I am currently working with someone I’d call the Queen of Procrastination. Let me just say that her workday tends to start after midnight, and that only if she has a deadline. Not just any deadline, but a deadline that CANNOT BE MET unless she gets something on paper that very night. She emailed me asking for ‘sage advice’. (I love her.)
The first week we worked together I recommended she set up a minimal work schedule. Minimal, so it would be doable (we agreed on two hours of work per day); and scheduled so it would be practical. It didn’t work. We chatted again a week or so later and she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t managed to sit down and do any work. Nothing. Nada. Niente. She had meant to, of course…but…so many other things, life, pressing issues, an unexpected assignment etc.
Right, I thought. This is going to be a challenge! For her, and for me.
I’d like to note that extreme procrastinators are usually very smart. They have developed these habits because they have been able to get away with it their entire academic career. That’s not possible if you have had to work hard to pass each and every exam, and to finish your papers in your younger years. So there is mostly a bit of genius, a bit of electric action happening. They also tend to be highly creative and imaginative. Fears that will not derail more down-to-earth types will readily undo the average flighty procrastinator. It’s the second reason people tend to procrastinate: fear. The third reason is simply: habit. We do it, because we do it. Because we have become used to it. Because. And that ‘because’ is the hardest of all to fix. There’s no point reasoning with it.
What I decided to do (I interrupted our Skype chat half an hour into the conversation) is create a work schedule template for her that breaks her new work habit down into the tiniest actions. And when I say it breaks it down, I mean it breaks it down.
This is what it looks like:
I have asked her to tick the boxes as she goes along, and to email me her completed schedule after her daily work session. I then respond.
You may argue this seems excessively childish. We’re writing PhDs! We know how to sit down at a computer! A timer? Really? Surely this hand-holding, ticking boxes is a bit much.
I will argue the opposite: this is exactly what academics with above average intelligence, and who suffer from (extreme) procrastination need, and the reason is this: we have wild minds that fly. And we lose ourselves in the abstract. Which is so very enjoyable, but can be truly self-destructive if it means we can’t get those thoughts to translate into matter, whether written words or actions. We get lost. By breaking it down like this we have a way to hook back into reality.
Sit down.
Go offline.
Set timer.
Work.
Timer rings.
Break.
Repeat.
The only opportunity we have to change our habits lies in everyday reality, in changing our tiny actions. It is tedious. Small action, small action, small action, small action. It isn’t wild and free and unconstrained. Our minds balk. Yet this is how it is done. And once it starts getting done, once we learn to focus, once it becomes a habit to focus, that’s when the exciting bit begins: a body of work unfolding. Now it’s not only our mind that flies, it is our work that flies. (Some of the time.)
This PhD told me that she suspected she’d have graduated cum laude if she had only been able to put more regular hours of work in, instead of irregular short frenzied adrenaline-fuelled bursts of it. I think she is right. It’s early days, and there are more techniques we are exploring to help her with her procrastination habit, but I can report back that so far it is working. She is sending me emails: “It worked like a charm. I feel so happy I managed to work today!!!!!” Couldn’t be more pleased!
Do you struggle with procrastination? Would a schedule like this help you? Let me know in the comments. The HappyPhD course will help you establish a super-efficient procrastination-proof writing routine, if you prefer with my personal coaching to help you along. As always, if you liked this post, could you share it? I appreciate it!