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Chapter 07: BeatIng proCrastInatIon BEATING PROCRASTINATION
One of the more common complaints of the modern day is “how do I stop procrastinating?”. It seems that the influx of modern luxuries and conveniences has turned us into a society of people who have a really hard time doing “work”. I would argue that it’s partially that, but it’s also partially that our work today, especially knowledge work, is so far removed from tangible real-world results and consequences that it takes more willpower to get ourselves to do it.
We’re going to introduce here 2 simple techniques for short-circuiting
procrastination, and one more nuanced technique for reducing the occurrence of procrastination in your life. The 2 techniques are Solar Flaring and the Timeboxing, which can be used together quite effectively. Hero Mode is the longer-term solution which requires you to do a bit of tracking to get set up, but once you know your “Hero Mode hours”, procrastination becomes a thing of the past.
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Chapter 07: BeatIng proCrastInatIon HERO MODE: PRODUCTIVITY SUPER POWERS
In the real world, people cannot perform at their best 24/7. We are not machines that can systematically perform at the same rate – we are human.
We go through emotions, have moods, and there are many other factors that affect our productivity. The way to reach peak performance is by listening to your body and creating a schedule based on your body’s state. When you do this that’s when your productivity super powers come alive and when you play, as we call it, at Hero Mode.
BODY RHYTHMS 101
Before we delve into how you can get to the level of Hero Mode (we got the name from our friend Kevin Pearn), you first have to understand a couple of concepts about your body’s natural rhythms. As you know, everyone has 24 hours each day, but our bodies also go through a 24 hour cycle each day called a circadian rhythm (“your internal clock”). This is where the body sleeps, releases hormones, processes food, etc. Pretty much anything your body does on a daily basis. If you ever had jet lag and woken up at times when you’re supposed to be asleep at your new location, that’s your circadian rhythm doing its own thing.
Whereas once a day your body goes through a circadian rhythm, your body also goes through multiple cycles called an ultradian rhythm. Every 90 to 120 minutes or so your body goes through an ultradian rhythm. This is what causes you to have different periods of alertness and drowsiness throughout
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the day. Each ultradian cycle starts off with alertness but after 90 minutes or so, this starts to fade away and your body wants to rest and take a break. This is when you start to get hungry, you yawn, you’re most likely to procrastinate, you find it difficult to concentrate and you want to stretch your body. This is also around this time when you are most likely to make mistakes.
Why am I telling you all this? The ebbs and flows of energy we experience throughout the day are directly tied to your ultradian rhythms. We are not machines that can perform at full capacity 24/7. We can focus for a period of time, but then we also need to take a break and eat before we can go back to engage at whatever we want to do. Expert Ernest Rossi explains it very nicely here why adhering to your natural body’s rhythm is so important:
The basic idea is that every hour and a half or so you need to take a rest break – if you don’t you may be well on your way to the Ultradian Stress Syndrome: you get tired and lose your mental focus, you tend to make mistakes, get irritable and have accidents. If you continue to ignore your need to take a break you can experience more and more stress until you actually get sick.
PLAYING AT HERO MODE
The key to high level performance and peak productivity is to align your work with your ultradian rhythms. That is when you play at Hero Mode. This is when you are so focused with the work in front of that you forget what time it is and you’re “in the zone.” We all have had these Hero Mode moments, and I’m confident that those happened during times of the day when you were naturally alert or focused.
The great thing is, you can reach this state consistently by aligning your most important tasks with the times of the day when your body is ready for the heavy lifting.
It is important to know your own periods of when you are most alert and when you’re most dull, because this lets you plan properly. When you align your most important tasks with the times of the day when you are most alert, you will get more work done and do it more effectively.
We can go against our own natural rhythms, but this requires a lot of
willpower and releases stress hormones – something that should be only used
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at in emergencies or life-or-death situations. Rather than going against the current, go with the flow. In other words, organize your day based on your ultradian rhythms.
For example, a lot of people are the most alert in the morning. If you are one of those people, like yours truly, you should plan your day so that your highest priority tasks are scheduled in the morning. In the afternoon is typically when your body’s circadian and ultradian cycles reach their lowest point. This when you’re most likely to be drowsy and low on energy. Like we say in Better Sleep, we are hardwired to take a nap around that time.
Now that you know the importance of your own rhythms, it’s time to start planning your perfect day. The first thing you need to do is to identify your most productive hours in a day. In other words, what times of the day are you most creative, focused, or alert.
BUILD YOUR PERFECT SCHEDULE
After you have identified the periods of the day when you’re most alert and focused, it’s time to build your perfect schedule. If you remember, the previous chapter talked about a habit called Eating Your Frog, where you tackle your most important task as the first thing every day. Now let’s take that to the next level.
When you start your day and have prioritized which tasks you want to do that day (however you like), arrange your schedule so your most important tasks are scheduled during your Hero Mode hours. On the flip side, also put your low value tasks at times when you’re not that focused or energized.
When you reach the end of your cycle, that’s when you need to take a break.
Look for signs around the 90 minute mark when you start to feel like doing something else or when you just aren’t as focused anymore. You don’t have to adhere rigidly to 90 or 120 minutes, but look for cues around that time when you aren’t as focused. That’s when you know you’re reaching the end of your ultradian cycle and once you’re reaching that point, we highly suggest you do one of the following things:
• Clear to Neutral.
• Hydrate yourself with a glass of water (or two).
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• Have a small meal of around 300 calories (avoid stuffing yourself with a lot of carbohydrates, they make you feel lazy and bloated).
• Disengage from your workplace. Go somewhere else so your brain changes “frequency” to a different environment so you disengage from your work.
Then go back to your workplace and play at Hero Mode again.
The alignment of your highest value tasks during the times of the day when you are the most alert, energized, or creative, is really a game-changer for a lot of people. You may already do this naturally to some extent, but I’m confident you can do it even better and step it up a notch. If you are someone who flames out fast and you maybe just have one or two periods of hero mode moments in a day, the first thing you want to look at is the following points:
• Are you getting enough sleep?
• Are you eating (just) enough food and drinking enough water?
• Do you exercise? Regular exercise will increase your effectiveness but also the number of Hero Mode moments you have in a day.
AN EXAMPLE FROM THANH’S LIFE
This is a graph where you can see Thanh’s ultradian rhythms. This is from Thanh’s time tracking data.
To give you an idea of how to apply Hero Mode, here’s an example from
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Thanh’s own data. The graph above shows you when Thanh’s body is naturally most alert. As you can see, Thanh is a gent of extremes; he’s most alert in the morning and late at night. That’s when you’ll see him play at hero mode.
The times in between he’s mediocre. Sure, he can do multiplications like 3.5
* 3.5 in his head, but anything between 3pm and 6pm really shouldn’t be focused work. The graph below is annotated for when he is bringing out his productivity super powers.
The peaks show you when Thanh plays at hero mode and the valleys is when he does low-value things or have breaks.
Thanh usually wakes up at 7am and then does his morning ritual. After his morning ritual, that’s when he’ll start doing his most important task of the day (which he planned the night before). After lunch at around noon, he will hammer out one more big task (so he has completed three major tasks already, see the peaks) and then he’s taking it easy. He knows that in the afternoon he will have a hard time focusing for long periods, so that is the time when he will work on his low energy or low value tasks of the day. When dinner time hits, he’s had his dessert, and a little bit of relaxing, and that’s when he usually feels like doing focused work again. At around 11pm he will go to bed and then a new cycle begins.
ACTION STEPS FOR IMPLEMENTING HERO MODE
1. Build your perfect schedule based on your body’s natural peak times.
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2. Schedule your highest value activities for when you play at Hero Mode.
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Chapter 07: BeatIng proCrastInatIon SOLAR FLARING TO OVERCOME
PROCRASTINATION
There are two, out of many, ways you can overcome procrastination. You can jump right into the task, or you can ease yourself into it. The first method requires commitment and willpower to do, but there will be times when you will be lacking them. That’s when easing yourself into work can help you beat procrastination and that’s what we call Solar Flaring at Asian Efficiency.
Solar Flaring is a simple concept for beating procrastination. It is a term coined by a couple of our friends, Jim and Nick, and the idea is:
Start off with something very small and an easy thing to do, and use that forward momentum to get more work done.
Why did they call it solar flaring? Well, for one, they like to give names to concepts that are related to astronomical phenomena. Second, a solar flare is a sudden burst of energy on the surface of the Sun. They start off really small but turn into massive explosions. With the same concept in mind, you can apply this to beating procrastination. You start off with something small, perhaps you do something for five minutes, and before you know it, you go from laziness to “work mode”.
This concept is so simple, but devastatingly effective. You are essentially tricking yourself into “work mode” and you can apply this to any type of work or task that you’re procrastinating on.
All you have to do is to say to yourself that you’re going to do something for
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only a couple minutes. How hard is that? In reality, even when you are lazy and you are procrastinating, doing something for only a couple minutes is pretty easy to do. It is just another creative way to overcome procrastination.
REAL WORLD APPLICATION
It is not complicated to “trick yourself” into doing a small task. A simple way to do this is through positive self-talk using the word “just”. The implication of the word “just” says to yourself that you will not do anything more than what you just told yourself. Saying to yourself, “I will just….” is all you need to do to get yourself started. Here are a couple examples how you can use solar flaring.
EXERCISING
• Just put your iPod on and play some of your favorite exercise music.
• Just change into your gym clothes.
• Just 5 minutes on the cardio machine.
• Just write out the sender’s email address, subject line, and a couple bullet points of things you want to write.
• Just clear 2 emails only.
• Just check up on emails you have to follow up on soon.
CLEANING LIVING ROOM
• Just put the cups and dishes in the sink.
• Just put the litter in the bin.
• Just put the trash near the door on the way out.
WRITING
• Just create the Word document and save it into the right folder.
• Just write the outline of the document.
• Just write the introductory paragraph.
CAVEAT
While solar flaring is a great way to get yourself into the zone for getting work done, it can also be used in a negative way. For example, “just do this (insert any excess activity)” can turn into hours of wasted time. Just playing that game on the PS3 can turn into hours of gaming. Or just going out for one hour
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for a drink with friends can turn into long hours deep into the night resulting in a hangover the next day. We have all been guilty of those. So be cautious how you use solar flaring.
ACTION STEPS FOR USING SOLAR FLARING
The next time you feel like procrastinating, keep the solar flaring technique in mind. “Just” do one small thing and before you know it, you are getting a lot of work done.
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Chapter 07: BeatIng proCrastInatIon TIMEBOXING
Timeboxing is one of the more popular techniques for beating procrastination.
It is incredibly useful for “getting things going”, and can be used in conjunction with Solar Flaring which you just learned about.
Note: The 25-minute variation of timeboxing is popularly known as the Pomodoro Technique.
The basic premise of timeboxing is to firewall your attention for a small amount of time and mentally recharge after each interval of work. By
completing small chunks of work, you will build momentum so that you will feel more productive which in itself leads to getting more work done. This productivity tip works great for people who have to work at a desk, but with some adjustment you can also use it in different settings.
Timeboxing at its simplest, is about managing tasks in 25 minute intervals. All you need is a timer for this technique to work. Here are the steps:
1. Identify what the task at hand is.
2. Set your timer to 25 minutes.
3. Work on the task until the timebox is over.
4. Take a 5 minute break.
5. For every four timeboxes, take a longer break (15-30 minutes).
By completing each timebox, you will feel more productive. 25 minutes is not too long and not too short to feel like you are working towards completing a task. By completing a timebox, you feel more productive and happier, and
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build momentum that will help you get even more things done. It’s really that simple. Let’s take a look at each step and see how it all ties together.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY WHAT THE TASK AT HAND IS
The first step is identifying which task(s) you want to complete. If you are using a to-do list or task manager, go through your items and decide which tasks you want to complete. If you are not using a to-do list, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Write down all the tasks you want to complete today.
Seriously, write them down.
A good idea is to prioritize your to-do list. Ask yourself, “What are my 3 most important tasks?” List them in that order. This is an important tactic to always tackle your most important tasks first as we discussed in the Eat That Frog chapter.
STEP 2: SET YOUR TIMER TO 25 MINUTES
The next thing you need is a timer. You can use an egg or physical time or a digital timer on your computer. It doesn’t really matter which one you use.
Here are some links to timer software you can use:
• Vitamin-R (Mac)
• Focus Booster (Mac/Windows/Linux/web)
STEP 3: WORK ON THE TASK UNTIL THE TIMEBOX IS OVER
Now that you have your list of tasks and a timer, it is time to start working on your tasks. Start your timer (make sure it’s set to 25 minutes) and then start working on your task. As you are working, don’t focus on the timer. Use your attention for the task in front of you.
Here are some important guidelines behind timeboxing:
• You can only work at the task at hand. No other tasks are allowed during your timebox.
• When your timebox ends, you stop right away. Even if you think you only need a few more minutes, stop.
• When you didn’t finish your work in a timebox, move it to your next timebox session.
• When you finish your tasks before the deadline, don’t stop. Review your
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completed work till the timer ends. Always finish the 25 minutes.
STEP 4: TAKE A 5 MINUTE BREAK
Once your timebox has ended, you take a 5 minute break. It is important that you disengage from work for a little bit to mentally recharge. This is really important, especially for people with short attention spans. Some things you can do on your little breaks are stretching, refilling your drink or using the bathroom. Getting away from your desk is a good idea because it makes disengaging a lot easier (not to mention the health benefits). Once your 5 minute break is over, either move on to the next task or finish your previous task.
STEP 5: FOR EVERY FOUR TIMEBOXES TAKE A LONGER BREAK
This step is really important. Make sure that every 4 timeboxes (so after 4 * (25+5) = 2 hours) you take a longer break. Do something else that is totally unrelated to your task. A good idea is to get something to eat to fuel yourself.Some things we like to do are to take a little walk, or to have a meal.
Some things we like to do are to take a little walk, or to have a meal.