Getting Started Is Everything [Procrastination]

Nothing's better than sinking your teeth into a satisfying after-hours side project—or what I guess most people may just call a hobby. But after 10 hours at work, it's not always easy to muster the energy to switch off your TV and go to work on your project. The trick I use is simple, self-evident, and it works. Getting started is everything.

Here's a scenario ripped from the headlines (of my life):

It's a Wednesday night. I'm exhausted from a bad night of sleep and a long day of work. I'm hungry, so I make some food and eat while catching up on an episode of The Walking Dead (which is relatively awful). I eat, I finish the episode, and suddenly all the momentum I'd planned to carry into working on my side project that night has seeped out of my pores, absorbed by couch cushions. Shit.

Shit.

Maybe, instead of working on my passion project, I should just keep catching up on The Walking Dead, even though I'm not actually enjoying it! I'm already convinced that continuing on my current self-destructive downward spiral is the only option I've got the energy for, so this seems like the inevitable outcome of my night.

But damn it, I should really do some work. It's not even work. It's a hobby I enjoy—far more than I enjoy watching a show about zombies that's actually a tedious soap opera that happens to occasionally have a zombie in it. And I know that tomorrow, I'll absolutely regret that I spent hours watching people argue about how to be civilized when zombies want to eat you instead of actually making something.

At this point, I make a deal with myself that makes all the difference. I've finished eating, and I've finished the episode I watched with dinner. Instead of jumping into the next episode, I convince myself to spend ten minutes on my project. Just ten minutes. Enough time to accomplish one small task. Then, after that ten minutes is up, I can go back to zombies, guilt-free, if I so choose.

The beautiful thing is, I almost never do. Getting started is everything, and once I've accomplished one small task, I'm ready (and excited) to tackle another. And another. And that's how, instead of wasting my night on TV that I'm not that into, I actually get something done.

It doesn't always work that way, but it doesn't have to. Even if all I did was ten minutes of work and then went back to zombies (which happens on occasion), I still knocked out one small task. But more often than not, finishing 10 minutes of work launches me into an enjoyable hour or two of progress. Better luck next time, zombies.

This isn't a new idea by any means, but having successfully employed it recently, I felt like talking about it. If you've got your own tried and true method for getting to work when you're not exactly excited bursting with energy or overflowing with excitement at the prospect, we'd love to hear it in the comments.

Avoiding The Butterfly Effect, The Supersaurus and Procrastination

In Chaos Theory, “The Butterfly Effect” explains how small changes in conditions can produce results very different from predictions. If good weather is predicted on a day at one side of the world and a butterfly flaps its wings on the other, this could actually cause a storm rather than the good weather as predicted. The flapping of the wings changes the air pressure very slightly causing a weather pattern completely different from the one originally forecast.

Sometimes one simple action can lead to great results — or avoid catastrophic ones. Have you ever delayed paying a bill, resulting in a fine? The next day you have to leave the office to pay the fine. As a result you miss a meeting, delay handing in your reports and your hair gets wet because you were caught in the rain…and you were supposed to go out for cocktails after work! One simple action could have avoided the storm that followed.

There may also be a project that you just can’t seem to get started on. You postpone picking it up, make excuses, distract yourself with menial tasks in the hope that it will disappear. Why do we do this?

One of the chief reasons we avoid work is fear. We are afraid the task may be too big or too difficult for us.

The task looks enormous. Never mind an elephant — this is a Supersaurus! You see yourself as a tiny dot looking up at the largest dinosaur that ever roamed the earth and think:

“How in the world am I going to get this done? This is impossible, it scares me so much that I’m now going to pretend that dinosaurs (especially the Supersaurus) never existed and I’m going to start ticking all the nice little tasks that I enjoy off my list. Call Mary, yes I can do that, have a little chat and arrange the social club outing much more pleasant that super lizards…”

But what happens? The super lizard won’t go away. He plagues your dreams.  You push him back into your subconscious and you pretend there will be no repercussions — but, alas, one day you are reminded.

You are called to a meeting. A meeting in which you are reminded that, in fact, the Supersaurus does exist and all of the other people at the meeting know of his existence. You have no choice now but to face him head on…so what do you do?

The fear comes from ignorance. Not having defined exactly what that the Supersaurus is, you sit down and open the files, you look at his size, you understand his form and composition, and then you assess its greatness and then break it down.

What exactly needs to be done? How long is it going to take? When can this be scheduled into the day? Once you are clear about the size of the task then you can begin to break it down into a manageable size — you know, like a cow or a goat rather than a massive dinosaur.

The most important part of avoiding procrastination is the “Do Habit”. The planning and the scheduling is important — vital, in fact — for the smooth running of any project. But without actually standing up and doing something about it nothing will ever progress.

Create a habit of doing. If it’s a project in work or a book you are writing, stop planning and start doing — even if you can only do ten minutes a day. Just do it. After all, ten minutes a day adds up to more than one working day a month. Every little bit helps, so make a plan and create space for the task every day.

As Bob Marley (and probably someone equally as important person before him) said:

“Every little action, there’s a Reaction”

Start the momentum.

Don’t allow your wings to flap aimlessly and cause a tornado.

Start consciously fluttering…and the small little actions may just create amazingly big results.