Give Me 11 Minutes and I’ll Solve Your Procrastination

Let me guess, there's something you should be doing right now that's not watching this video. Well, I'm here to help. I've been studying motivation and performance for 20 years, and in this video, I'm going to share the 7 best ways I know to battle procrastination, beginning with the 2-minute rule. The first technique is straightforward and simple. If a task will take less than 2 minutes to complete, do it immediately. No scheduling for later, just knock it out. That might mean loading the dishwasher right after dinner or tidying a couple of items on your desk right now. Why 2 minutes? Because it's short enough to trick the procrastination monster. Anyone can handle 120 seconds, right? You're overcoming resistance by making the first step so easy it's impossible to say no. For bigger tasks that will take longer, you can use the 2-minute rule just to get started. Commit to just 2 minutes of work on the task, and then you can stop if you want. For me, I find that if I just get started, it on something. I usually end up going longer without even noticing. Number 2, remake your environment. Sometimes beating procrastination isn't about you, it's about what's around you. Your environment heavily influences your behavior, of course. If your phone, your gaming console, they're all within arm's reach, staying focused on a tough task can be a monumental challenge. Willpower alone won't do it. But if you change your surroundings, you can change your behavior. In my own life, when I'm writing or working on a big project, I don't even bring my phone into my garage office. It stays in my house. Out of sight, out of mind. A study at the University of Texas found that people perform significantly better on focus-demanding tasks when their smartphones were in another room compared to when the phones were on the desk beside them. In fact, even if the phone was face down and silent, just having it nearby sapped participants' attention and brainpower. So if you've ever felt like you work better at a library or a coffee shop with fewer familiar distractions, you're probably right. Number 3, temptation bundling. Who said beating procrastination can't be fun? Temptation bundling is when you pair the thing you need to do with the thing you want to do. You only allow yourself to enjoy the tempting activity while you're doing the less appealing task. You're essentially bribing yourself to get the work done. The technique comes from Wharton professor Katy Milkman, who coined the term. Katy used to love reading The Hunger Games, but at one point, she struggled to feel motivated to go to the gym. So what did she do? She made a deal with herself. She could only listen to The Hunger Games audiobook while exercising at the gym. Guess what happened? She started finding excuses to go just so she could learn what happened next in the story. Exercise turned from a chore to something she actually looked forward to because it became intertwined with a guilty pleasure. Later in a study, she tested this exact idea on others. The result? People who practiced temptation bundling ended up going to the gym 51% more often. Isn't that crazy? But there's more. Not only did these people exercise more, but they also reported enjoying the workouts more. By only listening to their audiobooks while working out, time flew by and the usual boredom or pain of exercise was much less noticeable. You can try this yourself. If you need to catch up on work emails, treat yourself to a favorite smoothie only when sitting down to tackle the inbox. If you need to fold your laundry, Listen to your favorite podcast only when you face that chore. Now, with this next technique, let's turn to the mental side of procrastination. Number 4: Visualize future regret. A powerful motivational strategy is to visualize your future regret. In other words, vividly imagine the consequences your future self will face if you keep procrastinating. Sometimes the most compelling reason to take action now is knowing how awful you'll feel if you don't. And science backs this up. When we connect with our future selves, we tend to make better decisions in the present. Think about a deadline that's a week away. Present-day you finds it oh so easy to goof off because a week feels like plenty of time. Now fast forward in your mind to the night before that deadline. Picture yourself in the future. It's late, you're tired, the work still isn't done, and you're kicking yourself for not Starting earlier, really let yourself feel for a moment what that last-minute panic is like—the racing heart, the self-directed anger, the regret. It's not pleasant, right? That imagined regret is a useful emotion. If that doesn't suit you, you can flip it and instead visualize future success and pride. See yourself after finishing the task, relieved, proud, and stress-free. By sharpening your sense of what what eventually looks like. You make it easier to take action right now. Number 5, break tasks into microtasks. One big reason we procrastinate is that the thing we have to do just feels huge, daunting, overwhelming. It's like standing at the bottom of a mountain looking up. You feel tired before you've even begun. If something seems too complex, confusing, or boring, we'll instinctively do something else just to get some relief. The trick here is to make that mountain into a series of little hills. That means breaking your big task into microtasks. By doing so, you reduce the intimidation factor and you also get a little hit of accomplishment with each step you complete. I use this technique every time I write a book. I don't sit down and say, time to write 300 pages. Instead, I give myself microtargets. List the 3 key points of chapter 1. Or even more granular, write a rough introduction paragraph for the chapter. Once that's done, I tackle the next small piece. Each of these microtasks might take, I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes. On their own, none of them is particularly scary or difficult. And because they're so clear and specific, I don't feel the dread that leads to procrastination. I'm not thinking about the other 299 pages I haven't written. I'm focused just on the next paragraph or the next idea. This approach works for all sorts of daunting projects. If you need to organize a messy garage, don't plan to clean the whole garage in one go. Instead, decide to start with one shelf or even just one box on that shelf. And there's actually psychological power behind this. Teresa Amabile at Harvard Business School calls this the progress principle. Making progress Even small wins tends to improve our mood and drive. Number 6, make a public commitment. It's one thing to break a promise to yourself, but breaking a promise to someone else, that's painful in a whole different way. That's why one of the most effective anti-procrastination strategies is to make a public commitment. In plain language, announce your goal or deadline in public, or at least share it with someone who will hold you accountable. When you declare your intentions to another person or group, you put your reputation on the line. Suddenly, procrastination isn't just a private matter. There's social pressure in the mix. And as uncomfortable as that can be, it can provide the extra push you need to get the job done. I use this tactic all the time in my work. If I'm dragging my feet on an article or a chapter, I'll email my editor and say, you'll have a draft from me by Monday. Boom! Now it's out there. Come Monday, my editor will be expecting the draft, and the fear of having to email them with an excuse is far worse than the effort required just to write the piece. You can do this in countless ways. Announce to your team at work, I'll present the findings in our meeting next Friday, effectively locking in a deadline. You can even take it to social media if you're bold. Post publicly that you're committing to run 3 times this week. Knowing that people are aware of your pledge can light a fire under you. In fact, researchers have found that publicly committing to a goal gives about a 65% chance of completing it, and if you schedule regular check-ins with that person, your chance of success jumps to around 95%. Those are impressive numbers. Basically, by simply telling people what you intend to do and arranging some form of accountability, you stack the deck on almost completely in favor of follow-through. One important note: frame your public commitment in a positive way— that is, a promise to achieve— rather than as a punishment. It's better to say, I will do X by this date, than to say, if I don't do X, I'll punish myself in Y way. The goal is to pull yourself towards success with encouragement and social support, not to push yourself through Fear alone. Now, for the last strategy, I'm giving you a 2-for-1 special, and this one just might be my favorite. Just 5 more is my personal go-to trick when I feel my motivation waning or I catch myself wanting to quit early. It's incredibly simple. Whenever you feel like stopping or you're struggling to start, tell yourself to do just 5 more. 5 more minutes, 5 more items, 5 more sentences. Whatever unit fits the task. It's a gentle nudge, not a huge demand. For instance, if I'm reading through a dense report and my mind is begging for a break, I'll say, okay, just 5 more pages, then I can stop. If you're out for a run and you want to quit, commit to just 5 more minutes of running before you let yourself slow down. 5 is small enough to seem doable, but it's also substantial enough to Often a funny thing happens. Once you've done those 5 more, you've caught a second wind. You might think, well, I've come this far, I can do another 5, and then another, and then another. This way you can string yourself along in 5-minute or 5-item increments. But even if you truly stop after the 5 more, you'll still have moved forward. It's a win either way. I love this tactic because it's the kind of tiny mental game that sidesteps the heavy feeling of a long haul. It works on the same principle as the 2-minute rule. It lowers the psychological barrier to continue. You're not telling yourself to finish the whole task, just to get to the next little checkpoint. Those little checkpoints add up, and as a bonus, you get a small sense of achievement each time you honor the just 5 more pledge. Over time, you train yourself to push a little beyond the point you normally would quit, and that Expands your capacity to focus and work. Your procrastination can be stubborn, but it's not unbeatable. Remember, the goal isn't to become a perfect productivity machine. It's to procrastinate a little less each day so you can focus on what really matters and enjoy your downtime without that nagging guilt. Now, if you found these tips helpful, I've got something else you'll love. I recently made a video about the power of regret and how looking backward can actually move you forward. It's a perfect follow-up to this discussion since we've touched on visualizing future regret as a motivator. I'll see you there.