0:00

Hello, Happy almost new

0:02

year. This is the next in our series

0:04

of behavior and habit related

0:07

re releases to Ring in

0:09

the beginning of two thousand

0:11

and twenty, a new year and a new

0:14

decade. Today's is with

0:16

Tim Pitchell, who is a professor who studies

0:18

procrastination and this interview. I've

0:21

really thought about a lot of things that was

0:23

said in this interview, and I think it's a really good

0:25

one. But one of the things that he said in the

0:27

interview is that he thinks procrastination

0:30

is a problem of emotional regulation,

0:32

and that really made a lot of sense to me. An

0:34

emotional regulation is something that I've

0:37

been thinking a lot about this year and working

0:39

with my clients a lot this year on

0:41

because really it's kind of the whole ball of wax

0:44

in some ways, right It's about can I decide

0:46

what's important and then when my emotions

0:48

come up, can I stay with what I've decided

0:51

is important in my life, not what my emotions

0:53

are pushing or pulling me to do right

0:55

now? Can I allow the emotions

0:58

to be there, process them, and then

1:00

act according to my values. And that's really procrastination,

1:03

eating, well, stopping drinking, all

1:05

the different things that a lot of us want to do in life.

1:07

Keeping up a meditation practice. It

1:10

really takes that emotional regulation piece.

1:12

It's not the only piece of behavior change,

1:14

but it is an important piece. So this

1:16

interview from Tim is really great.

1:18

If you'd like to get some more help with emotional

1:21

regulation as well as all the other aspects

1:23

of behavior change, than sign

1:26

up to talk to me for a thirty minute call

1:28

and I'll tell you a little bit more about the

1:30

program. I'll learn what's going on with

1:32

you. I'll give you an actionable piece

1:34

of information, and if the

1:36

program makes sense, we'll talk about moving

1:39

forward, and if it doesn't, we will

1:42

be friends. After talking for thirty minutes and I've

1:44

gotten to know you a little bit better. You can go to Eric

1:46

Zimmer dot coach slash application

1:49

for that and here is the

1:51

interview with Tim Pitchell. I hope you enjoy it.

1:54

It is in the getting on with life that

1:56

makes our lives, and that procrastination,

2:00

in a very real sense, is an existential issue

2:02

of not getting on with life itself. Welcome

2:12

to the one you feed throughout

2:14

time. Great thinkers have recognized the

2:16

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

2:19

like garbage in garbage out

2:21

or you are what you think ring

2:23

true. And yet for many of

2:25

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

2:28

us. We tend toward negativity,

2:30

self pity, jealousy, or

2:32

fear. We see what we don't have

2:34

instead of what we do. We think

2:36

things that hold us back and dampen our

2:38

spirit. But it's not just about

2:40

thinking. Our actions matter. It

2:43

takes conscious, consistent and creative

2:45

effort to make a life worth living. This

2:48

podcast is about how other people keep

2:50

themselves moving in the right direction, how

2:52

they feed their good wolf m

3:08

thanks for joining us. Our guest on this

3:10

episode is Tim Sitchell. Tim

3:12

is an associate professor of psychology

3:14

at Carlton University in Ottawa and

3:17

has garnered an international reputation for

3:19

his scholarship and a global audience

3:21

for his I Procrastinate podcast.

3:23

He also writes a popular Don't Delay

3:25

blog with Psychology Today. His new

3:28

book is Solving the Procrastination

3:30

Puzzle, A Concise Guide to Strategies

3:33

for Change. Hi Tim,

3:35

Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, Thanks for

3:37

having me. I am really excited

3:39

to have you on. Your book is called Solving the

3:42

Procrastination Puzzle, A Concise

3:44

guide to strategies for change. You

3:46

actually have a couple of books, but this is the one that

3:48

that I read to focus on for the interview. And

3:51

I know procrastination runs rampant,

3:54

you know, everywhere, and I know our listeners

3:57

it's something they also are interested

3:59

in. So I'm really looking forward to getting into that. But

4:01

let's start like we normally do with

4:04

The Parable. There is a

4:06

grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter

4:09

and he says, in life, there are two wolves

4:11

inside of us that are always at battle.

4:13

What is a good wolf, which represents things

4:16

like kindness and bravery and love, and

4:18

the other is a bad wolf, which represents

4:21

things like greed and hatred and fear.

4:24

And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about

4:26

it for a second and looks up at her grandfather and she

4:28

says, well, grandfather, which one wins?

4:31

And the grandfather says, the one you feed.

4:34

So I'd like to start off by asking you

4:36

what that parable means to you in

4:39

your life and in the work that you do. Well.

4:42

I've been looking forward to joining you on the podcast

4:44

simply because I like The Parable so much. I

4:47

read it and I've I've enjoyed parables

4:50

since I was a young man, especially

4:53

Zen Collins and things like that, And I

4:55

see the same sort of wisdom in that parable.

4:58

And it fits my research so much

5:00

in the sense that even the most

5:03

recent research we've seen come out of Germany

5:06

using functional magnetic residence imaging

5:08

on the difference in brains between those procrastinating

5:11

those who don't, we see that

5:13

the amygdala is larger. Uh,

5:16

And it's about fear. It's very true

5:18

in terms of understanding procrastination.

5:20

So it fits with my research well.

5:23

And in my own life, of course, I recognize

5:25

it the habits that I

5:27

developed, the things that I feed, the things,

5:29

the things that I think make me happy

5:32

but don't. When I feed those,

5:34

they become habits and difficult to break. So

5:37

I resonate to that, both personally and

5:39

professionally. That's wonderful. So

5:41

do you have any parables

5:44

of your own that are particularly important

5:46

to you besides the Wolf parable that come to mind

5:48

that might speak to procrastination? Yes,

5:51

for sure. In fact, it's a zend story

5:53

and it's the young novice

5:56

who lists the master and he said, Master, I've

5:58

been doing my meditation and then

6:00

I've been working hard. How do I achieve

6:02

enlightenment? And the Master looks at him and says,

6:05

have you finished your rice? And he

6:07

said yes, then then wash your bowl.

6:10

And that's the end of the story. And

6:12

it's so powerful for me because you

6:14

know, that's what life is in so many ways,

6:17

that it is in the getting on with

6:19

life that makes makes our lives,

6:22

and that procrastination, in a very

6:24

real sense, is an existential issue of not getting

6:26

on with life itself. And so I

6:28

find that to be a very powerful thing that

6:31

we can make more of many tasks

6:33

in our lives. In fact, I teach my children

6:35

that all the time. I'll say to my son, for

6:37

example, when he was six, I said to him,

6:39

you know, Alex, it's time that you started making your

6:41

own bed, And of course he said, I don't

6:43

want to. I don't feel like it. And my children

6:46

know what I say, and to that all the time is as

6:48

I didn't ask you what you want or how you feel.

6:51

I said, it's time for you to make your bed. And

6:53

that's, you know, so much in that parable

6:56

or that zen calling of

6:59

what makes enlightenment in life

7:01

right just taking the next right action.

7:03

And actually you just touched on something that I

7:05

was going to read that you wrote because I love the way

7:07

you say this, and I just think it puts this in perspective.

7:10

And you say, when we procrastinate on our goals,

7:12

we are basically putting off our lives.

7:14

And you said you became more convinced

7:17

of the importance of dealing with procrastination

7:19

as a symptom of an existential malaise,

7:22

and a malaise that can only be addressed

7:25

by our deep commitment to authoring

7:27

the stories of our lives. To

7:29

author our own lives, we have to be an active

7:31

agent in our lives, not a passive

7:34

participant making excuses

7:36

for what we are not doing. Yeah,

7:39

it's nice to hear my words right back to me. It'sause it's

7:41

been a while since I wrote that book. Uh,

7:43

And and I stand by that. It's it's

7:46

good that I don't kind of create to go who I wrote

7:48

that. No, it is a sustinct

7:50

summary of what keeps

7:52

me interested in procrastination. Like, there's

7:55

so many layers to my understanding.

7:57

You know, I started briefly with thinking about

8:00

the latest German study that was neurophysiological,

8:03

you know, based on understanding brain differences.

8:05

But like all explanations,

8:07

we can take it at different levels of

8:09

analysis, and for me, the most

8:11

profound one is this notion of getting

8:14

on with our own lives because the

8:16

one non renewable resource

8:18

we have in our lives is time. You

8:20

and I don't know how much we're gonna have, but

8:22

we know we can't make any more of it. And

8:24

I think that's probably why in every great world

8:26

religion there's some notion of the

8:29

sin of sloth, because you can't

8:31

waste this thing called life. And with

8:33

procrastination, you know, for me,

8:35

it's not a matter of becoming some uber

8:37

productive earning machine, but a

8:40

person who lives the life

8:42

here she wants to achieves

8:44

the goals that he or she wants to achieve, and

8:47

doesn't kind of stew on his own juices

8:49

in the guilt and shame that's so commonly defines

8:51

procrastination. Yeah, I think that's such

8:53

a big piece of it. I often talk with people

8:56

about when we know there's things

8:58

that we want to lash need

9:00

to do, and we don't do them, it feels

9:03

awful. And I think

9:05

one of the most important skills we can build

9:07

in life is to sort of make promises to

9:09

ourselves and then keep those promises.

9:11

And procrastination stands kind of

9:13

right in the middle of that, and you actually

9:15

say that there's some research that

9:18

shows that procrastination actually

9:20

compromises our health in two

9:22

different ways. Could you share a little

9:24

bit about that. Yes, I'm working on another

9:26

paper with my colleague at the University of Sheffield

9:29

right now. We're reanalyzing some

9:31

of our data and the first path is a direct

9:33

path with stress across the nation.

9:36

Causes more stress, and of course we

9:38

know there are many mechanisms in terms

9:40

of our physical health how that undermines

9:42

our immune system and creates uh

9:45

less resistance to all

9:47

sorts of illness. So procrastination

9:50

stress route to an

9:52

effect on our health. But there's also

9:54

an effect in terms of fewer wellness

9:56

behaviors and treatment

9:58

delay, more treatment delay. So procrastination

10:01

has indirect effects. So we

10:04

have this this this direct route

10:06

through stress, but there are two interesting indirect

10:09

routes that procrastination has

10:11

an effect on our health, and that's from fewer

10:13

wellness behaviors. So we don't

10:15

sleep when we think we should be sleeping,

10:18

don't exercise, don't eat well. These are

10:20

typical wellness behaviors, and sleep is interesting

10:22

on its own. I have colleagues in at

10:25

Youtubect University in the Netherlands who've been studying

10:28

sleep procrastination in fact. And

10:30

the other indirect route is treatment

10:32

delay. Oh, I'll get look after

10:35

that later, and that

10:37

has significant effects, and I'm

10:39

interested in studying that, especially in

10:42

older adults when things are

10:44

more fragile in terms of you need to have

10:46

fixed things looked in sooner than later. So

10:49

we have all these roots to the

10:52

connection between procrastination

10:54

and our health. The one we have the most

10:56

research evidence on is the

10:58

direct effects of stress us. But then there's

11:00

the indirect effects of fewer wellness behaviors

11:03

and treatment delay. Yeah. Actually makes

11:05

me think of a story. And I'm not sure that I can blame

11:07

this on having better control

11:10

of procrastination or just pure terror.

11:12

But this week I got a call from my dentist.

11:14

I had been in last week to get some work

11:16

done and they called and said, we see something in your

11:18

X rays and we think we think

11:20

it might be cancer. And

11:22

I thought, oh my god. So I called

11:25

oral surgeons until I could find one that would

11:27

see me like now, and

11:29

uh when over got it looked at and it was absolutely

11:31

nothing. But again I think that was

11:33

more driven by fear than not being a procrastinator.

11:36

But it it just made me think of that when

11:38

you're telling that story about delaying going to the doctor.

11:41

That was one time I was not delaying. But

11:43

you know there are people who get news like that and do

11:45

put it off. It's quite incredible. Yeah.

11:48

Yeah, Now I just was like, I don't

11:50

I don't want to live for two weeks worrying

11:53

about this, like, because I know I will, you

11:55

know anyway. So there's

11:58

lots of things that causecrastination,

12:01

but at the heart of it, you

12:03

say that one of the biggest things

12:06

is that it's a form of self

12:08

regulation failure. Can you explain

12:10

that? Sure, so many people think procrastination

12:13

is a time management issue, and although

12:15

time management is a necessary skill in our

12:17

lives, it's not sufficient because

12:19

you'll come to the point in time where you say, Okay, this

12:21

is the project I said I'm going to work on, but

12:23

your whole body screams, I don't want

12:26

to. I don't feel like it. You have an

12:28

emotional response to the task at hand.

12:30

We typically call that task aversiveness.

12:33

We find it diversive in that we're anxious

12:35

about it, we're bored, we resent it,

12:37

we're frustrated by it, any one of those

12:39

emotions, or pick some of your favorites. So

12:42

how do you get rid of those negative emotions

12:44

because we don't want them. While we use avoidance

12:47

as an emotion focused coping strategy,

12:49

the problem is it's a misregulation of emotion

12:52

because we're not really going to feel better in the long run.

12:54

We're not regulating ourselves in a healthy way.

12:57

But it gets reinforced because the moment

12:59

you get to the task, for that moment,

13:01

you feel better. So you get this negative

13:04

reinforcement that creates a habit. So

13:06

procrastinations an emotion focused

13:08

coping habit. And it's a problem

13:10

of self regulation in the same way that eating

13:13

the second row of cookies in the bag isn't going

13:15

to make you feel better. Putting off these

13:18

things isn't gonna make you feel better. We have

13:20

the naive belief is this is what we need right

13:22

now. Present self believes

13:24

he or she will benefit future self

13:26

pays the price, right And I think

13:29

what's so tricky about procrastination

13:32

or cookies or

13:35

drugs or all these different things

13:37

is if they didn't work at all,

13:39

it'd be easy to see through them. But they work

13:41

for like a minute or five

13:44

minutes or ten minutes, they've got

13:46

an initial okay, that feels

13:48

better, and then it fades and

13:50

we pay more later. And you've got

13:52

a phrase that you use related to

13:54

this um that that people

13:56

can use, and you say it's I won't give

13:59

in to feel good and

14:01

recognizing that feeling good now comes

14:03

at a cost. It does have this immediate

14:06

fix, albeit really specious because

14:09

even especially with procrastination and eating

14:12

more so than the other alcohol and drugs

14:14

work a bit longer because they can actually do a

14:16

bit of mood altering, right, but the

14:18

food and the procrastination,

14:20

A part of you is quite aware of that. The guilt

14:23

almost the surfaces immediately, especially

14:25

for some of us. Yeah, one of my favorite

14:28

ways to think about this, and I don't I

14:30

would imagine being as involved as your and

14:32

procrastination. You have seen, um

14:34

the posts he did in the Ted talk but

14:37

um tim Urban with the blog weight

14:39

but why and um,

14:41

you know, it's just so many brilliant things

14:43

in there that but the one that struck

14:46

me probably the most was

14:48

this idea of the dark playground.

14:50

And the dark playground was all right,

14:53

we've decided that we're going to procrastinate

14:55

again. It's not usually that conscious of a thought I'm going

14:57

to procrastinate, but we've decided we're

14:59

going to do something else right, but

15:01

we don't really enjoy He calls it the dark playground

15:04

because we're playing. We might be on Facebook

15:06

or YouTube or playing Solitaire or

15:08

whatever it is, but it doesn't

15:11

fully feel good because there's this nagging

15:14

sense of I should be doing

15:16

something different, and that that term

15:19

dark playground really really helped

15:21

me because I could notice when I was

15:23

in it. I could notice that like, oh,

15:25

okay, I'm not doing what I should do. I'm

15:27

doing this thing, and you know what, I'm not even really

15:29

enjoying it that much, not as much

15:31

as I would enjoy it if I finished what I had to do

15:34

and then went and did it. That's crucial that that

15:36

self understanding is the impetus

15:38

for true change. It doesn't make it easy, especially

15:41

if you have a habit, because habits draw us

15:43

back to it. But without that recognition,

15:45

there's no real commitment

15:47

to the change. It's when you recognize that, yeah,

15:49

this it doesn't work. I've

15:51

had a belief for a long time. This makes me feel

15:54

better, but it's not going to and then

15:56

what you need to put into place. There just a few strategies

15:58

to extract drew from that kind

16:01

of mental loop

16:03

or that downward spiral you can

16:05

get into that eventually leads

16:07

into that negative spot. This would be a good

16:09

time to introduce this topic. It shows up

16:11

in a lot of areas of the book, um

16:14

and I'm a big fan of it also.

16:16

And it's the idea of implementation intentions,

16:19

and you actually at different places in the

16:21

book talk how we can use these

16:24

to deal with kind

16:26

of that part of procrastination. Can you explain

16:29

what an implementation intention is

16:31

and then maybe talk about how we can use them

16:33

in relation to this self regulation.

16:37

This is the work of Peter Gollwitz or at New York

16:39

University, and he and his colleagues have done a

16:41

great deal of work differentiating between goal

16:44

intentions. We all have goal intentions.

16:47

I want to write this, or I want to lose

16:49

some weight, or I want to achieve that, or

16:51

we can have avoidance goals. I don't want to end

16:54

up here. And then the contrast

16:56

that with implementation intentions,

16:58

which is the how how are you can actually implement

17:01

this goal? Because goal intentions don't

17:03

have a lot of more motivational force, but

17:06

an implementation intention, which they've

17:08

shown over and over again in their research, makes

17:10

it more likely than going to act. And

17:12

the classic implementation intention,

17:14

in terms of what they've found in research, is

17:17

most effective is a conditional

17:19

statement if then, or

17:21

as I like to say, when then, when this

17:23

happens, then I do that. And

17:26

when we set things up like that, what happens

17:28

is we put the queue for action

17:30

in the environment. So, for

17:32

example, I want to speaking

17:35

of dentists as you did a few moments ago, I

17:37

wasn't flossing my teeth enough and

17:40

it was leading to some gum disease at

17:42

the beginning of it, at least that my dentist would say,

17:44

you really have to flost, And for

17:46

the life of me, I just couldn't develop that habit.

17:48

A little boy inside of me was resentful about

17:50

it, and then the rest of me wouldn't remember. But

17:53

an implementation intention really saved me,

17:55

and it was simply that I leveraged

17:57

a habit I already had. I did brush my tea

18:00

east quite regularly, really

18:02

regular day, every day, twice a day, and

18:04

so I just made the intention when

18:06

I pick up my toothbrush I'll put

18:08

the floss on the counter, and when I

18:10

put my toothbrush down, I will pick

18:12

up the flows the when then, and

18:14

the most important one is really just getting the floss

18:16

onto the counter, because sometimes I wouldn't even remember

18:19

it. This prospect of memory is a big

18:21

part of not being able to self regulate because you

18:23

don't even remember what you're supposed to do. But the

18:25

implementation intention puts that queue in

18:27

the environment. Oh, I'm picking up my toothbrush,

18:30

I'm putting the floss on the counter, and

18:32

so I'm leveraging a habit already have. That's

18:34

a really important part of this. And

18:37

by putting the queue for the action into the

18:39

environment, it helps me create a new habit.

18:41

Now, what's interesting about all that is there's so

18:43

many days where I thought, oh, I

18:46

don't feel like I don't want to act like a little boy

18:48

because we have a six year old alive and well in us,

18:50

or a little girl as the case may

18:52

be. And I look

18:54

at myself and say, wow, you know, what

18:57

were you going with this? You know how long it takes

18:59

to flash your t It takes like thirty seconds,

19:01

and it feels great, And then I get

19:03

on with that so there's layers of working

19:06

there, but the implementation intention was the foundation.

19:55

This is a testimonial you're about to hear from

19:58

one of my coaching clients named Hate,

20:00

and she tells you what her experience

20:02

of the program has been, and

20:06

I hope you find it interesting. It's pretty quick

20:08

and then if you want to talk to me

20:10

and learn more about the program and get some input

20:13

on what you're dealing with, go to Eric

20:15

Zimmer dot coach slash application

20:18

and sign up for a thirty minute call. Here's

20:21

the testimonial with Kate. My name is Kate

20:23

and I'm from New Hampshire and I

20:26

would love to say a word about working with Eric

20:28

Zimmer. So I have been working with Eric

20:30

this year on goals around

20:32

health and health practices, and specifically

20:35

I was really trying to lose weight. I just have had

20:37

a tough time with that for about

20:39

the last decade. And I have reached

20:42

goals working with Eric that I have not

20:44

otherwise been able to do, even working with nutritionists

20:47

and health coaches and fitness

20:49

experts. So Eric's work

20:51

in behavior with me

20:54

has been profound. I love his

20:56

style and his mannerism and I

20:58

really do think that what I'm figuring out how

21:01

to do is make lasting change for myself.

21:03

If I had to recommend Eric, I'd

21:05

say, heck, yeah, he's great. You should

21:07

work with him again.

21:09

If you're interested in the program, go to Eric Zimmer

21:11

dot coach slash application. Will

21:14

have a thirty minute, no pressure call where

21:16

I will get to know you a little bit better, tell

21:18

you about the program, and if

21:20

we both decide it sounds like it's a good thing, we'll

21:22

move forward. If not, I will leave you with something

21:25

useful in your life, and we will

21:27

have gotten to talk and know each other, which is always

21:29

a good thing from my perspective. Eric Zimmer

21:31

dot coach slash application. I've

21:34

mostly looked at implementation intentions

21:36

really in you know, using the if then

21:39

statement, but also a lot about

21:41

you know, the studies that show if you decide how

21:45

and when and where you're going to

21:47

do something, you're way more likely

21:49

to do it. So it's one thing to say I need to work out

21:51

tomorrow. It's a different thing to say, Okay,

21:54

I'm going to run for two miles at

21:56

the Park by the Lake tomorrow

21:59

at six pm. Right like, you've

22:01

got a way better chance of doing it.

22:03

If you've got that second statement versus

22:06

the first. I'm going to work out tomorrow. You know what interests

22:08

me about implementation attentions. I

22:10

did speak a great deal about it in the book,

22:12

but since writing that book, I've focused

22:15

a lot more on even finer tuned

22:18

statement around this that I find

22:20

is a real game changer for most people. And

22:22

that really draws on the work of David

22:25

Allen, who's written books like Getting

22:27

Stuff Done and Ready for Anything. He

22:29

argues really clearly, we don't do projects, we do

22:31

actions. Because I would say to people,

22:33

as as you saw in the book, a key thing is

22:36

just get started. And people would say to me,

22:38

Tim, if I could just get started, I wouldn't

22:40

have a procrastination problem. That's not

22:42

very helpful. And so as I thought

22:44

through that and looked at how we think

22:46

about uh getting

22:49

started, the question then becomes,

22:51

what's the next action? If we go back

22:53

to you when you asked me earlier about the

22:56

parables or stories in our lives

22:58

and I went immediately to to a Zen

23:00

Buddhist cone or a Zen Buddhist story,

23:03

Well, the Buddhists will also say that

23:05

we have monkey mind busy places.

23:07

You know, we think and we feel, and we think and we feel,

23:10

and you can't get rid of the monkey. It's just part of the human condition.

23:13

But as one monk I heard say so clearly

23:15

and so eloquently, you've got

23:17

to give the monkey something to do. And

23:20

it's the same for psychologists will tell

23:22

us. You know, you can have all these emotions,

23:24

but you can't suppress them, and you can't ignore them.

23:26

They're real. But we can

23:28

direct our attention somewhere else. So

23:31

now not only do I think about implementation

23:33

intentions is a really important tool,

23:36

but I also use this simple statement of what's

23:39

the next action, and I keep

23:41

that action as small as

23:43

possible, so it's a very low threshold for

23:45

engagement, so that I look at and go, well, who couldn't

23:47

do that? And that primes the pump

23:50

for going. And I thought of that really

23:52

when you were talking about the implementation intention

23:54

to go for the run yep, for when

23:57

or the how you're going to do it and when and for

23:59

what distance? But soon as you said two miles, I

24:01

thought, for many people that just sets

24:03

up the barrier or two miles that's too much,

24:06

And so instead I'd be looking at at

24:09

when I get home from work, the

24:11

moment I get home, I'm gonna put on my running shoes

24:13

and walk back outside the door. That might be

24:16

as much as I have to say to myself

24:18

to get me started. Now. The interesting

24:21

thing about how predictably irrational human

24:23

beings are is that as much as some of

24:25

us almost fight with ourselves

24:27

to get started, ten minutes later we're

24:29

on the run and we think we could be in the next Olympics,

24:32

and we're just it's just so crazy, you know. We

24:34

think, now I could run forever. It feels so good.

24:37

So we go from not being able to run at all to

24:39

thinking that we're an Olympic athlete. And

24:41

of course that's just the way the mind is working.

24:44

And we have to understand that we have

24:46

these predictably irrational aspects

24:49

of our human thinking, and

24:51

we have to have these hacks to work

24:53

around them. Yeah, you you brought up in

24:55

that statement there. I think at

24:57

least three different important

25:00

points. The first is the ambiguity

25:02

of a lot of the things that we have on

25:04

our task list. I might have

25:06

on my task list, I actually have had on

25:08

my task list. Record video.

25:11

I've got a video. I've got a record for something

25:13

I'm doing well The problem with that

25:15

is that that is about eight or nine tasks.

25:18

You know. First I have to uh

25:20

write the script for the video. Then I have to

25:23

get somebody to review it. Then

25:25

I have to practice it. Then I have to set

25:27

up the video equipment and set up the lighting,

25:30

and then I have to record it. Then I have to

25:32

edit it, I mean. And so when I have a task

25:34

on my list like get video done, I'll

25:37

procrastinate it forever because it's

25:39

not clear what the next action

25:41

is. And so as you were saying, deconstructing

25:43

that down to the very

25:46

simplest and next action I can. I

25:48

often say that, you know, ambiguity

25:51

is really a huge cause of

25:53

procrastination for people

25:55

and when they look at their task list, because we tend to

25:57

have projects on our task list, not tas

26:00

asks. Uh. The second thing that you

26:02

talked about there is just that idea of

26:04

getting started, and you

26:06

know, you use the analogy I'll just put on my shoes.

26:09

I mean, I use that one all the time for

26:11

the gym, like just get into your gym, close

26:13

or just get to the gym. Or

26:16

with cleaning, you know, all right, all you have

26:18

to do is clean for three minutes. I set myself

26:20

a timer and I get going for

26:22

three minutes and I'm usually off

26:24

and then the last thing that was embedded

26:26

in what you said is a really important

26:28

idea that you talk about. It

26:31

is that we often think that

26:33

the order of operation is

26:35

motivation and then action,

26:38

but it is just as common the

26:40

other way around. If we can take the action,

26:43

the motivation tends to follow

26:45

after it. Yeah, I think this is a really important

26:48

point that when I when I was writing that book,

26:50

one of the things I focused on is that I don't know where

26:52

we get this belief as adults, but we

26:54

seem to have this belief that we have to be in

26:56

the mood to do something, that motivation

26:59

proceeds action, But as you're noting,

27:01

it's often the other way around. In fact, social psychologists

27:03

showed us years ago that attitudes

27:06

can actually follow behaviors, not behaviors

27:08

following attitudes. It's so true

27:11

motivation. In fact, there's some very

27:13

interesting research that shows even a little progress

27:16

on a goal fuels are well being, which

27:18

is a great thing considering what the

27:21

procrastinations typically that downward spiral.

27:23

So it's really the antidote in some ways

27:26

to how do I get out of this trap.

27:29

A little bit of progress fuels our motivation.

27:31

We don't wait for the mood or the muse. We'll

27:34

be waiting there a long time. Yeah, exactly.

27:37

And you know that idea of I have

27:39

to feel like something to do it is so

27:41

fundamental to this whole issue

27:44

of procrastination. And you know the phrase

27:47

I use is you know that I don't

27:49

want to let my moods drive my action.

27:51

And I usually make a joke out of that, like, if

27:53

you had a mood system like mine, right,

27:56

if you let your moods drive your actions, it

27:58

would be a disaster. And my past

28:01

is littered with disasters of allowing

28:03

my moods to determine what

28:05

I do, because you know, people have

28:08

some you know, some people wake up, you know,

28:10

peppy and happy and ready to take on the world

28:12

every day. And then there's the rest of us who,

28:15

um, you know, often don't feel

28:17

that way. And it's learning to get started

28:19

even when we may

28:21

not feel like it that is so critical. But

28:23

I want to bring up another point. This leads us

28:25

into motivation, and we talked

28:28

about how, you know, if we can just get started,

28:30

motivation or our attitude changes.

28:33

Just getting started makes us feel better about

28:35

the task. It makes us feel better about ourselves.

28:37

But let's talk about the role of remembering

28:41

our motivation as a way

28:43

to help us with self regulation

28:46

and is a way to deal with um

28:48

potentially depleted willpower in what

28:51

regard eric remembering our motivation

28:53

like remembering our commitment to what it is we're

28:55

trying to achieve. Yeah, or you know

28:57

you've got to You've got a chart in the book where

28:59

you show this idea of you

29:02

know, it's worthwhile to look at your goal and

29:05

look at the costs associated with procrastination

29:07

as well as the benefits of acting

29:09

in a timely manner as a way, you

29:12

know, for me, I sort of think of that as like remembering

29:14

my why, Like why is this important? Definitely?

29:17

For sure? In fact, everything is foundation.

29:19

The foundation for all of this is

29:22

in commitment. And even Peter Gollwitzer,

29:24

who's written extensively on implementation

29:27

intentions, is acknowledged in quite a few papers

29:29

and book chapters that without commitment and won't

29:31

happen, there's no technique that's going to save

29:34

you. You do have to

29:36

be able to look at your own life and understand

29:39

why it is that you're even going to use

29:41

a strategy like what's the next action

29:43

or when then? And so we have to have

29:45

a clear idea of the

29:48

meaning behind our goals.

29:50

In fact, another way that I often think

29:53

of it, and I learned this from my past

29:55

own dissertation advisor who worked with an

29:58

area called personal projects analysis.

30:00

The balance between meaning and

30:03

manageability. It's always a balance

30:05

between those two. It has to be meaningful

30:08

for us to want to do it, but it also

30:10

has to be manageable. It goes back

30:12

to your notion of ambiguity. I've

30:14

certainly found in our research that uncertainty

30:16

is a very high correlative procrastination

30:18

and uncertainty. It can be there when you have ambiguous

30:21

schools. So but if you if

30:23

you focus only on manageability the next steps

30:26

and you go, oh, like a monkey could do this, what,

30:28

I'm not interested anymore. But if you work

30:30

only on meaning, then you

30:32

don't know how to manage it. So it's this interesting

30:35

balance. And at any given time, some

30:37

days I have to emphasize more than why,

30:39

which is your original question about. You

30:42

know, why would I engage and this? Why is this important

30:44

to me? And other times I

30:47

know exactly why I want to do it, and then the question

30:49

becomes more of a yeah, but how am I going to manage this? And

30:51

then I go back to Okay, what's the next

30:53

action? Or do I need to call a friend? That

30:55

sort of strategy. But it is this

30:57

balance between meaning and manageability.

31:00

And then there's other times, whereas I said in the book,

31:02

sometimes you simply have to look at the cost, like what

31:05

is this going to cost me if I put it off? Yeah?

31:07

Exactly. Um. And so one

31:09

of the things that you talk about is that

31:11

sometimes when we do stop to think about

31:13

it for a second, we will

31:16

say something to ourselves like it's

31:19

just not important, or um,

31:22

you know, a variety of other things. So there there are

31:24

common biases that

31:26

get in the way of us looking

31:29

at this clearly and um.

31:31

One of those is, you know, saying

31:34

to ourselves, for whatever reason, it's not important,

31:36

right, and and being able to recognize

31:38

that if it's something that

31:40

we thought was important before when we weren't

31:42

faced with the task, it's probably important.

31:44

And you use an implementation intention

31:46

here. Actually you say if we say it's

31:48

not important, then we stop and

31:51

remind ourselves that this is self deception.

31:54

Or if I say it's not important,

31:56

then I will just get started. But there's

31:58

some other biases I thought would useful

32:00

in talking about. One is prefer

32:03

tomorrow over today, because this is such a classic

32:05

one. I'll do it tomorrow, and I think

32:07

inherent in i'll do it tomorrow is I will

32:09

feel like doing it tomorrow, which is obviously

32:12

a fallacy. So let's talk about

32:15

that bias, about how we prefer tomorrow

32:17

over today and how we think we'll actually

32:20

want to do it tomorrow, and why that's so easy

32:22

to do. Well. There's two things that happened

32:24

there, and they're both grounded really

32:27

very well in research. On the one hand, Dan

32:29

Gilbert at Harvard University, who

32:31

studied a great deal about affective forecasting.

32:34

We know what weather forecasting is trying to prett

32:36

what the weather is going to be like tomorrow. Affective

32:39

forecasting is how are we going to feel tomorrow?

32:41

And what he's learned through his research is that we rely

32:43

on the present to predict the future. So

32:46

we all know what it's like to go grocery shopping

32:48

when you're hungry versus when you're full. Your

32:51

car looks distinctly different. Hunger, you're pulling

32:53

a second card. Full of your favorite snacks

32:55

and when you're just finished a big meal, when you're

32:57

going shopping, go oh, I don't need so much milk this week.

32:59

And again we're predictably irrational. So

33:02

how that applies to procrastination is that

33:04

that moment when you decide, no, I'm

33:06

not going to do this today, how do you feel?

33:09

A lot? And I give talks to students or

33:11

general audiences, the first word that

33:13

comes to mind is relief, and then many other people just

33:15

say I feel good exactly, So

33:17

that when you use that momentary

33:19

feeling to predict how you're gonna feel tomorrow, you say,

33:21

oh, yeah, I'm gonna feel like it's tomorrow. So

33:24

there's one cognitive bias that leads us

33:26

to believe I'm going to want to do this tomorrow.

33:29

But more importantly, and this is something that I didn't

33:31

write back in two thousand two thousand

33:33

eleven, was some work by hal

33:35

Hirshfield at U c l A, who's

33:38

used functional magnetic residence imaging to

33:40

look at the brains of people while they were

33:43

thinking about either their present self, their

33:45

future self, or a stranger. And

33:47

to make a long story short, what he

33:50

learned was that the areas of

33:52

the brain that are active when we think about present

33:54

self are different than when we think

33:56

about future self. In fact, the

33:58

areas of the raim that are active when

34:00

we think about a stranger are the same

34:03

areas that's processing information about

34:05

the future self. So we seem to think

34:07

about future self like a stranger, and that

34:09

leads us again to think, uh,

34:12

that that's that person will handle that, and

34:14

so tomorrow that person will feel like a

34:17

present self is processing

34:19

information much differently. So these are

34:21

biases in the way that we think about the future.

34:24

In fact, we've done some research on that too, where we had

34:26

people imagine their future self, in this case

34:28

students, because that's a population we're working with,

34:31

and when they thought more about future

34:34

self, present self made different

34:36

choices. And in fact, how Hirshfield did some

34:38

of this research too before we did,

34:40

but he did it with digital avatars,

34:43

so you'd see a picture of yourself either as

34:45

you look now or yourself digitally

34:48

aged into your sixties and lo and behold,

34:50

if you're sitting in experimental situation looking at

34:52

your older self, and the experimental

34:55

task is to allocate funds, you allocate

34:57

more funds to retirement savings because

34:59

you future self in mind. Without

35:01

that, you spend money differently. And we

35:04

found the same thing with students. If they could think

35:06

about themselves at the end of the term, they made

35:08

different choices now. And one of the mechanisms

35:10

that seems to be at work there is you

35:13

develop more empathy for future

35:15

self and you think, yeah, that's really

35:17

jerk and future self around. And

35:19

in fact, when I give public talks, I

35:22

draw on Richard Taylor, a the

35:25

Nobel Prize winning economists from the University

35:27

of Chicago who won

35:30

his Nobel Prize for showing how we're predictably

35:32

irrational, And as he summarizes

35:34

it, he says, you know, we're more like Homer

35:36

Simpson than we are homo

35:39

economic Austs. And it makes

35:41

me smile because I love Homer. And I'll

35:43

put up a picture of Homer and Marge, and Marge

35:45

says to Homer, you know, Homie,

35:48

someday these kids are going to be grown and you're gonna

35:50

regret not spending more time with them. And

35:52

Homer goes, yeah, that's the problem

35:54

for future Homer. Man, I don't envy that

35:57

guy. And he just gets it right. And

35:59

so this get yourself present self dichonomy

36:01

is really important, and we've seen it in all sorts

36:04

of studies that to the extent

36:06

that we're biased towards present self

36:08

and we want that immediate mood

36:10

repair. If we don't think about

36:12

future self, present self always dominates,

36:15

and we see that in cartoons and other things as well.

36:17

Everyone knows that future self hates

36:19

present self because ut yourself always

36:21

getting jerked around. So if we can remember

36:24

that this is these are some of the biases that are operating,

36:27

it helps us develop more empathy for future

36:29

self and we make different choices. Now.

37:15

A lot of what we do on the show is we

37:18

read books and listen to authors

37:20

and falls kind of into

37:22

the self help category, but there are times

37:24

that we need more than ourselves to

37:27

help us. Today's show is sponsored

37:29

by talk Space, the online therapy

37:32

company that lets you message a licensed

37:34

therapist from anywhere at

37:36

any time. All you need is

37:38

a computer with an Internet connection or

37:40

the talk Space mobile app. That

37:42

means you can improve your mental health even

37:45

if you've had trouble making time for it in

37:47

the past. If you're

37:49

like a lot of people, you can't imagine fitting

37:52

anything else into your life. But with

37:54

talk Space, therapy is as easy

37:56

as sending your therapist a message get

37:58

something off your chest whenever you need

38:01

to. There are no extra commutes,

38:03

no leave in the office, and no judgments.

38:06

Therapy isn't just about venting

38:08

your innermost thoughts or digging into childhood

38:11

memories. It's also about practical, everyday

38:13

strategies for stress management and

38:16

living a happier life. Having a therapist

38:18

simply provides you a designated person

38:20

for you to talk to who's trained to

38:22

listen and help you make positive changes.

38:25

The talk space platform has over two

38:28

thousand licensed therapists who

38:30

are experienced in addressing life's

38:32

challenges. We all face to

38:35

match with a perfect therapist for a fraction

38:38

of the price of traditional therapy. Go

38:40

to talk space dot com slash

38:42

wolf and use the code wolf

38:45

to get forty five dollars off your

38:47

first month. Again, that's

38:49

talk space dot com slash wolf

38:51

and use the promo code wolf. Talk

38:54

space dot com slash wolf promo

38:57

code Wolf. Let's talk

38:59

about one other bias that you mentioned

39:01

in the book, and um, I

39:03

thought this one was really interesting and you

39:06

refer to it as self handicap to

39:08

preserve self esteem. My

39:11

colleague at the University of Sheffield,

39:13

who started her graduate studies

39:15

with us here at Carlton University

39:17

in Ottawa. She did

39:20

some research looking at how people

39:22

make upward and downward counter

39:24

factuals. And so let me just take a minute and

39:26

talk about what those are. Downward

39:28

counter factual we're really familiar

39:30

with them. They happen all the time. They have

39:33

they start in school. So you

39:35

get a C grade and it's

39:37

not what you're hoping for. Your shooting

39:39

for an A. Let's say, but your

39:41

downward counter factual is at least

39:43

I didn't fail. It's counterfactual to what

39:45

happened. But you say, at least I didn't fail.

39:48

So what's the purpose of that, Well, it makes you feel

39:50

better. You weren't happy about getting the sea, but

39:52

when you've put it against failing, you

39:55

feel better. The upward counter factual

39:57

is just the opposite, of course, and that is

39:59

what If I had studied harder, if I hadn't gone

40:02

out last night, maybe I would have gotten an A same

40:04

thing. You could imagine getting a little fender

40:06

bender. Well, at least no one was killed.

40:09

The downward counter factual, the upper

40:11

counter factual. Maybe I should look at my phone when

40:13

I'm trying to park the car. So you

40:16

learn from upper counter factuals, and lo and behold

40:19

when future looked at the difference between procrastinators

40:21

and non procrastinators, not surprising

40:23

that they made more downward counter factuals.

40:26

Again, kind of underscoring this notion of

40:28

it's about feeling good, the

40:30

same strategies being used, but nothing's

40:33

learned. And so it's interesting for

40:35

us to stand back and listen to the self

40:37

talk. Am I making downward counter factuals?

40:40

Because if I am, again, it's all about

40:42

making myself feel better rather

40:45

than learning from the situation. And

40:47

if you look at any of the popular self

40:49

help around motivation and productivity,

40:51

it's how do we effectively learn from our

40:53

mistakes, because there's that's the only way

40:55

we learned, And the downward and upwerd

40:58

counter factuals that you hear as inner

41:00

talk can be a real clue to the

41:02

habits you've created in your own life around

41:05

them. And so essentially

41:08

part of what you're saying is that we might

41:10

procrastinate to give

41:13

us away to have an excuse

41:15

for why we didn't do better later. Well,

41:18

that's self handicapping thing. It's

41:21

a little dicey that I've got

41:23

colleagues and I happen to be in that camp. Who

41:25

would argue that procrastination isn't

41:27

a self handicapping technique, Because if

41:29

I delay on purpose to

41:32

protect my self esteem, then

41:34

it's really a different form of delay because

41:36

I'm doing it quite knowingly. I

41:38

do think that their secondary gain and procrastination,

41:41

you can use it to protect yourself not a

41:43

bad grade for you know, working

41:45

one night, but that's

41:48

quite purposeful. I don't believe

41:50

that we procrastinate to self handicap.

41:53

Uh, we can delay

41:55

to self handicap, but I want

41:58

to There's a fine line, I would you

42:00

between that sort of delay and procrastination,

42:04

assuming that that's all happening at a conscious

42:06

level. Right, So if

42:08

I consciously say, oh well,

42:11

I just won't study so much so I don't feel bad

42:13

if I don't do well, that's very much a conscious

42:15

decision and that's not procrastination.

42:17

And that's actually a point you make very early

42:19

in the book. Is not all delay is procrastination.

42:22

There are valid reasons to delay, so

42:25

you know, but but on a on a more

42:27

subconscious level, perhaps there

42:30

might be some of that. It's it's always interesting because

42:32

I hear people use a term a lot self

42:34

sabotage, and I never quite

42:37

know what I think of that term.

42:39

I don't know whether that's just like sort

42:42

of woo woo word

42:44

that sort of you know, brings

42:47

up a lot of different things, or whether there's really

42:49

something to that and it might be

42:51

similar to what we're talking about here. I am

42:54

self sabotaging by unconsciously

42:56

putting something off because

42:59

I will feel better about it later.

43:01

Yeah, I think there's some truth in that. It's

43:03

become a habit in your life. You're you're working

43:06

very hard to protect your self esteem. I

43:08

know that my colleague Joseph Ferrari at DePaul

43:10

University in Chicago, and some

43:12

of his earlier research showed that procrastinators

43:15

generally didn't want to get feedback that

43:18

would reflect on them in a way they're

43:20

can affect their self esteem. So you could

43:22

see that sort of protective factor

43:24

coming up, so that you delay

43:26

needlessly and in a way that's going

43:28

to be self defeating. But part of the motivation

43:31

for that is that your feel you're going to fail anyhow.

43:34

And in fact, when we listen to uh

43:37

procrastinators in either therapy

43:39

sessions or in research. I'm thinking of Bill McCowen,

43:42

Louisiana State has done some interesting

43:44

research where he had students,

43:46

when they were procrastinating, go online and talk

43:48

about what they were thinking and feeling, and

43:51

he captured a lot of the irrational thoughts,

43:53

and there were things like, well, what's the point of me trying?

43:55

I'm not any good anyhow, So sure

43:58

we get that sort of thing. How happening

44:00

inside of ourselves all this negative self talk,

44:02

and then procrastination could become a

44:05

mechanism which was self protective,

44:07

and in that sense we might be

44:09

talking about this elusive notion

44:11

of self sabotage. Well,

44:14

Tim, we are at the end of our time, and this has been

44:16

enormously helpful and

44:19

a fun conversation for me because I'm so interested

44:21

in this. You and I are going to continue the conversation

44:25

in our post show conversation and a couple

44:27

of things we're going to talk about our um.

44:31

The procrastination is not only an

44:33

inability to get started. Sometimes we get

44:35

started and then we get off track from

44:37

a variety of ways. And we're going to talk about how to bounce

44:39

back from that type of procrastination.

44:42

In the post show conversation listeners.

44:44

If you're interested in that, you can join

44:47

us and be a member of the

44:49

one you Feed Patreon community and you can

44:52

get access to all the post show conversations,

44:54

add free episodes and

44:57

many episodes by going to one you

44:59

Feed dot net slash Support.

45:02

Again, Tim, thank you so much. We'll have links

45:04

in the show notes for where people can see

45:07

you and see your book. And I just thought it was

45:09

a great book and this has been such a fun conversation

45:11

for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye.

45:32

If what you just heard was helpful to you, please

45:34

consider making a donation to the One you Feed

45:36

podcast. Head over to one you Feed

45:39

dot net slash Support. The

45:41

one you Feed podcast would like to sincerely

45:43

thank our sponsors for supporting the show.