Enquirer Digest - Weekly #0003: Procrastination

Hello Enquirers

Our theme for this week is procrastination. Procrastination is a quite common subject that has been discussed over the years. Many things have been said and discussed about procrastination. The search for a solution and to find meaning has increased exponentially over the years. If you look at Google search analytics on the word "procrastination" it has increased fourfold since 2004.

Before I delve into my opinion on procrastination, please find below two podcasts in relation to procrastination that I believe you will enjoy.

In relation to this week’s subject the podcasts to listen to are:

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

Nir Eyal: Mastering Indistraction - Episode 104

Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal

World's Leading Expert on How to Solve Procrastination - Dr Tim Pychyl

Procrastination

What is procrastination? In latin it means to put off until tomorrow. It also entails the greek word "akrasia" meaning "doing something

against our better judgment". “Procrastination is essentially irrational,” says Dr. Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield. She adds; “People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.”

Procrastination is a way to deal with challenging emotions and negative feelings caused by certain tasks boredom, anxiety, fear, frustration, resentment, self-doubt, and beyond.

Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology.

I haven't met anyone who hasn't procrastinated in their lives. It has captured us all in stressful times. Is it important?

Harvard economist David Laibson proved that workers who favor 401(k)s have neglected thousands of dollars only a step away from retirement because they were too occupied with signing up. So yes, there may be many areas in which we are hurting ourselves.

How to beat procrastination? Two ways stand out:

1. Reward mechanisms

   1. We must find a better reward than avoidance, one that's able to alleviate our challenging feelings in the moment without inflicting harm to our future selves.
      

   2. This ties beautifully into how James Clear explains the reward

   effect for habits. James Clear says to change a behavior simply ask yourself:
   

   • How can I make it:

     • Obvious, attractive, easy? satisfying?

2. Self-Compassion

   1. According to 2012 research that studied the relationship between stress,

      compassion, and procrastination in a laboratory setting, Dr. Sirois found that procrastinators have high stress as well as low self-compassion. This suggests
      that self-compassion serves as a buffer against negative reactions to self-relevant events.
      

Today's Article

This week’s article is "What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?" from James Surowiecki. The article was published in 2010 in the New Yorker.

Today's Quote

Anything worth putting off is worth abandoning altogether.

Epictetus

Sources for this newsletter

1. What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?" from James

   Surowiecki. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/later

2. James Clear website https://jamesclear.com/procrastination

3. Article from NY times Why you procrastinate (It has nothing to do with self-control)