How to Break Procrastination With Just a Journal

I recently stumbled across a little anti-procrastination trick that has been working surprisingly well for me.

To briefly set the stage, I occasionally find myself procrastinating on some major projects that require constant effort to keep moving forward. They aren't the type of project that can be knocked off with a long weekend of work and some reason I keep finding myself unable to work on them. It's not a problem of motivation -- these projects are something I care deeply about. It's not a problem of not knowing what to do next -- I'm pretty neurtoic about making sure my to-do list is filled with truly concrete next action steps. I couldn't figure it out.

I carry a hard cover medium-sized notebook with me everywhere I go. I decided that instead of bashing my head against the procrastination wall every time I struggled to work on something, I'd write in my journal instead. I think my brain immediately latched onto the idea because it gave me a seemingly productive task to do ("Procrastinating? What?! I'm writing! Look at my hand go!") even though it wasn't what I was supposed to be doing.

What I quickly discovered, though, was two things. First, writing in my journal while I was procrastinating often uncovered interesting data on myself about what triggers my procrastination. I've come to a couple realizations about my work, ranging from understanding my next action weren't quite right, that I needed to delegate a task to someone else, or I actually needed more information before I could move on. Instead of sitting at my desk feeling badly about how little work I was doing (and not really knowing why), writing in my journal helped me better understand where my procrastination was coming from.

The other benefit to writing in my journal each time I found myself procrastinating was the fact that very often I jolted myself out of my procrastination just by writing about it. I'd find myself writing about the project I couldn't get going on and excuses would start flowing out of my pen. Very quickly I'd realize that those excuses were terrible and that procrastinating on a project you truly care about just because it's hard or big is one of the most immature things you can do. I think I essentially shamed myself out of procrastinating more than half of the times I started writing in my journal.

The way I see it, it's a win-win situation. If you don't outright break through the procrastination just in the act of writing out your thoughts about why you're procrastinating, you've at least gathered valuable data on yourself. Over time you'll collect more data and specific patterns may emerge. Once you've identified a pattern then you can take steps to change your work habits, projects, -- whatever it is your pattern of data suggests -- to break your procrastination.

It's a simple idea, but the next time you find yourself procrastinating just start stream-of-consciousness writing about it. You might be surprised how so simple an activity can have huge results.

Photo by [E]mmanuel17

Comments

[Clay]

Great tips, thanks for sharing! I'll try and share this method :)

[Adam Isom]

Hi, Mr. Spurlin,

I respect the contribution that your research area (essentially, scientific self-modification - please correct me if I'm wrong) makes to humanity. It's really cool that you apply this knowledge in coaching; this exact career combination of academic research and personal coaching sounds awesome! By the way, I'm currently and undergraduate at the University of Utah, and I have a little blog at adamtpack.wordpress.com that I'm going to resurrect soon. I hope to learn from blogs like yours -- or like Alex Vermeer's or Scott H Young's.

There's some cool stuff I want to share because I think you'll appreciate it:
1) The article "Scientific Self-Help: The State Of Our Knowledge": http://is.gd/PodBUE
2) The book "The Procrastination Equation", summarized here: http://is.gd/KSDxIc
- and also in Alex Vermeer's procrastination poster, which I'm not linking for fear this comment will end up in 'spam'
3) The book Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment by Watson and Tharp. (At the risk of sounding dramatic, from what I see so far, it could be the best self-modification book ever written, or close to it, for those who want a comprehensive, scientific/theory-based, concrete, and study-proven approach to self-modification.)

What you write reminds me of two things which I was just learning about today via their book:
1. "The other benefit to writing in my journal each time I found myself procrastinating was the fact that very often I jolted myself out of my procrastination just by writing about it."
This is the general principle that human behavior is "reactive", or changes upon being observed (at least when you are recording the behavior and you care about the behavior). Nothing profound, of course---it's pretty much the maxim "What's measured improves". But I like the important details like that behavior isn't much affected unless you care about the behavior and have some kind of self-recording (like the journal you mention!)
2. In the whole act of journaling and recording data and seeing patterns, they would say you're gaining awareness of the context of the behavior you want to do, namely the antecedents/cues and consequences/reinforcements (the "ABC" model is central to their approach, maybe central to any good approach).

Anyway, I hate dumping, but I love helping in any way I can people who are doing great things. I'll keep reading this blog to learn more and more. I think scientific self-modification will probably become my #1 passion.

[Sam]

@Adam: Thanks for all the feedback and resources to check out. I've heard good things about the Procrastination Equation so it's definitely on my list. If you aren't familiar with Quantified Self yet, you should definitely check it out. In fact, a colleague and I will be presenting a poster at an upcoming conference on the idea of self-experimentation/self-data collection and how it can be connected to effective coaching. I think it's a pretty awesome avenue of research for sure! Anyway, thanks for the feedback and be sure to stay in touch!

[Danette]

A concrete idea! I like how you take the time to dig a little deeper and reflect on the nature of your procrastination. When working with students, I focus on the "do something" or "just one tiny step" approach but will now try to introduce the reflection part to see if some can find more success with that addition. Thanks!