Piers steels describe an equation useful in understanding procrastination. He argues that motivation= Expectancy x values divided by Impulsiveness x Delay.
Here motivation is the will of your work to do, which is essentially the opposite of procrastination. If we Break-down the equation, expectations mention how much you think to succeed at doing the task and thereby getting the anticipated reward. The more you thought to be successful the less you’re going to procrastinate on it. Value mentions that how much you enjoy doing a task, and how much you are going to love the recognition. The more value comes from a task or the prize, the more likely you’re gonna get straight to work. Impulsiveness mentions that to your liability to get distracted by other things. High Impulsivity lures you to Instagram, Facebook instead of doing the work at hand. Delay mentions the short time until receiving the anticipated reward. The long time it will take the delay, the more similar you are procrastinating, as you find it’s something you can just take care of later.
1. Keep the task small: –
The toughest part in getting work finished is just starting. Always work in Pomodoro technique. This means You work in 25-minute separations, each divide by a five-minute break. During each division, you need to focus on just one small task.Â
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2. Hack Pleasure from the experience of studying: –
One way is by giving yourself a prize for getting a task completed. For Example, Just give a price yourself a portion of healthy and tasty food or hang out with your friends after you finish your work. Be Deliberate with your study
3. Environment: –
we can agree that one of the biggest killers to our productivity is distractions. Avoiding distraction through absolute willpower is unlikely to be useful in the long term. Rather, approach it privatively by crafting a work environment that keeps low distractions. If you are working at home then opt for a library or a coffee shop instead and minimize digital distractions.
4. Set the bar low: –
This is another trick to increase the expectancy equation. Set the target less than what you were actually can achieve. For example, suppose that you have to do mediation for 25 minutes it will feel too a long time, now do the meditation for 5 minutes by lowered expectation. You will find now you are doing mediation most days.
5. Use Parkinson’s Law: –
The law that you can achieve your task in a short time can crush even the most productive individuals. Parkinson’s law states that work spread to fill the time given to it. This means if you have 40 minutes to work to do, but you allot one hour of work to do it, then you will end up spending the entire one hours.
6. Break down the steps: –
If you are doing any work, if it is studying for an examination or completing a test or project, break it down into smaller steps. So that it can boost expectation in our procrastination equation as smaller tasks seem much easier to achieve than big projects. While everyone has a different sweet spot. Research finds that hyper-specific with your timelines or schedules is very helpful.
