Procrastinating 101: The Long and the Short of It

If Dr. Piers Steel is to be believed, we procrastinators may be about to run out of excuses.  (And God knows, we love our excuses!)  It's his persuasive argument, and his damned (good) practical advice that may prove their undoing.

Procrastinating 101 has been focusing these last nine weeks on Dr. Steel's book, The Procrastination Equation:  How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done.  If you have been following its exposition, you may remember Dr. Steel's assertion that poor impulse control is at the heart of most procrastination.  In Chapter Nine, "In Good Time:  Managing Short-term Impulses and Long-term Goals," he lays out the problem more fully, details some creative solutions, and throws in a little ancient Greek literature.  As we have come to expect, Dr. Steel is once again an eminently companionable and unassailably (I looked it up--it's really a word.) knowledgeable tour guide through these regions of Planet Procrastination.

"Impulsiveness," says Steel, "multiplies the effect of delay, making it a major determinant of the Procrastination Equation's outcome."  For those who have not yet seen Steel's formulation, and those who have but have not committed it to memory, the mathematical expression he has devised to represent his theory of procrastination looks like this:

Here low Motivation predicts the big P, Procrastination.  The other elements have been teased out in previous posts (see, particularly, Procrastinating 101: 12-year-olds Get It, So Can We ).

Impulsiveness contributes to the divisor in the equation, so that the more impulsive among us will experience lower motivation, and thus be more inclined to procrastinate.  And, as Dr. Steel warns, "you can't escape your fate.  Impulsiveness is not something you have, but something you are."  Yikes!

But there is hope, and it begins with Odysseus.  Dr. Steel recounts the preparations urged upon Odysseus by the goddess Circe, who knew that he would face, on his return trip from Troy, the temptress Sirens.  Circe advised him to plug his men's ears with wax, and to lash himself to the mast of his ship, so that he would be able to pass through the district of these irresistible creatures and continue his journey.  Thus, Odysseus employed the technique of precommitment.

Dr. Steel recommends we face the fact that temptations too often get the better of us, leading us off task and into putting off what we need to get done.  We would do well to identify our Sirens, and to invest in precommitment.

He offers three contemporary strategies (no ear wax or ship masts required) for precommitting, intriguingly categorized under the heading "Bonding, Satiation and Poison."  For the sake of brevity, and my sanity (it has been a looonnnnnngggggggg week!), I will just hit the highlights here:  

• Throw Away the Key--The idea here is to devise a way, technological or analog, to block off the exits while focusing on work.  Steel mentions, e.g., a program for Apple users called Freedom, which blocks internet access; Clocky, an alarm clock on wheels that goes berserk when you hit Snooze; and Google's "Take a break" button, which gives the user fifteen minutes of email-free work time.
• Satiation--This approach addresses our urges and impulses by having us "tank up," scheduling in a modicum of pleasure and relaxation, and then slotting in work around these "appointments."  Dr. Neil Fiore popularized this Unschedule in his book The Now Habit:  A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.
• Try Poison--This strategy features penalties & scare tactics.  One example was employed by my ex-husband in his dissertation research on behavior change.  Participants put up $100, which was forfeited to their least favorite cause or charity if they resumed smoking during the study period.  Alternatively, Dr. Steel recommends visualizing in horrifying detail the dire consequences that could result from putting off a dreaded task.

Then there's "Making Attention Pay," Steel's two-pronged advice for diminishing the pull of distractions/temptations.

• Inside Out:  Pay Attention Please!--We can minimize the appeal of those objects and activities that would keep us from work by altering our perceptions, and thus the level of attention these things command.  Using abstraction and symbolic representation--e.g., focusing on attributes of a desired food, and thus recruiting the prefrontal cortex to compete with the limbic system response of "yum," "gimme"--is one way of doing this.  Another is to run a "smear campaign" on the desired object, attending to its negative qualities and consequences--e.g., weight gain and high cholesterol from junk food; STDs, unwanted pregnancy and a ruined marriage from infidelity; or public disgrace and firing from failure to complete work.
• Outside In:  Now You See It, Now You Don't (stimulus control)--This approach attempts to limit the environmental cues which distract us.  For example, a dieter might stock the fridge with only healthy food choices.  Those of us who struggle to stay on task might limit the number of windows open on our computer desktops; remove troublesome bookmarks; arrange our work spaces to cue work and not entertainment; incorporate work triggers; and--addressing two of my personal pet peeves--declutter our work space, and maintain "pristine" boundaries between "clashing life domains, typically family and work."  Hard to do for the increasing number of us who work from home, and whose laptops accompany us from one messy and distracting space and location to another.

And finally, Scoring Goals.

Dr. Steel has this to say about goals:

We have already touched on some of what makes a goal good.  In chapter 7, we mentioned that making goals challenging is more inspiring than making them attainable.  Easy goals are attainable. . . .In chapter 8, we focused on making goals meaningful by linking them to personally relevant aspirations.  If you see how present tasks lead to future rewards, you will value them more highly.  In this chapter, we will put the finishing touches on goal setting by putting time back on your side.

• The Finish Line is Just Ahead--Dr. Steel's suggestion in this section is to proceed toward "concrete, exact" goals by stages, using subgoals.  In this way, we can take advantage of our tendency to work more intensely closer to deadline; a series of intermediate "deadlines" will result in spreading out effort, and a better quality product.  He discusses the issue of "motivational surface tension," and using a technique I first learned from Alan Lakein (in How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life)--setting a mini-goal that gets us started, and more often than not, ultimately engaged in the work we're avoiding.
• Full Auto--This advice builds on the predictability that flows from build routines and habits of work.  He also urges us to plan for distraction, as in "'If I lose focus, then I will move my attention back to the task.'"

But again, Dr. Steel says all this better than I.  You might want to just read the book yourself.

Next Week:  Chapter Ten--Making it Work.  We're in the home stretch now!

Done for the Week: Slip Sliding Away

A busy day today, finishing up yesterday's overly ambitious to-do list.  And a too-busy week last week, with too little to show for my efforts.

As with my efforts to remodel my swim stroke, my struggle to bring order to my life is proving strenuous.  The results of both campaigns to date urge refining my approach.

In any case, last week was not without its achievements.

Done for the Week:  July 11-17, 2011

1. Completed Week 10 of 15-week triathlon training program; ran twice; swam three times; biked twice
2. Swam twice, ran twice, biked once with my training partner 
3. Got bike computer installed, new water cage mounted
4. Watched series of YouTube videos on Total Immersion swimming
5. Finished Hamlet's Blackberry, by William Powers
6. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
7. Published 2 blog posts 
8. Shared Happy Hour dinner with my husband
9. Began watching new anime series with my son
10. Designed and printed new business cards
11. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
12. Participated in driving my not-quite-licensed-to-drive son to his job
13. Continued to work on cracking the code for road test appointment; succeeded in moving appointment up 2 weeks
14. Worked on getting out the vote for recall primary
15. Made major progress on backyard reclamation
16. Picked up mower in for repair
17. Planted more flowers, two tomato plants
18. Went to jobs rally
19. Meditated once 
20. Saw my therapist
21. Bought new tent
22. Had first backyard campout with my grandson
23. Attended board meeting
24. Continued progress in cleaning/straightening/decluttering work room, bedroom & kitchen  

Finishing Hamlet's Blackberry:  A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age, by William Powers, was last week's most important accomplishment.  The book made me rethink how much time I'm spending online these days.  Powers argues, and I am beginning to believe, that much of the anxiety and confusion many of us are experiencing in our lives, as well as a great deal of our difficulty with focusing and getting things done, represent side effects of our absorption in screens.  I plan to continue reflecting on how I can use the technology that surrounds me to accomplish more of what I care about, while avoiding more of its distractions.

Last week, for the fourth week running, my focus goal was to declutter our house, involving my housemates in the excavation, and starting with the kitchen, my work room, and our bedroom.  Unfortunately, my virus returned for an encore performance; my pregnant daughter spent a night in the emergency room, requiring me to give a day to watching my overtired grandson; the recall primary election demanded more volunteer hours; and "life happened" in other ways too numerous and dreary to mention.  I made a bit more progress, but I'm not "there" yet.  I'm giving it at least another week.

Yoga and meditation were among the things that didn't happen last week.  Symptomatic, I suppose, of my general difficulty with self-discipline in this period.  I intend to do better this week.

Procrastinating 101: From Hammock to "Halo"

In week 5 of our sojourn with Dr. Piers Steel's The Procrastination Equation, we consider Chapter 4, "ProcrastiNations:  How Modern Life Ensures Distraction." 

Dr. Steel opens with an engaging tale of his personal struggles with video game addiction.  Of course, he passes off his most recent skirmish as having been in the interests of science.  Thusly:

To better write it [the chapter], I reacquainted myself with an old distraction, purposefully re-infecting myself with what had afflicted me for so long as a student--video games. . . . for the purposes of this book. . . . Oh, the sacrifices I make for science!

Wow!  Taking one for the cause.  And his drug of choice?  Conquer Club, the electronic version of Risk, a board game which nearly ended my first marriage, long before I eventually ended it myself, for much more mature reasons.

Steel identifies the following "elements" of his ensuing enslavement, typical of the situation too many of us find ourselves in these days.

• proximity to temptation
• virulence of the temptation
• variable reinforcement
• instantaneous reward

Following his consideration of the harmful nature of this form of entertainment, he goes on to discuss the even greater damage wrought by TV, in the six decades plus since it was welcomed into our hearths and homes, and its ongoing inroads with near-universal adoption of cable and digital service, DVR technology, and migration to computers and smart phones.

And then there's the Internet itself, with its (ahem) blogosphere, 24/7 email, and social networking.  (Excuse me while I take a brief break to check my Facebook page.)  Not to mention the lure, for an information junkie like myself, of all the reference material (refereed and not), arcane tidbits, and spiritually uplifting (or not) stuff (for lack of a better word.  No, wait.  My computer-housed thesaurus suggests "resources."  Yes, much better.)

And the games!  No console necessary.  (My personal Waterloo?  Bejeweled Blitz.  And it's on Facebook.  A two-fer!)  One-stop shopping for the procrastinator.  Oh, and I forgot to mention the shopping!  (Where else could I spend 45 minutes searching for the exotic new tea-processing device I recently saw in Seattle?  Or the perfect, like-new triathlon suit for my next race?)

Dr. Steel doesn't mention porn, but no matter whose numbers you believe, it seems pretty clear that the pursuit of prurient interests on the Internet is not adding to our productivity.  One much-cited source tells us that 25% of all search engine requests (68 million a day) and 35% of all Internet downloads are pornographic; that every second, 28,258 Internet users are viewing porn; and that 20% of men and 13% of women (but not this one) admit to watching pornography at work.  Another claims that 70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during the 9 to 5 workday.

But whatever we're doing on the Internet, and the TV, and our cell phones, smart and otherwise, and our Wii's and Playstations and X-Boxes, and our iPads, a lot of it could properly be termed procrastination.

As Dr. Steel says, "Every distraction the modern world offers also exacerbates the mismatch between who we are and what we need to be."  

And, more pointedly, 

Modernization brings with it procrastination.  As our economies have grown over the last few decades, we have experienced a fivefold increase in chronic procrastination.  In the 1970s, 4 to 5 percent of people surveyed indicated that they considered procrastination a key personal characteristic.  Today, that figure is between 20 and 25 percent, the logical consequence of filling our lives with ever more enticing temptations [or of ever more books, articles, and blogs about procrastination?].

 

And while work is as much fun as it ever was (!), whole industries have grown up around the competition for our time and attention.   And with all this proliferation of entertaining alternatives,

[t]he rise of procrastination is hard to avoid, given its deep roots in our brain’s neurobiology.  The limbic system focuses on the now while the prefrontal cortex deals with longer-term concerns. . . . Though both the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex come together to reach a final decision, their duet ensures the rise of procrastination.

And the effect is purposeful, relying on sophisticated design and advertising:

Businesses respond to our dominant desires, so there is no coercion or conspiracy here, just the invisible hand of the market building a limbic system wonderland. With the ubiquitous overemphasis on the immediate and the material, on the instant and the consumable, people are seduced into putting off long-term but ultimately more satisfying goals involving career achievement, volunteering in the community, raising a family or following a spiritual path.  Materialism and consumerism are merely emergent properties of our neurobiology given free rein in a free market.

As he wraps up the chapter, Dr. Steel builds to a crescendo of foreboding, from this Aldous Huxley quote, from Brave New World Revisited-- 

 "All the resources of psychology and the social sciences are mobilized" with the aim of controlling people by finding "the best ways to take advantage of their ignorance and to exploit their irrationality."  

to this from Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death--

“the rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

And finally, to this—

In sum, the free market is geared toward providing increasingly irresistible temptations that distract us from our greater goals.

Never before in our history have there been as many temptations, as succulently devised, as readily available, and as adeptly marketed.  Adam and Eve only had to deal with a juicy apple purveyed by a serpent.  Nowadays, our apple is caramel coated and chocolate dipped, marketed with a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in a blitz of commercials, pop-ups, and inserts.  Inevitably, as our lives drown in these diversions, our procrastination is on the rise.

The exploitation of the limbic system is baked into capitalism and you can’t stop it without making the entire wonderful wealth-generating machinery grind to a halt.  Someone will always create a product that provides short-term pleasure along with considerable but deferred pain simply because we will buy it.  Consequently, dealing with constant temptation and its potential for creating procrastination is and will continue to be part of living in this world. 

But, lucky for us, we

are reading this book. . . . Learning better ways to cope with temptation and procrastination is what we will be doing together in later chapters; we will make the Procrastination Equation work for us, one variable at a time.

Except earlier, Steel hazarded a guess that those of us making our way through this third chapter would have already been engaged in reading the book for about three months—based on statistics about how much time people spend, relatively, watching TV versus reading.  So the (over)haul is likely to be a long one.  

And what of those of us who will remain unremediated?   

I've spent a fair amount of the last, well, more than a decade, reading about young people who are "twice exceptional," "driven to distraction," and "differently abled," in the attempt to facilitate the education and uprearing of my middle child (And what kind of word is that, anyway, uprearing?  And what might it mean about the tendency to "rear up" that I observed in that same dyslexic, ADD, and eventually depressed son, as he wrangled with the academic powers-that-were in his tender years?).  But are any of us, however abled, immune from the cultural influences so hauntingly described by Dr. Steel?  And which is the new, and which the retro neural architecture, and "learning style?" 

Will the successful educational institution, and workplace of the future accommodate the brains our technology is rebuilding, so that work becomes more reinforcing?  My husband, the university professor, has adapted his pedagogy to reflect the cable-ready students who must take his courses.  The end result?  What appears to be real learning seems to be taking place, and students flock to sign up for his classes, and swell his waiting lists.  But is this pandering, akin to the infotainment that passes for news coverage on our TV screens?

Dr. Steel's description of the forces of distraction is compelling, if distressing.  He does not, however, examine the cultural shifts involved in what might be termed our present day procrastination hysteria.  As leisure shrinks, and work and its demands consume us more and more, are we more focused on the unproductivity we therefore problematize?  Steel provides this example of early 20th century exhortations about procrastination, from William Bagley's 1911 treatise on "The Craftmanship of Teaching," in which he described 

 

the "hammock on the porch," the "fascinating novel," and the "happy company of friends" as the "seductive siren call of change and diversion, that evil spirit of procrastination!"

Were the hammock, the novel, and the friends' happy company really so much less distracting a century ago?  Or were those who turned to them perhaps less overwhelmed with work, and less concerned about dalliance?

For myself, as I wrote this piece over the course of the day, I took a page out of Dr. Steel’s book, literally, and got in some Solitaire ‘Til Dawn (Forty Thieves), and a little Facebooking.  I also stopped off at the donut shop for some empty calories to celebrate my son’s return to school, after a several year hiatus for academic detoxing.  I spent some highly distracting, and enjoyable time in a hammock, socializing with my husband and kids.  I read a bit.  I checked my email to see what time I was supposed to meet my running partner.

I'm not always clear what is really "productive," goal-oriented use of my time, and what is real distraction.  I do know, though, that I am enjoying wrestling with Dr. Steel's ideas, and their articulate presentation.

Next week--Chapter 5:  The Personal Price of Procrastination.

The Procrastination Police You Can Download

"Step away from the solitaire."

It's late, and I'm tired.  But I'm making an effort to keep up with Monday through Friday posting.

So tonight, I'm going to pass on this little nugget from my procrastination news reader.

Among the nifty tools available to thwart our inner procrastinators is an app for Mac called Obtract.  According to the review I read, Obtract detects your unproductive computer use, relying on your own definition of what's unproductive (Maybe you really need to be constantly checking Facebook for work?).  When Obtract catches you digitally "procrastinating," it covers your screen with a maze you must solve in order to "buy" the time necessary to engage in said unproductive activity.  

The app can also be used by a team, allowing team members to monitor each other's unproductive time, and to buy unproductive time from each other.

Since I got sucked into the solitaire vortex earlier this evening, while intending to relax from a strenuous day, I decided this would be a perfect time to try out this new app.  I downloaded it for free, but encountered some difficulty setting it up.  I have not yet figured out how to tell it what I consider unproductive.  

Not waiting for instruction, the application determined that blogging was unproductive.  It told me that I had become "too distracted to continue this activity. . ." and should "complete the maze for 5 more minutes of distraction."  So I guess we know what it thinks about the value of this blog!  I had to kill the darn thing, temporarily, in order to complete this apparently unfruitful post.

I'm going to take another stab at bringing Obtract to heel.  When I've got it up and running, I will post an update about its efforts to keep me in line.

A Gift from the Blogger Snow God

A snow day in mid-May?

Not really.  The weather here yesterday, while not exactly seasonal, was not wintry.  In fact, I dressed lightly for my late afternoon run by the lake, and even removed a layer as I went.

But Thursday was like a snow day because I was prevented by circumstances beyond my control from posting a blog. 

Blogger--the software that supports the creation of blogs for Blogspot, of which Put it to Bed is one, was "unavailable" through the day yesterday, and for half of today. 

I enjoyed the reprieve.

Procrastinating 101: Still Reading "Still Procrastinating?"

Today being Tuesday, it is time to consider Chapter 11 of Joseph Ferrari's Still Procrastinating?  The No-Regrets Guide to Getting it Done.  This chapter is entitled "Procrastinating at Work," something most employed procrastinators probably know a thing or two about.

To begin with, Dr. Ferrari could have benefitted from a writing instructor's feedback on his first few paragraphs.  And I know.  I used to perform such services for pay.  

He lost me the first time with his apparent assumption that interruptions reported by corporate employees in a 2008 New York Times article, amounting to "28% of the average workday," are evidence of procrastination, despite the employees' complaints that such interruptions are "unnecessary and not urgent."  If in fact these "interruptions" are self-initiated, then it would have helped convince this reader had Dr. Ferrari said so.  If they were a function of the environment or management structure--e.g., porous work areas, and frequent time-wasting meetings--then I am not persuaded that they constitute procrastination, though they may undermine employee focus and thus feed postponement.

My major quibble with the opening section of this chapter is with the befuddling contradiction in Ferrari's treatment of the growth of the American work week over the last several decades.  He says that labor saving devices have 

added  six-plus work weeks . . . to average U.S. workers' lives from 1965 to 2003

and then speculates that we have spent them watching TV!  Is he saying that we are doing this at work?

Then he asks if we are

still not convinced about the U.S. work ethic?

and cites Steven Greenhouse's The Big Squeeze, who

reports that productivity in America increased 60 percent since 1979.  Employees in the United States work 80 hours more per year than Canadians, 120 hours more per year than the British, and an unbelievable 340 hours more than the French.

He follows this by asserting that

Even so, workplace procrastination exists among U.S. employees and workers in other nations.

Huh?

Ferrari doesn't really address the loss of leisure and of work/home boundaries, or how much of the time and labor we've saved has been sucked up by the expansion of work responsibilities.  Nor does he consider that procrastination, under such circumstances, may be, at least in part, a survival strategy.  If some of us didn't put off the occasional work assignment, we'd have difficulty attending family celebrations and tending to personal hygiene!

In a less tortuous section, Ferrari illustrates the economic costs of procrastinating, to ourselves and to others.  He provides some sobering numbers, for example, of the nest eggs built by "procrastinating" retirement savers versus those who begin their savings earlier in life.  And he suggests that we find ways to more immediately "fine" ourselves for procrastinating, as a way of influencing our own behavior. 

Ferrari goes on to examine the demographics of workplace delay.  He informs us that white collar workers, both men and women, are more likely to procrastinate on the job than their blue collar counterparts.  Corporate white collar workers procrastinate more than noncorporate, and sales workers more than middle level management personnel.  (Ferrari believes that the technology that facilitates such work also provides distracting off-task opportunities.)  Curiously, workplace procrastination by business managers appears to be more common in the Northwest region of the country.

In a section that purports to deal with "Jobs Chosen by Procrastinators:  The Role of Creativity," Dr. Ferrari identifies only one occupation that appears to have more than its share of procrastinators, and that is "news reporters."  He doesn't discuss any of the other seventy-five occupations represented in the forty-three hundred surveys he and Dr. Piers Steel analyzed, so it isn't possible to assess the role of creativity, or the other factors that news reporters may have in common with other procrastinating workers.

Ferrari follows this revelation with a recommendation that we consider four "techniques," which we might use to avoid workplace delay.  They are:

• Confidence [Is the "technique" having some, or rating  ourselves on how much we have, as he advises?]
• Focus
• Brand [Understanding who we are, in order to "shift attention to what you offer others and gravitate toward the things you can control in your life.]
• Reward [Again, another "huh?"  What Ferrari says about this doesn't communicate anything about reward to me.]

After this (to me) baffling list, Ferrari launches into the discussion of creativity I was looking for in the earlier section, though he doesn't relate it to occupations.  But, as in Chapter 3, he expresses skepticism about the claim that taking more time with a project enhances quality, and ultimate productivity.  He concedes that this can be the case, but holds that it is generally just a dodge, and one that employers should see for what it is. 

In the rest of the chapter, we learn that Tuesdays are our most productive days, according to a study of "150 senior executives from a thousand [sic] of the largest U.S. companies," and then are presented with several lists of improvements we can make to confront out procrastination at work, which include:

• Purchase software with back-ups, tech support, and easy-to-find files.
• Print and read an e-mail message once, then file it.
• Check your e-mail only once per hour. [I'd have to increase mine quite a bit to reach this standard.]
• Identify very needy clients and give them more time [Really?]
• Make a decision and keep it, but develop back-up plans.
• Recognize the differences between tasks you must do and those you want to do.
• Prioritize tasks.
• Distinguish between what the team considers essential and what can wait.
• Recognize trends of the future.
• Maintain social ties within and outside the company.  [Is he telling us to have a Facebook page?]
• Minimize interruptions and distractions.
• Maximize organization.
• Figure out what is causing you to procrastinate to find a solution; you need to know what is motivating your tendency to delay.
• Conquer your fears.
• Make a list of what needs to get done, and then organize a plan to complete each step.
• Why not do the worst tasks first?
• Set realistic goals for what you need to accomplish.
• Keep a to-do list.
• Allocate time.
• Set and respect deadlines.
• Use your time wisely.
• Stay on task.
• Collaborate and cooperate.
• Avoid unnecessary follow-ups.
• Cancel routine meetings.
• Pick your projects carefully.
• Keep busy.
• Don't put off layoffs.
• Enforce punctuality.

And there you have it.  Ending work procrastination in 29 easy steps.  What have we been waiting for?

Procrastinating 101--Getting it Done, With and Without Technology

Procrastinating 101, our Tuesday feature on Put it to Bed, is currently focusing on what we can learn from Joseph R. Ferrari's Still Procrastinating?  The No-Regrets Guide to Getting it Done.  Today, Chapter 6, "Does Technology Make it Easier to Procrastinate?"

In a nutshell, Ferrari's answer is "Yes."  And "No."

In the course of his examination of technology and its effects on procrastination, Ferrari shares these tidbits of information about technology's harmful effects on productivity:

• The New York Times, in 2008, reported on a study showing that 28% of the average work day  of those employed by high-tech, computer-based companies was taken up by unnecessary, non urgent technological interruptions.
• The Chicago Tribune, also in 2008, reported that 46% of today's workers blame cell phones, e-mail, and the Internet for increasing demands on their time--actually lengthening their work hours.
• One group of researchers studying the use of the Internet as a form of procrastination--"e-procrastination"--linked this behavior with low impulse-control, a sense of low control over one's time usage, and risky web-based behavior.
• A separate group of researchers found that Internet use can "interrupt one's tasks and flow of thoughts, resulting in problematic outcomes."
• We can blame Steve Jobs for Apple's development of two sinister applications, one for Mac laptops called "iProcrastinate," which links to various procrastination opportunities, and one for the iPhone called "Put Things Off," which allows the user to delay tasks for chosen periods of time, from one day to a month.

On the other hand, Ferrari says, technology can help curb procrastination.  He gives these examples:

• The "Neverlate Alarm Clock,"--described on Alarm Clocks Online in this way:

  At last! A bedside clock radio designed with a class schedule in mind! 9am class Monday-Wednesday-Friday? Late lab on Tuesday? No classes on Thursday? No problem! The Neverlate™ 7-day Alarm Clock™ accommodates your schedule. Set it once and forget about it all semester. Never sleep through class again!  Bonus Feature - The Neverlate™ 7-day Alarm Clock™ also has a nap timer!

• A free downloadable program called "Instant Boss," characterized as

  a motivational timer for timing work/break cycles with alarm reminders and dialogs to help you manage your time better and get more work done, while at the same time not depriving yourself of much needed break time. Instant Boss is perfect for procrastinators and workaholics, alike.The defaults are 10 minutes of work, 2 minutes of break, and this is repeated 5 times for a total of a 1 hour work cycle.These values can be changed to suit your needs.  

• Programs some employers use to limit the amount of time available for email checking.
• Use of multiple computer monitors simultaneously.

  I've heard that people's effectiveness goes up as much as 50 percent when they can view e-mail and their client account screen at the same time.  In a case like this, technology helps us be more productive.

• A "clicker" for Power Point slide presentations that times the presenter, vibrating when the slide should be changed, and alerting her/him when a few minutes remain in which to complete the session.
• Software that Ferrari says is available which allows us govern our own use of email, Facebook, Twitter, etc., predetermining periods of accessibility.

Some of what I found most useful in this chapter probably doesn't really belong here.  It is not particularly relevant to the issue of technology, but is rather advice for procrastinators that Ferrari has culled from a Web search, and from Samatha Ettus' 2008 book The Experts' Guide to Doing Things Faster.   First, from the Web, he passes along these tips for being better organized and procrastinating less, which he elaborates on in the chapter:

• Create a sense of time urgency for the tasks you need to get done.
• Figure out how long the task will take.
• Jot down a to-do list.
• Hold yourself accountable for getting things done.
• Keep your desk and workplace decluttered.
• Throw away the trash.
• Recognize the times in your work plan when you must focus on other tasks and your routine will be disrupted [sic].
• For truly unpleasant tasks, give yourself fifteen-minute blocks of time to accomplish them.
• Prioritize.
• Don't be a "people pleaser" and feel that you must say yes to every request that you receive at work or at home.
• Reward yourself if you accomplish 80 percent or more of your to-do list.

For some stupid reason, I can't read these kinds of simple-minded lists enough.  Maybe it's part of my procrastination habit.  Or maybe it's the word "tips," which has been shown to be related to "search engine optimization," in the blogging world.  Put "tips" in your post title, especially in the company of a specific number and a sexy problem--for example, "14 Tips for Managing a Breakup," or "23 Tips for the Tsunami-Challenged"--and you've just doubled your traffic.  But I digress.

From Ettus, Ferrari offers these suggestions for ways to use 10 minutes to improve our lives:

• Do some exercise.
• Open a bottle of wine with ease.
• Make a brownie.
• Chop vegetables safely.
• Take the kids out to eat.
• Teach your dog a new trick.
• Get fast-but-fresh food.
• Clean your microwave.
• Pay three bills.

While I take issue with a number of these items--for example, how does one go about making "a" brownie?  Where do these people live and with what kind of children that they could "take the kids out to eat" in ten minutes?  Would they be chopping vegetables unsafely if they had less time?--the idea of using ten minutes well is intriguing.

Ferrari goes on to share Kath Lockett's Executive Style Management advice that we "schedule the first hour of the day as an appointment with yourself."  She recommends dividing that hour into six ten-minute blocks, and using each one to tackle small nagging tasks at home or at work, that will incrementally improve our working environment and its set up.

The way my life has been going lately, that strategy would only work if I were willing to arise at, oh, say 5 a.m.  But since I recently identified a rather pressing need for more sleep, that's not going to happen.  At least not now.

But I am going to be looking for ten-minute intervals, here and there, to spend digging out.  If I use a timer, does that count as anti-procrastination technology?

Hiring a Nag

Apropos of today's subject, a few weeks ago, on a family antique shop trek, my Mom picked up one of those clever little signs we plaster our refrigerators and table tops with.  The one she couldn't resist said "I'm not a nag.  I'm a motivational speaker!"  Now a mom myself, I'm more inclined to agree with that outlook.  Plus, my mom doesn't do much of either these days, where I'm concerned.  I'm not sure if she's just tired; if I don't require any guidance, as far as she can see; or if I'm too challenging a case to deal with.


But I've advanced to that place in life where I can be more or less self-nagging, errr motivating.  And if I lack stamina, or motivation to motivate my slacking-prone self, or the wisdom to know what to advise, I can now arrange for someone else to deliver the necessary prods and encouragements.  For an interesting discussion of  "How nagging text messages can make you healthier and richer," see Slate.com's article "A Jewish Mother in Your Cell Phone," from last November.


Taking this approach one step beyond the pills and bills reminders, and abandoning my Twitter virgin status, I just signed up to follow Timothy Pychyl's nearly unpronounceable Procrastwitate on Twitter.  Roughly eleven minutes ago, my cell phone vibrated to alert me to this bulletin:

Knowledge is power. Personal power. Learn to recognize when & how you are rationalizing the voluntary, unnecessary delays in your life.

Wow!  It's like he's here looking over my shoulder.  How did he know I was sitting here "rationalizing the voluntary, unnecessary delays in [my] life?"


I don't know if I'm going to profit from this innovation or not.  I'll keep you posted, but probably not tweeted.  And I will try to refrain from cluttering my phone, and my head, with all the other enticing nudges for twits that I'm learning about.  I will try to resist, for example, following "the Buddha" on Twitter, despite the promised doses of dharma; or ClutterAway2, even though I'll miss such pearls as this from Oct. 24th:  

If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house, 

and its companion tweet on the same day:

If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

(Just as I suspected, I am the cause of war and destruction in the world.  If I could just get this placed cleaned up!)

As for my own motivational speeches, I will continue to deliver them mostly in person, or by phone--where volume, tone and inflection can be modified to fit the occasion.  With or without rationalization.

Procrastinating 101: Declaring War on Distractors

[Wrested from the jaws of Jaws, yesterday's intended post.]

Marshall Cook’s book, Slow Down. . .and Get More Done, was written over 17 years ago.  For the most part, his observations and advice are still as relevant to our problems with productivity as when they were written, if not more so.

Chapter 5, “How to say ‘No’ to the great distractors,” however, is a considerable understatement of present-day challenges with focus.  Here, those seventeen years encompass a sea change in the way we live.  For example, in just the six year span between 2002 and 2008, the number of cell phones in use quadrupled, from 1 billion to over 4 billion!  For iPhone users like my husband, the ubiquity of connectivity means never having to say you’re unavailable.

And then there’s the computer.  NPR’s Fresh Air presented a program yesterday entitled “Digital Overload:  Your Brain on Gadgets.”   Smartphones and other gizmos are implicated along with the computer, where it all began.  Along with host Terry Gross, listeners learned that we are presently consuming “three times the information we consumed in 1960;” that we “check something like 40 websites a day”  and “switch programs sitting at a desk something like 36 times an hour”—amounting to “an onslaught of information.”


Terry's guest, New York Times technology writer Matt Richtel, contributed to a recent Times series on “Your Brain on Computers.”  Articles in the series include:

Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain

By MATT RICHTEL

Five neuroscientists spent a week on a hiking and rafting trip to understand how heavy use of technology changes how we think and behave.

August 16, 2010TECHNOLOGYNEWS

The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In

By JULIE SCELFO

Parents’ use of smartphones and laptops — and its effect on their children — is becoming a source of concern to researchers.

June 10, 2010GARDENNEWS

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price

By MATT RICHTEL

Scientists say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information from e-mail and other interruptions.

June 7, 2010TECHNOLOGYNEWS

An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness

By TARA PARKER-POPE

“We’re paying a price in terms of our cognitive life because of this virtual lifestyle,” one expert says.

June 7, 2010TECHNOLOGYNEWS

More Americans Sense a Downside to an Always Plugged-In Existence

By MARJORIE CONNELLY

Polls show that a number of Americans, particularly younger ones, are feeling negative effects from heavy computer and smartphone use.

June 7, 2010TECHNOLOGYNEWS

Richtel's most recent piece, "Outdoors and Out of Reach:  Studying the Brain," documents a week-long trip taken by five neuroscientists into a technology-free wilderness, in an effort to learn more about how are brains are being affected by all the whizz-bang at our fingertips-- "what happens when we step away from our devices and rest our brains — in particular, how attention, memory and learning are affected."  “Attention is the holy grail,” says Mr. Strayer University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer, the trip’s organizer.

Two of the five scientists who set out on the trip were already persuaded of the downside of the effects of technology on our brains; the three others, not so much.  But by day three--Strayer calls it the "third-day syndrome"--all were more relaxed.  And 

even the more skeptical of the scientists say something is happening to their brains that reinforces their scientific discussions — something that could be important to helping people cope in a world of constant electronic noise.

In a related effort, the Times issued an "unplugged challenge," asking readers to design their own trials of technological disengagement.  At this Times website, you can see for yourself how several "unpluggers" fared, and what they learned.  Most reflected that they intended to change their relationship to their gadgets somewhat as a result.

At the series' main page, you can also make use of interactive and multimedia features to "test your focus;" learn about the "first steps to digital detox;" and assess yourself for the "warning signs of digital overload."  Of course, some astute readers pointed out that these resources themselves were presented in a highly technical format, on a website!  Marshall Cook would be horrified!

Cook was concerned all those light-years ago, in what seems from our "noise"-saturated standpoint like a galaxy far, far away, with the distraction-potential of the phone (predominantly land lines); television; junk mail; and people who function in our lives as "time-suckers."  At the conclusion of his 17-year-old chapter, Cook provides a dodge of sorts for all us distracted folk, even the techno-junkies among us.  He holds that

[j]ust as "I don't want to" is a valid and sufficient reason not to do something, "I like to" is a valid reason to keep doing something that has no practical worth. . . .

He instructs us to make a list of our 

time-wasters that have no socially recognized practical value but which you nevertheless choose to do. 

His own list?

• Reading fiction
• Writing a novel about minor league baseball
• Writing personal letters
• Walking or riding the bike to work instead of taking the bus or driving
• Taking the long way
• Going to movies
• Shooting baskets with Jeremiah [probably not the bullfrog]
• Talking long walks with Ellen and Rosie [probably not the talk-show hosts]
• Petting Ralph and Norton [probably not of The Honeymooners fame]

And only 

if any items on your list have no practical value and have no emotional or psychological value for you [should you] strongly consider getting rid of them.  Simplify.  Unclutter.  Unplug. . . .Use your standards, your feelings, your intuitions.  Only you can define "waste of time" for you.