Guilt is an emotion all too familiar to most procrastinators. It often leads to a vicious cycle: You feel guilty for procrastinating, then the guilt makes you feel so bad that you procrastinate even more, which makes you feel even more guilty, which leads to even more procrastination, and so on. I’ve been stuck in that loop […]
Continue readingWhat’s the fastest and least painful way to change your behavior? Changing your environment. If you’re familiar with Philip Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment or with Ellen Langer’s Counterclockwise Experiment, you’re aware of the insane changes different environments can lead to, and quickly. In Zimbardo’s case, good people became evil in a matter of days. In Langer’s experiment, they literally […]
Continue readingMy fancy new productivity toolProductivity doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy. I recently bought an old-school $10 alarm clock that has made a remarkable difference in how productive I am. Why? Because it allows me to leave my smartphone in a drawer overnight, which gives me a much more effective start to the day. I get […]
Continue readingProcrastination is a puzzling phenomenon. We delay the very things we want to do. We postpone what we know is best for us. It’s irrational. It’s harmful. It’s against our best intentions. So why do we do it? Why do we procrastinate? Here’s my take on it…The One Mechanism Underlying All ProcrastinationThere’s only one ultimate reason for why […]
Continue readingRecently I was reflecting on my personal procrastination journey. I was proud about how far I’d come when I realized something interesting: It’s not that I don’t procrastinate anymore. It’s just that I procrastinate on a much higher level nowadays. Today, I’d call myself a positive or productive procrastinator. Let me explain…My Procrastination Struggles… Then & NowIn the past, […]
Continue readingIn a recent article, I told you about the four most important steps I took to overcome severe procrastination. Step one was all about becoming a learning machine. I describe in the article how the life-long learner mindset has played a crucial role in helping me improve many aspects related to procrastination, such as self-discipline, self-compassion, […]
Continue readingSolving The Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy Pychyl is a super short book with lots of actionable advice on how to overcome procrastination. Pychyl is a psychology professor and one of the world’s leading experts on procrastination. He’s been researching about it for 20+ years and distills his favorite ideas into this little book. Due to its short […]
Continue reading(EXCITING NEWS: I recently published a book on overcoming procrastination. You can check it out here on Amazon!)“Neurons that fire together wire together.” This statement, attributed to neuropsychologist Donald Hebb, means that every experience we have becomes embedded in our brains, and the more an action is repeated, the stronger the connection between these neurons (brain […]
Continue readingScientia potentia est. That’s Latin and means knowledge is power. I firmly believe in that statement: Having knowledge is powerful in many ways, especially in helping us facilitate positive change. “But,” you may interject, “knowledge is only powerful when it’s implemented, otherwise it’s useless!” I don’t fully agree. Oftentimes, merely knowing something is enough to cause change. Once you know […]
Continue readingPssst… I published a book on how to overcome procrastination. Check it out here: Stop Procrastinating: A Simple Guide to Hacking Laziness, Building Self Discipline, and Overcoming Procrastination.I’ve been a procrastinator all my life. I don’t know when it started, but I remember instances of procrastination when I was a little kid. I started playing football at […]
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