'The Answer'
Like any self-respecting procrastinator, I've spent countless hours trawling through pop-psych blogs and ted-talks in search of 'the answer'. You probably know what I'm talking about. That one technique that, by virtue of reading it, will effortlessly transform you from undisciplined procrastinator into Tim Ferriss. To your (and my) surprise, I think I may have actually found it (well, sorta).
Just Do it?
In my descent into the world of procrastination 'cures', one piece of advice came up again and again: just get started. Or to put it another way, do something! For me, the hardest part of doing an aversive task is that initial transition from procrastinating to actually doing it. The ‘do something’ advice makes a lot of sense here, as it seemingly bypasses the root of procrastination, avoiding starting out of fear. By committing to a tiny step, as little as 2 minutes of exercise or writing one sentence of a report, the inertia carries you from the 'fear' stage into the ‘this isn’t actually so bad’ stage.
However, despite the apparent sageness of the above advice, it has one big drawback. It didn’t work (at least for me). I had become so set in my patterns of avoidance that I found it difficult to even write one sentence of an assignment. I think it was because on some level I knew that by writing that sentence I was committing to writing a lot more. What I really needed, was the piece of the puzzle that fit between the ‘procrastinating’ and ’actually doing it’ stages.
Count to 5
My search for a procrastination 'cure' naturally took me to Reddit. Deep in some forgotten thread I found a simple, practical tool for overcoming procrastination.
Before you do anything, count to 5, then do it. If you are going to open a door, count: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" and open it. This doesn’t have to be done with everything, but by making counting from 1 to 5 a cue to action (even if that action is scratching your butt), a strong connection is made between reaching 5 and taking action. Once the relationship has been established, you can start using it to do the things you've been putting off.
For example, thinking “I have to write 1 sentence of my report on the count of 5, 1… 2... 3… 4… 5…” and then you HAVE to write at least one sentence. For this to work, every single time you count to 5 you have to do the action upon reaching 5. It may sound ridiculous, but for me it has been the missing piece of the procrastination puzzle. I should mention that I haven't yet counted to 5 and not done the action, so I'm not sure how that would impact its efficacy.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes!