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The Counterintuitive Cure For Procrastination – Do This to Level Up Productivity
I have a question for you. Do you have a problem with procrastination? I feel like that question should be, “Are you human?” I love to be productive, but I can procrastinate with the best of them. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a big task that was scary, or I didn’t want to do it, and my house was never cleaner. I had never had more organized closets and anything I could think of to do, even things I did not want to do, but I wanted to do a little more than the thing I was procrastinating about. I got them done.
It turns out that is not the best way to beat procrastination. Part of the reason is that motivation can be driven by the chemicals in our brains. You have read about dopamine and how it drives a lot of our goal-setting and goal-pursuing and how it can help us feel consistently more motivated. I heard an amazing hack for procrastination that I have tried and tested myself for the past few weeks, and it works amazingly well.
Motivation is not the best way to beat procrastination because motivation can be driven by the chemicals in our brains. Share on XIt only works if you are willing to do something that you dislike even more than the thing you are procrastinating about. I am here for it because I want to save time and do more. I hate those days when I waste 1 hour to 2 hours procrastinating about something I don’t want to do. Here is the hack. You need to find a list of 3 to 5 things that you dislike more than most things that you can pick from and do one of. The moment you do that, you are going to get a spike in dopamine in your brain. Remember, you don’t have to know the chemical, a spike in motivation, and it is going to become exceedingly easier to do the thing you have been putting off.
I heard an amazing hack for procrastination that I’ve tried and tested for the past few weeks, and it works amazingly well. But it only works if you are willing to do something that you dislike even more than the thing you are procrastinating about.
I will give you an example of my five things. That might help you think of what your five things will be because they are always going to be different. I have become a fan of doing cold showers or a cold plunge. When I say I become a fan of the results, I still dread doing it, but it only takes two minutes to get the results. Whether I run into the bathroom and take a cold shower or I go out into my pool, which is not heated, and plunge myself in there, doing that will do it.
I’m also not a huge fan of pushups. 25 to 50 pushups will get me that boost in motivation. I can leverage that for that next task. Two other things that also work for me are doing a sprint about 400 meters as fast as I can in my neighborhood. I hate to run, but I get a little bit of the endorphins from doing the run. I get that spike in motivation from having done it. I can tackle the next thing.
You get that spike in motivation from having done something, and you can tackle the next thing.
If none of those work or it is raining outside and I don’t want to do the cold water thing, there is a certain stretch that is fantastic for your body. It is known as the third-world stretch. Because of the particular places in my body where I am tight, this is something that works well for me. It is a great stretch for me to do and I hate it. For me, physical things are the best things because I can do those quickly, but they don’t have to be physical things. They have to be something that you dislike that you can do and get that spike in dopamine and motivation. Amazingly, you will much more easily be able to do those other tasks.
Lots of people have different ways of motivating you and telling you to get off the couch and make this happen. Some people will even say, “Do anything.” Even though it is lower reward activities that you don’t want to do, you want to do a little more than you want to do the thing that you are procrastinating about. Having tried many of those different techniques, nothing has worked as well for me as this. What I found particularly useful, and I love to hear from you on how it works for you, is that if I even think about doing those other things that I don’t like to do, 2 out of 3 times, I don’t even have to do them. I will do the thing I was putting off.
People have different ways of motivating you and telling you to get off the couch and make things happen.
I love to hear how this works for you. If you are one of those people like me who geeks out on neuroscience, how those chemicals work in our brain, and what drives what we do, you can get a full explanation of how this works on the Huberman Podcast. You can check that out anywhere because those are free, and he even has timestamps. You can go to the parts that are most important.
If you are not someone who is interested in this, knowing how to do the technique and putting it to use in your life will work well. I have done this with a few friends and clients. They were like, “I can’t believe how well this works.” I was surprised too. Give it a try, and let me know what you think. Here is to your success.
