The other day, i read this article about “How to Beat Procrastination“. What interested me was that, the article outlined a procrastination equation,

This was followed by couple of steps on how to beat procrastination. It looked at factors in the equation that you can control – Expectancy, Value and Impulsiveness (Please read the article of more details). The article goes on to state that -

… Once you know the procrastination equation, our general strategy is obvious. Since there is usually little you can do about the delay of a task’s reward, we’ll focus on the three terms of the procrastination equation over which we have some control. To beat procrastination, we need to:

1. Increase your expectancy of success.

2. Increase the task’s value (make it more pleasant and rewarding).

3. Decrease your impulsiveness.

Then there was this article, that explained what the author had in place to beat procrastination. The article is aptly titled as “My Algorithm for Beating Procrastination“. It gives a step-by-step approach to be productive and beat procrastination.

Step 1: Notice I’m procrastinating.

Step 2: Guess which unattacked part of the equation is causing me the most trouble.

Step 3: Try several methods for attacking that specific problem.

Step 4: If I’m still procrastinating, return to step 2.

The trick here is to realize that Delay is the only fact that you don’t have control over.With that enlightenment, i decided to take myself through the steps when ever i find myself procrastinating.

Need less to say, it didn’t last very long. It simply failed at the very fist task. Or to give the benefit of the doubt to the equation, the task was not a well chosen one.

The Task :  To wake up in the morning.

Result : FAILED

I wake up everyday my snoozing the alarm as many times as i can. Just prolonging the sleep 10 more minutes and that goes on and on, till i’m really late for work.

The alarm went off as usual. 7:30 AM, the alarm read. The hand moved voluntarily to tap on the mobile and snooze the alarm. Now it was the long and tiresome process of getting my ass of the bed.

Then, in that state of semi-consciousness, i thought about the 4 steps. But all i could remember was step 1 and 2. I realized that i was at step 1 – i’m procrastinating.

Now to step 2 and answer the question – what would be the benefit of waking up early? I could be in office early, i could finish work more because of the less distractions. I could feel fresh all day. I would be … would be … would … wou .. zzz…

(It never works!)