Even psychotherapists and coachs can be too lazy to do what needs to be done urgently. But psychotherapists know how to cope with the seizure of procrastination. 11 of the methods tested by personal experience.
“… to buy a Voltaire’s plaster bust” … For several minutes I, like a ram, stared at the monitor at the Yandex search line and could not figure out how my fingers suddenly gained such a request.
In what feverish delirium my brain wanted to see how not even a French philosopher looks like, but for some reason his gypsum bust? For a day now (with a break for sleep) I sat in front of the computer, trying to start writing another column for Psychologies. And the topic of the column chose the right one – I decided to write about procrastination.
Translated from Latin, procrastination means “for tomorrow”, from Crastinus – “tomorrow” and Pro – “on”. That is, deposit. Postponing for later those cases that need to be done now. Right now, or yesterday, as things were with the column.
But I never put off anything. To put off, in my understanding, it is deliberately to do any business later, because now another has appeared-more important, emergency, interesting or monetary. And this is honest, at least.
Something is so bright in my life that it can not be compared with the usual human routine, and I, being a peasant man, choose this, unlike the choice of a man-man.
But in fact, I do not choose anything, and I have no obvious motive and an “important” matter. And instead of honestly starting to do something-write a script, article, training program, letter-I start … to freeze. I find myself in the Procrustevo bed of procrastination (sorry for the pun – I could not resist).
An unpleasant feeling of guilt arises, which blocks any activity even more. I am angry with myself. For some reason,
I absolutely do not want to do what you need.
I protest in the chest, I prepare for a long time, make rituals, fall into prostration – from a few seconds to hours. And then langoliers always come-Steveking Eaters of the Time: deeds-Delshka, killing time, time of my life.
From the outside it may seem that I am quite active. I water the flowers-I need to be careful, I put order on the desktop-it is impossible to work in such conditions, I do cleaning-how much dust has accumulated, I have nothing to breathe, I wash and hang the laundry-especially when there are things that need to be washed manually.
My dishes-life continues, I read books-you have to read them (I can even go to the book by urgent need, the last purchase, in fact, is just Voltaire), I watch TV shows-the new series came out, I make purchases in online stores, I payfor the apartment-urgently, while I remembered, I need to do.
My windows – it is better to work in a clean house, I hang a plan for preparing for the next marathon on the wall – thank God, my hands have reached, and then you need to check the mail, calls and SMS to friends: friends are holy ..
I also like to plunge in a conversation on the phone that I am working now, and this fact seems to justify idleness-after all, people now know what kind of bee I am. And, of course, in the first place with a huge margin – Facebook (an extremist organization banned in Russia).
Perfect langolier, supermine of the murder of time. More precisely, ideal suicide. I find dozens of self -justification: you have to keep abreast of the news, be in touch, look for work and interesting projects, get acquainted with new people.
“Harse, Emelya,” is your week, ”a chant was repeated in such cases, our literature teacher. “After all, it doesn’t matter to you what Bella Isaakovna says,” she added.
I’m even ashamed of ashamed! It’s a shame, but somewhere on an unconscious level, and therefore I do not realize my shame. After all, I am advanced pepper, especially, a psychotherapist. I am cynically joking with friends about my own Internet addiction.
The brain understands that it is impossible to “finish” about such nonsense, but you need to accept yourself as I am – AAAAAAAA! – horror – all this psychological garbage in the head – stereotypes that make you be right.
Once one of my teachers, when I insisted on the feedback after completing my joint work, said: “You, Vladimir, do everything right, you are even mistaken somehow correctly”. I was very offended by him then, there was no worse insult for “creative nature”.
This perfectionism is the desire to do everything perfectly, to be correct, to get the maximum approval from others – one of the roots of my scrapping. The other side of perfectionism is a constant fear of failure.
I have to do only brilliant things, create exclusively masterpieces. Therefore, every time I start something, it becomes scary: what if it doesn’t work out, suddenly there will not be a lot of likes, fans, female smiles, money, or someone will say that it is boring and nonsense.
Hanging on social networks destroys the invented image of myself as an independent freedom -loving creative person, so I “storage” as if between things: sitting sideways on a chair, I look only in the corner of my eye, I boredly leaf through the tape on the phone ..
What is this? Yeah … it doesn’t matter … so … headlines, the first lines of articles, key phrases of paragraphs, photos of beautiful and/or naked women … I seem to spy on the keyhole of the Facebook world and I’m afraid that they get caught up, so I twitch from every inner rustle and switch to another,The same empty business.
And I find myself for half an hour reading some stupid text or looking at Voltaire’s plaster bust ..
I have developed for myself several ways to return to reality:
1.Procrastination as art. Allow yourself to shake a certain time, and do it with taste – enjoy and enjoy. When the pause ends, there is a chance to start doing something. My recipe: take a bath with coffee, ice cream and series “Fargo”.
2.Make an artificial deadline. Very effective, but does not work for long – you quickly get used to it and begin to push it away and it.
3.Get to the bottom of the true cause of procrastination using introspection. As a rule, this is some kind of unresolved situation or self-deception. Understanding does not eliminate braking, but allows you to take further steps.
4.Wedge wedge. Start any other thing. As my friend Fuchsman said: “Start moving!»Go run, for example.
5.To deceive your own procrastination. Start working by chance. In fact, I do not work, and so, on the edge of the chair I write down the theses – you look, since and everything is ready. Once it even turned out.
6.Change the picture. Go to work in a cafe. Very effective. I found one next to the house – you order American coffee once, and then it is endlessly added.
7.Morning meditation. Cleanses from yesterday’s toxins and unnecessary thoughts. Repeat. As many times as necessary.
8.Cold shower. Cold and hot shower. Deadly effective. The altered state of consciousness is the first few seconds.
9.Do not turn on the radio in the morning (TV, Internet, etc.D.). Do not let the outside world yet, until the work is completed.
10.Carrot for a donkey. Create a pleasant easy motivation. You will do it, and then … (any pleasantness, at least carrot juice).
eleven.Remember that after the end of work, euphoria always occurs. Endorphins know their job, oh yes!
By the way, I undertook to read “Candide, or Optimism” with Voltaire. It is so logical to work righteously, and to be lazy and skipping deadlines is so irrational. But for some reason, logic evokes boredom, and life is the most absurd absurd. After all, we live in the best of the worlds!