populate this category.
• This species of late people seems to have the ability to control their lateness more than do other tardy types.

and three steps for overcoming Rebel lateness;

• Become aware of when and why you rebel
• Learn that cooperation is a part of everyday life
• Find control and power in more constructive ways

Sticking with this theoretically pleasing motif, I identified three exercises from DeLonzor's list of ten which I plan to explore, given that my husband's Rebel nature may have rubbed off a bit on me.

The first of these involves recognizing our rebellions, and looking for patterns.  (I expect I might find that I am most likely to rebel when I have said "yes" though I wanted to say "no.")

The second consists of practicing periods of cooperation--just to get the hang of it.  (I can see how this might be useful in my relationship with my husband, for example.  Though I wouldn't want to take it too far, of course.)

And the third focuses on building a unique identity around accomplishments, rather than flakiness and lateness.  (But I can still dress "artistically," right?)

Of course, if you are a Rebel latenik, you will find more compelling detail, and some great stories, in Ms. DeLonzor's book.  Unless you refuse to go there.

Procrastinating 101: Getting Ourselves in Line

Diana DeLonzor's seventh chapter in Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged--"Cure Four:  Develop Your Discipline Muscle"--is our Procrastinating 101 focus for this week.  I can't say I'm all that thrilled at the prospect of yet another admonishment on self-discipline, especially two days before Thanksgiving.  But I'm committed to slogging through, and learning what I can.

Is the notion of lagging self-discipline more palatable because the chapter begins with a quote about a nun with this trait?  Are we in good company if it can be said of Maria, in The Sound of Music, that "She's always late for everything, except for every meal"? 

In her introductory paragraphs, DeLonzor reminds us of studies indicating that we late-niks as a group have more issues with self-control than do those who generally arrive, and complete things, on time.  Dr. Piers Steel has written most comprehensively about impulsivity as a contributor to procrastination in The Procrastination Equation.  

DeLonzor also points out that self-discipline is not necessarily an across-the-board issue.  We might do quite well at quitting smoking, or exercising, or cleaning the kitchen nightly, but play waayyyy too much solitaire on the computer, or play chicken with the snooze button, or read just one more chapter when we know we don't have time. . . .  (Hmm.  Sounds familiar. . .)  Reading this made me think of something I learned from reading Switch:  How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, and blogged about earlier this year:  self-control is exhaustible.  That is to say, those of us who are fighting our natures or battling stress on many fronts may simply run out of the capacity to behave optimally. 

What is this capacity whose supply can be outstripped by the demands of our everyday lives?  In DeLonzor's nutshell, self-discipline is 

all about. . . the ability to make sacrifices and accept limitations.  It's the strength to choose what's best in the long run instead of what feels good right now, even if it means having to give something up.

And for each of us, our difficulty (or facility) with self-discipline is largely determined by

• Our experience with effort and discomfort
• Genetics
• Family influences

So, are you one of those challenged by impulsiveness?  Three or more yeses in response to the following questions qualify you as an "Indulger," plagued by a "weak discipline muscle."

• Do I have several bad habits that I've tried repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, to conquer?
• Do I tend to play things by ear, rather than sticking to a schedule?
• Do I frequently say or do things I regret?
• Do I have difficulty starting projects?
• Am I usually impatient when I have to wait?
• Do I lack long-range goals and daily plans?

My answers?  Well, maybe a few.  Yup.  Not really.  Nope; finishing projects is my bugaboo.  Depends on what I'm waiting for--dentist appointment and flight boarding?  yes; Christmas and check-out lines (unless I'm late for something), not so much.  And yes. 

I guess that makes me sort of a borderline Indulger.  Yeeks!  I'm already an official Rationalizer, a Producer and a Deadliner.  Is is possible that I commit all 7 deadly sins of lateness?  Or are these quizzes like a lot of zodiac signs and fortune cookies, general enough to apply universally given a liberal enough reading?  But I digress--another character flaw.  Back to self-discipline, and the cure.

Interestingly, DeLonzor relies on different research findings than those invoked by the Heath brothers to maintain that habits of self-discipline carry over from one realm to another--that we can build brain structure that assists us in resisting impulses in new situations. 

For the Indulgers, and yes, the borderline Indulgers among us, DeLonzor recommends this three-pronged approach to developing our self-discipline "muscles:"  

• Learn to increase your tolerance for discomfort
• Practice making transitions
• Become a planner and goal setter

For each strategy, she again provides a group of exercises--ten pages in all--designed to boost self-control.  Clearly, I don't have the requisite self-control, or the time, to engage in all of them.  I definitely plan to skip the first, which basically involves self-deprivation--and thus flies in the face of the self-care I've been advised to grow in my life.  I'm actually already pretty good at sacrifice and discomfort, having been a mother for 34 years now, and a Catholic for some 20 years before that.

I would probably benefit, however, from these two:

Practice stopping midstream.  Whether you're in the middle of an engrossing novel or watching a good TV program, practice stopping before you're ready, if even for five minutes.  Doing so will give you practice in making transitions so that when it really matters, you'll be up to the task;

and

Practice making and adhering to a set schedule that includes time-estimates and priorities.

And the key with this last exercise is to base the list of tasks and priorities on long- and short-term goals, instead of randomly adding items to a to-do list, with an unmoored goal of getting "as much done as possible."

 

It seems, after all this time, and all the procrastination gurus I've consulted, it so often comes down to this.  Maybe there's a reason my post on Neil Fiore's "unschedule" is by far my most popular.  So far, I have not had/developed the necessary self-discipline to use it myself!  Perhaps it's time. . .