“To begin, begin.” — William Wordsworth

“Start small, start now.” — Seth Godin

“Patience only works if you do. Doing the work + patience = results. Planning to work + patience = procrastination” — James Clear

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” — Joseph Campbell

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” — Paulo Coelho

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln

[@pressfieldWarArtBreak2003]

“The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.” ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

One Day or Day One

Inspiration is perishable. Act IMMEDIATELY at the moment of inspiration. Follow inspiration when it strikes. ¹

Now or never. Now, not how. Soon is not as good as now. Don’t just imagine doing things someday. Do them now. You don’t find the time to do something; you make the time to do things.

About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.

“The magic you are looking for is in the work you are always avoiding.”

• Often, what we resist the most, holds us the biggest rewards.
• The thing you fear the most is often the thing you most need to do.
• Or: The magic you are looking for is in the fun you haven’t discovered yet.

The Problem

當我們面對一個龐大、困難的專案的時候，很容易會感覺到心理壓力 (feel unprepared/concerned about the potential negative outcome)，不知道從何開始，內心就會產生抗拒和焦慮，遲遲不願意開始做事情。

明知道自己手上有一兩件應該要先做的重要大事，最後卻先選擇其他比較簡單的事來做。 如果只是偶爾為之，的確能創造出一定程度的成果和價值，但如果想讓待辦清單發揮正確的功效，一定要先做 最重要的工作。

The Solution

• When you find yourself procrastinating, don’t resist. Instead lean into it. Procrastinate 100%. Try to do absolutely nothing for 5 minutes. Make it your job. You’ll fail. After 5 minutes, you’ll be ready and eager to work.

• If you tend to procrastinate, remind yourself, “I’m doing this for my future self” or “so my future self won’t have to.”

  “The more you see yourself like a stranger, the more likely you are to give your future self the same workload that you would give a stranger, and the more likely you are to put things off to tomorrow—for your future self to do.” — [@baileyProductivityProjectAccomplishing2016]

• If you’re going to procrastinate, do something you enjoy.

• 積極拖延 (Positive/Productive/Structured Procrastination)

  • The gist is that you should never fight the tendency to procrastinate—instead, you should use it to your advantage in order to get other things done.
  • While you’re procrastinating, just do lots of other stuff instead.
  • Deliberately postponing tasks until tomorrow instead of trying to do everything today. [@forsterItTomorrowOther2008]

• Nothing Alternatives (禁做他事法) by Raymond Chandler

  1. You don’t have to do X
  2. You can’t do anything else other than X during this one focus session

• Skinner’s Law

  “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” — Jeremy Bentham

  • Human behavior is driven by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
  • To get yourself to do something while procrastinating, you need to either:
    1. Make the pain of inaction > Pain of action
    2. Make the pleasure of action > Pleasure of inaction
  • The person with a gun to their head or crack cocaine at the finish line doesn’t need motivation.

• The “(10+2) × 5” Method

  1. Set a timer for 10 minutes. For those 10 minutes, give your task your full, undivided attention. Seriously—it’s just 10 minutes. No “quick research,” no doom-scrolling, no distractions. Just pure focus.
  2. When the timer ends, take a 2-minute break. Do whatever recharges you—grab a coffee, hydrate, stretch, or walk around (or any light movement to reset your brain.) Avoid hopping online; this break is for your body and mind, not your browser. Stick to the 2-minute limit—no more, no less.
  3. Repeat this work-break cycle five times. That’s the “×5” part. Altogether, you’ll get in a solid hour: 50 minutes of focused work and 10 minutes of purposeful breaks.

• Make it easy to start. Make it hard to skip.

• The “Fall Behind”, “Catch Up”, “Go Ahead” Mentality

  • 當拖延已發生時，可抱持的心態
  • Falling behind is not quitting. It’s just a third of the story.

• 降低成功的門檻

  • Telling yourself to lower the bar/stakes, embrace mediocrity, and “choose to” be satisfied

• Observe the sensation, write it down, and ask yourself: “What am I trying to escape from?”

• 將其分割成一個個細小、可控、明確、具體的階段性任務

  1. Break complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable chunks. ²
     • E.g., breaking down a complex image into simple gray squares
  2. Start on the first one.
     • E.g., one pixel at a time

• 遠離/移除讓你分心的事物，利用環境的信號來減少拖延

  • You’re not lazy, you’re dopamine-depleted.

Solving the problem of procrastination is solving the _problem of getting started — getting started is the key factor for the other critical idea — momentum.

You don’t find motivation to start; you need to start to find motivation. Motivation is a natural byproduct of movement. When in doubt, just start moving.

Laziness Does Not Exist

When people procrastinate, there’s usually a good reason.

It’s really helpful to respond to a person’s ineffective behavior with curiosity rather than judgment. ³

If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context.

For decades, psychological research has been able to explain procrastination as a functioning problem, not a consequence of laziness. When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.

People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.

If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.