Here’s how you can get off the procrastination hamster wheel

Does overwhelm lead to procrastination, or is it the other way round?

I often wonder this and finally decided to ask you all.

And also apologise.

I have been talking about making lists, finding out what habits to inculcate, prioritise lists, etc. when all along you have been thinking:

There is so much to be done, I don’t know where to begin from.

Well, if that’s you, I apologise.

I got carried away in my enthusiasm to teach you everything I have learnt about time management.

And now let’s get back to what we started with today — overwhelm and procrastination.

But first a story.

When Victor Hugo was commissioned to write his epic The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he did not write a single word for one full year. He spent his time socialising, travelling and meeting people.

Finally he ran out of money and the publisher lost their patience. They gave Hugo six months to finish the manuscript.

It is said that Hugo packed away all his clothes except his shawl so that he could not go out of his home and focus on writing. The 1000 page epic was published 3 weeks before the deadline.

The thing is,

When we have too many things to do we prefer to check Twitter or Facebook just to avoid the overwhelm.

For me, I download pulp fiction using my Kindle Unlimited subscription and finish it before doing anything else. That’s a solid 2 to 3 working hours gone in a whoof. And my excuse? I must read a lot if I want to write a lot!

This is what we all do. Create excuses for stuff we don’t want to do. This leads to a massive pile up of tasks and then we get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks and procrastinate some more.

This is the hamster wheel of procrastination that we need to break.

And believe me, it is easy to do.

Without taking extreme steps like Victor Hugo.

Because not all of us are as skilled as Victor Hugo was in his craft to finish our work in such tight deadlines and that too of that high quality. So, it is better to do one small thing at a time.

Pick any one task (if you have started prioritising, may be you will pick up something with priority 1) from your SuperList and keep at it till you have finished.

The dopamine that is released by your brain when you finish the task will motivate you to take up and complete the next one. Yes, dopamine is your motivation molecule and it gets triggered when you complete any task, however big or small.

Have you noticed that when you have had especially good day at work — wherever you are working from — you have more energy to do things with your friends and family in the evening. That’s dopamine at work.

This means, to get off the procrastination hamster wheel, you need to create a dopamine release cycle for yourself so that you are motivated to complete more and more tasks off your list.

And here’s how to start.

Action Step

Pick one task from your SuperList, which is easy to do but you have been putting off for a long time.

Then take up the next one. And then the next, and so on. The same day if you have time, or the next day.

Useful Links

Success hormones

5 Mistakes We Make When Overwhelmed: HBR

The Wrap Up

Let me know how many easy wins you scored this week and how it motivated you to take up the bigger tasks.

Let’s celebrate together. 🥂

If you want these tips to land in your inbox directly, every Thursday, subscribe here.