PDF Summary:The Procrastination Cure, by Damon Zahariades

The Procrastination Cure by Damon Zahariades is a practical handbook for understanding why you procrastinate and how to break the habit. A self-professed chronic procrastinator, Zahariades shares the strategies that helped him change his behavior, with the promise that you can apply the same techniques to manage your procrastination and enjoy a less stressful, more productive life.

Zahariades left a corporate job to create his own business focused on helping people be more productive. His books and his website, Art of Productivity, explore a variety of topics related to productivity, including time management, habit formation, and goal setting.

In this guide, we’ll delve into each of the sources of chronic procrastination the author identifies, which we’ll group by root causes. We’ll go over the approach Zahariades recommends to address each cause, including practical tips on removing distractions, increasing motivation, and managing your time.

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Zahariades offers these suggestions for minimizing distraction:

• From your computer: Use a website blocker to prevent you from going to the sites where you tend to waste time, delete bookmarks, or even turn off your internet temporarily.
• From your phone: Delete tempting apps, or better yet, keep your phone in a drawer when you need to focus.
• From your TV: Hide your remote somewhere hard to retrieve, like at the back of a closet.

(Shortform note: One option for limiting online distractions is a tool like the Freedom app, which lets you choose whether to block or allow specific websites, or cut yourself off from the internet altogether, across all of your devices. Other options include apps like Focus Dog or Forest, which simulate the costs of losing focus: You’re responsible for feeding a cute puppy or planting a tree, respectively, and you must stay on task to keep them alive.)

Make Focusing More Satisfying

Zahariades also offers several ways to set up reward systems to motivate you when the work doesn’t offer immediate rewards:

• Reward yourself when you overcome the urge to procrastinate and start a task.
• Earn rewards when you get things done. For example, you might win points for completing tasks and ultimately redeem those points for a prize.
• Turn a boring task into a game (gamification). There are apps that do this for you, or you can make up your own system, like timing yourself and trying to beat your record.
• Use “temptation bundling.” Match each task on your to-do list with an activity that you enjoy doing, which you can only do when you finish the required task.

(Shortform note: Gamification is a relatively new concept, and not everyone is convinced it’s effective. However, gamification apps are an increasingly popular option for those looking to increase their productivity. Some anecdotal evidence supports their effectiveness, and some scientific studies suggest these apps can increase your motivation to perform tasks you’d otherwise avoid. If you want to give it a try, Habitica is one popular app that turns your tasks and projects into a role-playing game. Completing quests and winning battles earns you gold coins, which you can then redeem for in-game or real-world rewards.)

Increase Consequences and Accountability

Zahariades has several suggestions for how to make the negative consequences of procrastination more of a deterrent. They all involve creating systems that will make sure you feel the effects of your choices right away, often by recruiting other people to hold you accountable. Here are some ideas:

• Think about the eventual outcomes of procrastinating (such as feeling overwhelmed and stressed, scrambling to meet deadlines, or missing them entirely), so it will be harder to justify doing it.
• Tell an accountability partner when you plan to complete a task and ask them to follow up with you about it.
• Use a “commitment device” that limits other options or creates an immediate consequence to raise the stakes of not doing the task. For example, ask a friend to post an embarrassing video of you online if you don’t meet your deadline, or have your partner hide your car keys so you won’t be able to leave the house until you finish your work.

(Shortform note: Returning to the showdown between Present You and Future You, involving other people in your process to hold you accountable is like recruiting more players for Team Future You—but for Team Future You to win, you need the right teammates and the right game plan. When choosing your accountability partner, make sure they’re willing to hold your feet to the fire, even when it’s uncomfortable. Decide together how often you’ll talk about your progress, and empower them to speak up if they notice you’re procrastinating.)

Build the Habit of Doing the Work

Zahariades suggests that instead of waiting to feel motivated, you should practice taking action regardless of how you feel until it becomes a habit. On a daily basis, the first task you do should be the one you dread the most. For larger goals, focus on the process rather than the product: If you establish a consistent routine for how and when you’ll work on the task, eventually your effort will produce the result you want.

(Shortform note: Like Zahariades, James Clear recommends you concentrate on improving your process instead of achieving a certain outcome. In Atomic Habits, he distinguishes among goal-driven habits, system-driven habits, and identity-driven habits—behaviors in pursuit of a goal (like acing a test), process (like studying regularly), or identity (like being a good student), respectively. Clear notes that the problem with goal-driven habits, or the behavior you adopt to achieve a specific outcome, is they’re limited in scope. System-driven habits, on the other hand, put a process in place that will indefinitely produce the outcomes you want—and that system is likely to help you consistently do your work, regardless of your motivation level.)

Going Deeper: Examine the Thoughts and Feelings Behind Your Procrastination

We’ve explored some ways procrastination can result from the human brain’s search for rewards, but Zahariades considers other possible sources of the problem as well. He presents several models of how a task that stirs up strong emotions or triggers negative thoughts can lead you to procrastinate.

(Shortform note: Some experts believe procrastination is primarily a matter of emotional dysregulation, when emotions arise without your control. To help manage your emotions, Burka and Yuen, the authors of Procrastination, suggest mindfulness meditation and physical exercise.)

Overcome the Fears That Hold You Back

Zahariades suggests that the emotional culprit behind most procrastination is fear. This fear can take many forms, he explains:

• Fear of failure: When a task involves something you don’t have much experience doing, you don’t believe you’re good at, or that reminds you of a past experience that went badly
• Fear of success: When you’re not sure you can live up to high expectations, you feel you haven’t earned your success, or you’re nervous about what might come after success (like a bigger workload or more intense scrutiny)
• Perfectionism, or fear of imperfection: When the risk of a less-than-perfect outcome is so unbearable that you avoid the task altogether

(Shortform note: While many procrastination experts agree that fear of failure, fear of success, and perfectionism are three major causes of procrastination, some identify additional explanations as well. In The Now Habit, Neil Fiore attributes procrastination to a sense of frustration and powerlessness and says that not doing a task becomes a way of reclaiming control. In Procrastination, Burka and Yuen similarly argue that procrastination can be a way of rebelling against rules and restrictions that feel oppressive.)

To help you overcome these challenges, Zahariades suggests shifting your perspective, or applying logic to expose your anxiety as irrational:

• Reframe failure as useful information that your approach isn’t working, which gives you a chance to make adjustments.
• Be specific about your fears, and evaluate how realistic they are.
• Recognize that the difference between a perfect outcome and an almost perfect one is negligible.
• Reflect on how perfectionism stresses you out and prevents you from taking action. Then ask yourself why you need things to be perfect.

(Shortform note: Zahariades’s recommendations about overcoming your fears may require a profound change in your mindset that might take time and practice. His recommendations about using logic to challenge your irrational anxieties are similar to techniques employed in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). In CBT, a clinician typically works with a patient for three to six months to instill healthy thinking habits that the patient must practice consistently.)

Remove Your Brain’s Barriers to Action

Zahariades says negative self-talk—when your internal voice is critical or full of worry—can trigger procrastination by undermining your self-confidence, making you reluctant to act. You can combat negative self-talk by disputing it and replacing it with a more realistic perspective.

(Shortform note: In his self-help book Unfu*k Yourself, Gary John Bishop explains that negative self-talk can operate at the level of your unconscious, influencing your thoughts, feelings, and actions in a way that prevents you from realizing your goals. He says that you can take control of your self-talk by switching your inner monologue from narrative mode—when you passively observe events and assign meaning to them—to assertive mode, in which you actively choose to think empowering thoughts, like “I got this.”)

Getting Started: Understand What Stops You From Taking the First Step

The next group of issues that might be driving your procrastination relates specifically to initiating work on a task or project. Zahariades points out a few reasons why starting is the hardest part for many people. For one thing, if it’s a major undertaking, you may feel overwhelmed by the task at hand—and feeling overwhelmed for any reason makes it difficult to take action. You may also delay starting because you’re uncertain about what to do first or because you’re inclined to keep researching and considering options to avoid making a choice. Indecisiveness, Zahariades cautions, can be a symptom of some of the other causes of procrastination already mentioned, like aversion to risk, fear of failure, or perfectionism.

(Shortform note: In Predictably Irrational, behavioral economist Dan Ariely offers another explanation for decision-making struggles: He says you have two selves. When you’re in a “cool state,” you make calm, rational decisions, and when you’re in an “aroused state,” you make irrational, impulsive decisions. He introduces procrastination as the abandonment of rational plans in order to indulge in whatever will appease your aroused-state emotions.)

If taking the first step is where you’re stuck, consider the following advice:

• Make an exception to the “do the hardest thing first” rule, and instead start with the easiest thing and build momentum.
• If unrelated personal or professional issues are causing the overwhelm, tackle those situations directly.
• If you’re not sure how to approach the task, consider the possible outcomes of each option to show yourself none of them ends in disaster. The cost of staying stuck in deliberation is usually greater than the cost of making an imperfect choice.
• Commit to working on a task for just ten minutes. Once you get started, momentum will make it easier to continue.
• Break down bigger tasks into smaller steps, and treat each step as its own to-do item. This helps you avoid feeling overwhelmed and lets you see your progress as you go.

(Shortform note: Task initiation, or the ability to start doing things, is one of several important cognitive skills that make up executive functioning. People who have trouble with executive functioning—including those with ADHD and executive function disorder (EFD)—are often chronic procrastinators. Other elements of executive functioning include planning, prioritizing, and estimating how long things will take, all of which figure into Zahariades’s recommendations for overcoming procrastination. More research is needed to determine whether all procrastination is caused by executive functioning differences in the brain.)

Back to Basics: Tools for Keeping Track of To-Dos

Throughout the book, the author mentions a few tools that he implies you should include in your system for managing your time and tasks. Here, we’ve collected Zahariades’s tips and tricks for using lists and schedules to support your success.

The Lists You Need to Succeed

There are at least three lists Zahariades suggests you maintain. First, make a list of your short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Next, create a master to-do list of all your commitments. Use this to create your daily to-do list, which includes only the things you’re planning to do today. (Zahariades also mentions having additional, context-specific to-do lists, but he doesn’t go into detail about how these fit in to the rest of the system.) The final organizational component is a calendar where you can keep track of appointments and plan out your day. Next, we’ll take a closer look at how to use these tools.

(Shortform note: Zahariades’s method of managing tasks has a lot in common with the personal organization system David Allen describes in Getting Things Done. Allen recommends keeping a master list of “Projects” that have more than one step, along with several context-specific lists of “Next Actions” that show only the immediate next step to take. Allen explains that time and energy are wasted remembering what you need to do at moments when you can’t actually do it. Therefore, he proposes grouping tasks by the setting, people, or circumstances required to perform them. Instead of a general to-do list, you might have separate lists of calls to make, errands to run, and tasks around the house; you’d consult each list at the appropriate time.)

Get Clear on Your Goals and Priorities

To prevent your to-do lists from becoming cluttered or outdated as priorities change, Zahariades recommends you revisit them regularly with the following tips in mind:

• Review your master to-do list every week, alongside your goals list, and remove or re-prioritize items as appropriate so your list never gets cluttered.
• Assign every item on your to-do list a priority level. Use your goals list to evaluate which tasks are most important to your goals and which are urgent.
• Limit your daily to-do list to seven items or fewer so that you can actually accomplish everything on the list. Review the list each morning and remove any non-essential tasks.

(Shortform note: In Getting Things Done, David Allen also stresses the importance of frequently reviewing and updating your lists of short- and long-term tasks. You do so through what he calls the "Weekly Review," where you go over your lists, process new information, and decide what to do now, do later, delegate, and eliminate.)

Scheduling and Time Management

Zahariades recommends several practices that increase your awareness of and control over how you spend your time and tackle your to-do list:

• Decide ahead of time how you’ll schedule your day, including what tasks you’ll work on when, so that you only take free time as planned.
• Set a time limit for every task on your to-do list. Then shorten the time, recognizing that work will expand to fill the time you allow for it.
• Split up long blocks of time into manageable chunks with breaks in between each one. Use a timer to keep track. Group similar tasks together.
• Track your energy levels at different times of day to understand when you usually feel most energetic, and schedule your most challenging tasks for those times.
• Stop multitasking. Doing more than one thing at once doesn’t make you more productive, but it gives you a false sense that you’re getting a lot done.

(Shortform note: Time management tools is one area where Zahariades contradicts David Allen’s advice. In Getting Things Done, Allen is adamant that you shouldn’t schedule what you plan to do in a day; in fact, he doesn’t recommend making a daily to-do list. Most people’s work, Allen argues, is subject to constant changes and interruptions, which will make it difficult to stick to any plan you make for your day; rather than watching your schedule fall apart, build in flexibility from the beginning. He says you should reserve your calendar only for time-specific commitments (like meetings) or tasks that absolutely have to be done that day. The rest of the time, choose from your context-specific lists of tasks, all of which are high-priority.)