E23 - How to scroll less: [Reverse-engineer Procrastination]

Hi everyone,

My name is Lemmy and this is my story of how I became The Attention Master.

If you find yourself using your phone as a tool for procrastination, then episode 23 is for you. Let's dive in!

Here is what you are going to learn today:

• The excuses you use to justify procrastination.

• How to reverse-engineer procrastinaton.

• The flaws in your mindset.

• A quiz to determine your procrastination type(s).

What if I told you that procrastination is not exclusive to you, lazy people or low performers?

What if I told you that founders and CEOs are even more prone to procrastination than employees?

In fact, we all procrastinate. It’s human nature.

Here’s why:

1. Your brain avoids discomfort

The brain works hard to keep everything in balance. This balance is important for the body to work well. Andrew Huberman says the brain checks how each organ is doing to keep the body healthy. This checking helps control things like heart rate, breathing, and how the body uses energy. By keeping balance, the brain makes sure the body stays stable.

At the same time, our nervous system helps us take a guess on what will happen around us. When things change, for better or worse, it disrupts these guesses and causes us to feel stress.

This reaction is called the Fight-or-Flight response.

It is a natural response in our bodies when we feel threatened or stressed.

When the brain senses danger, adrenaline is released.

This causes the heart to beat faster, breathing to speed up, and makes us more alert.

All of these changes help the body get ready to either face the danger or run away from it.

Guess what: running away is much easier.

Running away from an unpleasant task = procrastination:

"The act of delaying or postponing something."

To sum it up:

Facing an unpleasant task, challenge or change → Discomfort → Brain senses danger → Flight response → Procrastination = Mindless Scrolling

2. Your brain makes you lie to yourself

Since running away is easier than the fight response, your brain tries to convince you with some bull**** excuses that build on top of an actual truth.

For example:

• Truth: "I don't have everything I need." → Excuse: "I have to wait until I do."

• Truth: "I do not have enough experience to solve the problem. Excuse: "I can't do it without experience.

3. From Flight to Fight

So how do you turn things around?

The answer is: Use procrastination against procrastination.

Reverse-engineer it:

Mindless Scrolling → Excuse for Flight Response → Discomfort → Negative Emotion → Face the Task

1. Prevent mindless scrolling before it happens with a visual signal (e.g. an app like Lemio)

2. Ask yourself: Do I really want to be on the phone right now? If not, then:

3. Use this moment as a trigger to question your justification for procrastinating. Is it true or is it an excuse? If excuse, then:

4. Ask yourself: What feeling made me feel uncomfortable, run away, and chose Flight over Fight?

5. Change your unhelpful conclusion to a useful conclusion. (see table* below)

6. Start doing the task for only 2 minutes. If it flows, continue. If it doesn’t, just stop. If you can’t start, just sit with it and think about it.

*Table: Does any of these excuses sound familiar to you?

4. The Mindset to beat procrastination

You might ask: “Isn’t there an easier way to get to the root of the problem and just make tasks enjoyable to avoid the discomfort?”

Well listened Sherlock, and indeed there is such a way. Unfortunately, it's hard and it's not something you can change in a day.

The thing you need to understand first is this: A task is unpleasant for you when it goes against your mindset.

Whenever you see a task as “unpleasant”, it clashes with your mindset.

Part of your mindset is some false beliefs. When these clash with the nature of a task, it creates the discomfort that causes you to procrastinate.

Depending on your mindset, science has labeled your behavior by defining 6 different procrastination types.

Once you know your procrastination type, you can reverse-engineer again to identify the flaws in your mindset:

Type → Negative Emotions → Task → False Beliefs

Here’s one example for better understanding:

1. False Belief: “Things should be done my way”.

2. Task: Your boss gives you a boring task without any context as to why it's important.

3. Belief conflicts with the nature of the task.

4. Reaction: “I’m not gonna do it”.

5. Label for Reaction = Procrastination Type → Here’s a quiz to find out if you are this type ;)

This knowledge comes at 0 cost

If you learned something,
be generous and share it with friends or family.

See ya next week
Lemmy

Recap:

• Your brain seeks balance.

• Discomfort disrupts balance → Your brain tries to avoid discomfort or get rid of it asap.

• Discomfort is caused by negative emotions.

• Negative emotions such as frustration, anger, fear of failure and disapproval arise when a task conflicts with your mindset.

• Other negative emotions perceived as discomfort: loneliness, stress, anxiety, boredom, FOMO… (full list of 158 negative emotions here).

• Reverse-engineering procrastination = Turning unhelpful into useful conclusions

• Your mindset comes along with some stubborn or persistent "false" beliefs.

• A task is uncomfortable for you when it conflicts with these beliefs.

• Your procrastination type is the key to eliminating your mindset flaws.

Sources:

1. https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resources/looking-after-yourself/procrastination

2. https://dexa.ai/andrewhuberman