Why do we procrastinate

Hey friends,

This week I want to talk about procrastination for what I believe is the third issue where I have spoken about the topic. The reason being is because you may or may not know but I have a problem with procrastination so in an endeavour to fix that problem I have decided to procrastinate from studying for exams and write this.

In my extensive research over a long period, most evidence I have found says that there are generally 2 reasons why we procrastinate 1. A task is too challenging. 2. A task is too easy.

If the task we are trying to complete is too hard we will lose all motivation to complete that task because we think that we will not be able to complete it so why try. Thankfully there are some solutions to mitigate this from happening known as the 5-minute rule and the 2-minute rule I have already written about both so you can click on them to read more.

Now we come to the slightly more difficult challenge to combat. If a task is too easy then we will feel no challenge and it just feels boring. For example, if I was playing tennis against a 4-year-old the chances are that would be kind of boring. I try to combat this using what I call the gamification method. It's a crappy name that I came up with on the spot but you'll live with it.

Here's how it works so say for instance you're playing tennis against a 4-year-old except you can only hit to the baseline between the inside and outside tramline and if you don't he gets a point. Or if you have a small bit of homework that you are putting off try and do it in 80% of the time that you think it will take you. Essentially what you're trying to do is make the conditions for how you complete the task harder if that makes any sense.

I hope this helps,

Have a great week!

Conor


❤️ My Favourite Things This Week

  1. Confirmation - On Friday it was my sister's confirmation and we had a lovely day from the Church to meeting people afterwards to having dinner with family and having some people back at the house. I even saw some people that I hadn't seen since 2020. It was a really enjoyable experience and to top it off the weather was great for most of the day
  2. Meeting cousins - Not everyone was able to come to the confirmation but we saw some of our cousins that couldn't make it on Friday yesterday and had great fun (hence why this is a day late)
  3. Uncle's 50th - Shortly after I write this I will be attending my uncle's 50th where we will meet some of our family again and it should be good fun.

P.S Why did this have to be the 2nd weekend before exams 😔

✍️ Quote of The Week

The emotion you fall asleep with at night is most likely the emotion you’ll wake up with in the morning.