Patrick King - The Science of Getting Started: How to Beat Procrastination, Summon Productivity, and Stop Self-Sabotage

By Patrick King

Social Interaction Specialist and Conversation Coach

www.PatrickKingConsulting.com

As a FREE show of appreciation to my readers, Ive got TWO great resources for you:

>> CLICK HERE For The Flawless Interaction Checklist and Better Conversations Worksheet! <<

The Checklist describes in-depth the 7 essential components to exceptional interactions and conversations between you and everyone from a stranger to your partner and The Worksheet puts a few of those components to the test with practice exercises that will instantly upgrade any conversation.

Learn how to :

• Make people comfortable
• Connect easily in any context
• Develop killer eye contact
• Prepare for any social situation
• Appear as intuitive as a mind reader
• Never run out of things to say
• Practice and drill all of the above

CLICK HERE to download your FREE copy now !

The Procrastination Cycle

The Lizard Brain

Driven by Impulse

9 Procrastination Scales

Procrastination Typologies

Typology Triggers

Despite It All

The Physics of Productivity

Eliminate the Paradox of Choice

Motivation Follows Action

No One Simply Feels Like it

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Visualize Your Future Self

The If-Then Technique

Think STING

Manipulate the Procrastination Equation

Temptation Bundling

The Eisenhower Matrix

Aim for No More Zero Days

Employ Self-Interrogation Techniques

Write Down a Schedule

Limit Information Consumption

The 4070 Rule

Tiny Steps

Banish Excuses

Parkinsons Law

The Energy Pyramid

I want to start this book with a story about procrastination, but maybe Ill tell you tomorrow

When my mother was pregnant with me, my father promised to build a shelf in my nursery room to house all the keepsakes and memorabilia I would create as a growing human being: for instance, locks of hair from my first haircut, my baby teeth when they fell out, my first fingernail clippings, the bracelet that was put on me right after I was born, and my first pair of shoes.

It seems like everything parents keep of their young children is some form of refuse or garbage, but I suppose the sentimental value cant be discounted. The shelf was also supposed to have space across the top and bottom to act as a photo album, along with a ruler running down one side to track my height.

Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? Cute, even. At least thats what my father thought.

He conceived of this idea when I was barely the size of a peanut, which would place my mother somewhere between two and three months of pregnancy, roughly. The shelf ended up being built after I had already lost my first tooth, which would place me at roughly seven years old.

His grand shelf had a turnaround time of almost eight years, and it can probably be assumed that he wasnt off searching the world for the perfect tree to harvest wood from. It is also rather unlikely that he had changed his mind and wanted to wait for me to grow up so we could share the experience of building something together, though its an excuse that sounds as good as any.

He just procrastinated and never quite got around to it. It always remained on his to-do list, but other tasks seemed to take precedence over it or have greater urgency. I later asked him how he allowed this to happen, and he said that it simply seemed like too big of a task and that everything else seemed easier to complete, so he would just perform those tasks firstwashing the car, cleaning the gutters, cooking a pie. He might not have enjoyed any of those tasks, but at least they were relatively small and had a definite ending time, and he knew exactly where he could start.

Naturally, the next question I had was what motivated him to finally set his sights on finishing the shelf. It was completely related to his reason for not starting. Instead of viewing a shelf as an insurmountable task that would take up weeks of his time, he began to view it as something to do little by little. And he took this to the highest degree, buying some nails one weekend, taking some measurements another, and buying one to two pieces of the required lumber each month.

In other words, he took it slow and broke the overwhelming task into tiny steps that ultimately made it easy to say, Oh, what the heck, I can do this right now. Despite my fathers six years of delay tactics and absentmindedness, this is a story about how to slay the procrastination beast in a way we can all implement in our daily lives. One of the biggest weapons you have against procrastination is its natural enemy: making tasks almost impossible to skip over in the present moment. Well cover that in more detail later.

Perhaps it is hereditary, but procrastination has also plagued me for years in both my personal and professional life. Im embarrassed to say that I pulled multiple all-nighters in college and never seemed to learn my lesson. Breaking tasks into tiny steps was a big factor in defeating it, but understanding the psychology behind procrastination and why we cant seem to do whats best for us is what will get you to where you want to be.

Humans are many things, but acting in a way that is consistent with our intentions is not something we specialize in. Its time to dig deep into what happens in our brains when we suddenly want to clean the bathroom to avoid our homework. Getting off your butt to get started is not in itself a complex issue, but that undersells the calculations and negotiations we engage in as human beings.

Procrastination is opportunitys assassin.

- Victor Kiam

You have met procrastination before. It needs no introduction, especially when youve known it all your life. Since the moment you were old enough to recognize that you actually have the option to build a Lego castle rather than sit down to do your math homework, procrastination has been there in the background as the devil on your shoulder, encouraging you to do what is worst for you. Its like your shadow; you just cant shake it, its always with you, and its easy to forget about.

But unlike your shadow, its dead set on ruining your life!

Now youre stuck with it and are having problems because its starting to control you, like one of those relationships that started out fun and exciting but gradually morphed into something that just caused you unhappiness. You know the ones Im talking about. So you want to break up with it to get your life back on track, but you dont know how.

The answer in finally regaining control from the demoralizing domination of procrastination starts with understanding what you are dealing with and how you continually get tricked into handing over the reins to it over and over again.

The term procrastination was derived from the Latin pro, meaning forward, forth, or in favor of, and crastinus, meaning of tomorrow. Its literal translation can thus be taken to be the moving forward of something to tomorrow or favoring tomorrow as the ideal time. Action is never for today; its always another moment to be dealt with later.

For our purposes, procrastination is the act or habit of putting off something to a future time. It involves delaying what needs to be done until the last moment, often to the endpoint of not doing it at all. It involves a certain amount of self-sabotage and ignorance of any future consequences. It causes undue stress and anxiety, often at the pursuit of short-term gratification. It is responsible for an untold number of lost opportunities.