Procrastination

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There’s procrastination, and then there’s Procrastination.

The things we procrastinate are always somewhat important. And they are also always somewhat uncomfortable.

The difference between procrastination and Procrastination is their urgency.

With lower-cased-p procrastination, we are talking about things that are important but not urgent. Think about going to the dentist (it doesn’t really matter if you go next week or next month), doing sports (you can also do it tomorrow), or eating healthily (picking the chocolate bar over the apple).

Then there is capital-p Procrastination. That is the thesis you have to hand in tomorrow, or the deadline you need to urgently make until next week. It’s important AND urgent – so your procrastination gets more desperate (until it stops completely).

When people think about procrastination, they usually think capital-p. But this is missing out on an important aspect of procrastination that we all give into: (lower-case) procrastination of the important, non-urgent stuff.

Urgency reveals procrastination by itself. So when procrastination is not urgent, we have to sit down and reflect to notice.

This week, we explore procrastination in its full spectrum and ways to tackle it. Have fun!

💡 Reflecting on Procrastination

(Like always, you can download the Notion template of this issue of Grow Your Mind to take structured notes.)

What are you procrastinating?

Make a huge list of everything you are procrastinating. Don’t stop at things that are urgent. Also write down non-urgent stuff like seeing the doctor or saying hi to an old friend.

How do you procrastinate?

When and how does procrastination start? Can you find a pattern? What do you do instead of what you’re procrastinating?

How can you overcome procrastination?

Think about what you could change in your environment and about strategies you successfully used in the past. How can you use the knowledge from your thoughts above to stop procrastinating?

BONUS: What's one thing you're currently not doing that would significantly improve your personal life if you did it consistently?

You might remember this question from the Yearly Reflection – it’s worth revisiting it regularly. What steps can you take to start working on it? What would have a similar impact on your professional life?

✨ Member Insights: Steps that lead to Integrity

Each month, we showcase a Mental Garden member's reflections from the previous issue of Grow Your Mind. This month, Rico Trebeljahr from Berlin shares his insights on integrity. If you would like to be featured in the next edition, let me know by replying to this email.

Integrity is choosing to act in a manner that aligns with your personal values and beliefs, even when it's not the easy choice. Unfortunately, our brains can trick us into thinking that going against our values is okay. We come up with excuses and rationalizations to justify our actions. It's especially hard to maintain integrity in moments of weakness, such as when faced with temptation or addictive patterns.

I don’t know many people who consistently show integrity in all aspects of their life. In a way, this is an almost godlike moral idea. Humans are fallible, and so am I. Still it’s something I want to strive towards more and more over time.

A good strategy, that I had some success with in the past, is to change my environment and remove triggers and patterns that lead to choices that are not in line with my values.

In a way, the idea is to make the choices of integrity easier and those that break integrity harder to execute in the world. It’s using the rational part of my brain to make decisions for me when I am full of willpower and things are easy to decide and alter.

When the moment of weakness comes, I am prepared and have a higher likelihood of deciding in a way that is in line with my values.

🙏 Thanks!

Thank you for being a part of Mental Garden. As always, I hope you found the questions useful. If you have any feedback, just reply – I read all of your emails.

Before signing off, I want to share the #1 strategy I use to beat procrastination (and Procrastination, too).

Take the task you procrastinate, and split it up until it’s not daunting anymore.

Let's imagine a big task like cleaning the house. I think cleaning a whole house sounds very, very discouraging.

But split it up: only clean the kitchen.

Still sounds intimidating? Clean just the table. Everybody can clean a table.

After the table, continue with the sink. And when the whole kitchen is done, move on to the next room and repeat.

Every task has a “cleaning the table” subtask. Give it a try, it’s worth it.

With gratitude,
Marc

PS: What are you procrastinating right now?