End of procrastination or what is ICIGAI?
The concept of procrastination can be described with this simplest image. You have a number of specific tasks and there is allocated time for their implementation. Procrastinators decide to pile all the tasks together and leave them at the last moment.
The problem is that procrastination always makes us feel worse , affects our productivity and our level of happiness.
There is even a study that proves that the life of a procrastinator is shorter than the life of a person who does everything on time, because he procrastinates even visits to doctors.
There is no doubt that procrastination, and especially the fight against it, is a very urgent topic for all of us. The world we live in is very complex and very fast developing, there is the Internet, social networks, letters, chats and a huge number of different other distractions. Therefore, the level of procrastination is growing rapidly, and the ability to control it is most important in order to achieve success in your personal life.
Under the cut, Peter Ludwig's story at the Aletheia Business 2017 conference on how to put an end to procrastination using three simple tools. As soon as you introduce them into your life, you will immediately notice the difference. You will be more productive, feel happier and you will have more energy .
About the speaker: Peter Ludwig has been working on the study of procrastination all his life, and for the last 10 years he has been actively looking for methods to combat it. He wrote a book about this, which became a bestseller in 4 countries, translated into 7 languages and is in great demand. Which once again confirms how often people encounter procrastination.
Let's look at another example of procrastination. Suppose you have a task that you need to complete, there are classes that you like and that you want to do, and what you really do.
You know that there are certain tasks that will change the world for the better, help you become a better person, but ... You are watching the next episode of “Game of Thrones”, watering plants in the office or, for example, putting off the alarm clock.
If you do not wake up from the first ring of the alarm clock, this is also one of the formats of procrastination.
Let's start by not putting off the fight against procrastination!
Albert Einstein once said:
What do you think, when procrastination began in the history of mankind? This happened much earlier than a few thousand years ago. The philosopher Seneca once said:
As I said, we live in a unique time. I have some graphs that I would like to show you.
In the graph above, you see life expectancy over the past 10,000 years. Almost all this time, the average life expectancy was 25 years, but over the past hundred years, it has doubled. The reason for this growth lies mainly in the fact that mortality among children has decreased, and vaccines have been found against the most dangerous and powerful viruses.
Below is another interesting chart that shows what are the chances that you will be killed.
It shows that we live in the most peaceful time in history . There are fewer wars on Earth than ever, and the chance of being killed is minimal. If you lived 100, 200, 300 or even 400 years ago, it would be 10 times higher.
The growth of the development of science and technology in our time is happening exponentially. This is very noticeable on mobile phones, which are now more powerful than the coolest computer 20 years ago.
Let's take a look at how technology has changed over the past 100 years.
In 1903, we made our first flight.
Just 60 years later, we landed on the moon.
A few years ago we sent our first rover to Mars.
And, as you know, Elon Musk says that in 5-10 years he wants to send living people there.
Studies show that over the past 100 years, the level of success in technology development exceeds all that we have achieved in our entire history. We are very lucky!
But do you think that in our time people have become happier than 100 years ago?
Studies show that in fact, people are less and less happy . There are reasons for this. One of them is the complexity of our world.
As I said, complexity is one of the most important friends of procrastination .
This is the most terrible illustration of procrastination called Paralysis of Choice - the more choices, the harder it is to choose. We are experiencing this kind of paralysis in our daily lives: how to start writing, what job to go to, what kind of girl to meet, etc.
Therefore, if you find a solution to this problem, you can get rid of procrastination. What is the key to fighting procrastination?
I found one phrase that describes the key to defeating procrastination:
There are people who want to start everything: a new life, running in the morning, their own business, but do not start. There are people who do a lot, but do not see the point. I deal with psychology, and in one of our studies we realized that the cause of depression in people is the lack of meaning . We call it corporate depression.
This is a formula for happiness. She needs only two main ingredients:
Now there is a lot of good research about happiness. Most of them show that the key to happiness does not lie in the realm of material things . It consists in living “to the fullest”: to fill every day with meaning and move towards your vision.
Further we will delve into the study of both ingredients - vision and action.
If you decide to formulate your own vision, first you need to understand the value of your time. We all have one thing in common: we are born at one moment, and we all die. The gap between these points is our time, which we are free to dispose of.
One of the most important issues in our life is how to manage this time in our personal lives or in our own business. If you can formulate your personal vision, then you will be more motivated, you will have a more adequate relationship, you will be healthier and your life expectancy will increase by 5-10 years.
Sometimes we change our view of the world and the value of our own lives if we become very sick or we have many other problems. I had such a situation. 12 years ago I had severe health problems, I thought I would die.
I played basketball and during the match my right hand began to shake. A few hours later, the right side of my body was completely paralyzed. None of the doctors could make a diagnosis. According to statistics, in similar situations, some people die, but another survives. I was very lucky - I survived, and without any consequences. But I experienced terrible moments when I was dying.
This greatly changed my life, including a look at values, and helped make important decisions. I opened my own business and changed my field of activity (I graduated from the magistracy in IT). Later I wrote a book about how to start to value your time and how to spend less time on meaningless things, because procrastination is the exact opposite of a full life .
Therefore, the most important thing I want to say is never forget the value of time !
The second is finding motivation.
There are hundreds of studies studying procrastination and motivation. Most of them show that the carrot and stick method, that is, external motivation, does not work.
Why does not it work? Because it gives a very short-term effect and people feel unhappy with a whip. If you need to do something, but you do not want to do this, you will not be happy.
The level of dopamine (the hormone of happiness in the head) drops. Which in turn affects not only the level of happiness, but also creativity, productivity, sociability - in general, brain performance decreases.
External motivation worked in due time, for example, when slavery existed. It works when physical labor predominates. But I believe that most of us require our intelligence in order to complete tasks. Therefore, we need to find a mechanism to turn external motivation into internal.
I used to think that there are two key points in life:
Most of us do not reach the second stage. Therefore, the meaning of our life is to find, formulate a personal vision and move towards it, because on the way to personal vision we will be happy.
In psychology, there is a term for this - the state of the flow , that is, when we are so focused on any business that we do not think about any external elements. Time stops for us, we are in a stream, we are concentrated, we enjoy the action.
The state of the flow is the exact opposite of procrastination, because in it we are maximally productive , efficient, use our creativity - we are happy!
There is one study that studies the best people in their field - the best athletes, the best doctors, the best businessmen, writers and artists. They all have one thing in common - this is the state of the flow.
How to find and improve the personal state of the stream? How to find happiness in every moment of life?
You need to change the perception of one model in your head. Usually people think that results lead us to satisfaction. But studies show that the opposite is true: if we are happy with what we are doing, then only then will we achieve results .
Albert Schweizer's words describe the results of these studies:
I want to highlight all these 3 ingredients.
This is Sir Nicholas Winton, who during the Second World War saved 640 Jewish children from the Nazis. He organized the trains on which he sent these children to safe England. Sir Nicholas Winton died at the age of 106. It symbolizes what we call Ego 2.0 .
What are Ego 1.0 and Ego 2.0?
Ego 1.0 is all that we do for ourselves when we concentrate on ourselves. But we are not always selfish. Sometimes we do things for others, such as Sir Winton. We call it Ego 2.0 in the style of Mother Teresa.
One very good study shows that one part of the brain physically works and increases when we perform actions related to Ego 2.0.
Extremely selfish people live a worse life, their average life expectancy is shortened and problems arise in their personal lives. On the contrary, people who live in the concept of Ego 2.0 and give to this world live longer, happier and their life is more successful, they have the strongest motivation for action.
There is one Japanese word that I would like to tell you about - Ikigai .
In Japan, there are several regions in which the average life expectancy is 100 years. This is 20-50 years more than we live. The secret to their longevity is what is called ikigai.
Ikigai consists of 4 elements:
All this together forms the Ikigai, if you find it in your life, then you will live 20 or even 50 years longer , you will be happy and you will find inner motivation.
The first tool I wanted to talk about was to write and formulate a personal vision. For example, next Sunday take a pen and a piece of paper and try to formulate your personal vision:
If you write all this and then re-read it regularly, you can find the motivation in yourself because you will see the meaning of your actions.
In the book I have several tools that will allow you to most easily formulate your personal vision. But a very important point - no need to procrastinate in writing a personal vision!
In this part, we’ll talk about how to:
All this fits into one word - self-regulation - the ability to give oneself tasks and the ability to obey. We humans are doing very poorly. Every day we command ourselves to do something, but we never obey ourselves.
Sometimes you want to start running, and you charge yourself: “That's it, I'll run now!” But you just sit still. Or we try to keep a diet, but at the same time we eat cupcakes. We hold back all day, but after 18:00 we open the refrigerator.
Why is it so difficult for us to maintain self-regulation? The answer lies in understanding the structure of our brain.
The human brain is divided into 3 main parts:
In the traditional system, it is believed that a person is rational. But this is not true.
Studies show that the number of connection channels between the rational and emotional brain is 10 times less than the number of return channels between the emotional and rational brain.
In reality, our emotions dictate our actions , but using a rational brain, we can deceive ourselves and pass off such ideas as rational. We are not rational. In 2002, Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize for this study.
There are just a few people who do not procrastinate. Who do you think this is? Psychopaths! Because the psychopath has a disturbed emotional part of the brain. But these people make up only 1% of the population. The rest have an emotional brain, and we just need to find the answer to the question of how to combine the work of the emotional and rational brain.
I have one very simple explanation. This is a metaphor for the elephant and rider. Imagine that there is a wild elephant and a rider who wants to ride on it somewhere. The elephant symbolizes our emotions: he is older, bigger, but lives only here and now. Therefore, it is precisely the elephant who wants to order another beer or watch the next season of Game of Thrones.
The rider symbolizes our rational thinking. He is weak, but smart: he thinks about the future, makes plans, builds strategies. He wants to be healthy, wants to play sports and other useful things.
The rider needs to understand how to work with his elephant in order to get to the desired point.
Self-regulation is the skill of managing a personal elephant.
The largest study of procrastination suggests that its cause is a lack of self-regulation. The main point is to understand that an elephant lives in each of us and learn to control it.
The elephant control skill lies in our willpower. For clarity, imagine that your willpower is placed in a glass. If you want to do something useful for yourself, the level of your willpower in the vessel decreases. When we are tired, we have run out of strength, the level of our willpower is at zero, our elephant begins to stir up.
Our bad habits rise outside, because we don’t have the strength to refuse another muffin, a glass of beer, etc. Procrastination works to its fullest when we get tired and we have no willpower.
In this regard, I have two good news.
1. Studies show that you can restore willpower during the day.
You can combine: work an hour, go for a walk, work another hour, eat a few fruits. As your willpower grows, you will be more productive and able to perform more tasks.
I have one story to illustrate. The forester walked through the forest and saw a lumberjack chopping a tree with a blunt ax. He went up and asked:
Therefore, the key to the result of productivity is rest during the day. Do not regret that you are resting.
2. The second good news is that willpower can be pumped.
Many studies prove that willpower can be pumped like muscle. If you, for example, do push-ups 20 times a day, your muscles will grow. If you are doing an MRI at the same time, you will see that not only your muscles are growing, but also the physical frontal part of your brain, which is responsible for willpower.
Even if you are a very cool procrastinator, then working on yourself, you can increase your willpower. Procrastination is not inherent in our genes , nor willpower.
There is one study that studied identical twins in two different families. One grew up very happy and strong, with powerful willpower. The other was much worse.
Only 15-20% of our abilities are in the genes, the rest depends on us.
If you can articulate your personal vision, it is very important that both the elephant and the rider move towards it.
If you are in a state of flux, your elephant and rider both enjoy the path to personal vision at the same time. The main point is to have 80% of your time in a state of flow .
But there are barriers to an ideal life. There are things that we want to do, but our elephant does not like them. For example, one of our personal visions is a healthy lifestyle. But for this you need to leave the house and run. The elephant does not like to run! Or, for example, one of our personal visions is the creation of a strong family. This means that you need to approach a representative of the opposite sex. But the elephant does not like the opposite sex.
The problem is that our rider - the rational brain - understands what he wants and knows about how to achieve this, but our elephant - the emotional part - most often does not want this.
How to deal with it? How to solve this problem? Question for a million!
Do not scare the elephant!
There is always a small action that the elephant will not be afraid of. The key to success - start small .
I mean this. For example, you want to start running right tomorrow. If you cheat yourself and think: “Tomorrow I will have to run 5-10 km”, most likely you will frighten off the elephant. You just do not run, you are procrastinating.
But imagine that tomorrow you need to run at least until the next entrance, or just go outside in a sports uniform - this is the minimum barrier to entry. Always start with the smallest, and then repeat this regularly.
If you repeat the minimum step 20-30 times, sometimes 10 is enough, you will develop a habit. These kinds of habits will help you strengthen your willpower. After that, you can increase your minimum and gradually raise it further.
This is shown in the graph.
Always start small and don't scare your elephant at the beginning. Once you manage to form a habit, increase the number. This kind of practice is pleasant to implement, because we do not need to scare our elephant with ideas about something unreal, about large-scale changes right tomorrow. We just need to step by step, gradually move and increase the minimum volume of changes.
In English, there is the term Micro habits (mini habits). Remember that few are many.
Another Japanese word that I really like is kaizen . Perhaps it is familiar to you. Japanese samurai have always practiced action in small stages . Even if you want to get to the very peak of the mountain, you always need to start with individual steps up the stairs.
You need to understand only 2 simple Japanese words - Ikigai and Kaizen. I have a practical tool for this.
In English, this tool is called a list of habits (or self-abuses). In Russian, the “list-drill” is more suitable. It looks very simple - a table for 1 month in which you write down the skills that you would like to receive, and the minimum that will not scare your emotional part. Every day you have to mark what has been done and what hasn’t.
This method is very simple. If you have any difficulties in it, you can immediately see if you procrastinate or not, because you just have an empty list.
Da Vinci once said:
I’ll give you another study in which several sellers were taken and forced to run (voluntarily). The results showed that their sales began to grow. This proves that we have one willpower, and we can spend it on everything .
Below is an example table of one of my clients.
Every day we indicate the minimum steps to action. It takes only 2-3 minutes a day. For example, get up before half-past seven, run at least 100 m, restrain yourself and do not drink wine.
In this example, on the first day of the month, the person filling out the table woke up at 7 in the morning, ran as much as 150 m and did not drink a drop of alcohol. But, apparently, on the third day he passed a little and drank. The next day, his personal condition worsened - he did not fulfill the limits that he set for himself: he woke up at almost 10 o’clock, and did not run a meter. But he was able to recover - he woke up on time the next day, resumed running, drank quite a bit.
I think it’s now clear how this table works.
It is very simple, but greatly increases our chances of introducing new good habits into life. It is important that the habits you write to the table are related to your personal vision.
For example, if I want to learn how to play the piano and use this table to increase my results, but the piano has nothing to do with my personal vision, the whole table will be red.
But if you fill out this table with skills and habits that will help you achieve your personal vision , then you will enjoy the fulfillment, progress , and even the process of filling out the table itself. You will just feel much more energetic and happier.
The last practical tool. I remind you:
You can start to do it right now!
Why heroism? Usually, hearing this word, we imagine something unreal: such a powerful and disinterested act that does not fit in our minds - for example, someone prevented a terrorist attack.
At the same time, small actions, for which we need to overcome something a little bit, can also be called heroism, just small. Waking up from the first alarm clock is a " small act of heroism ."
I learned this method from the person in the photo below. This is Professor Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University - the most famous psychologist who has ever lived. He conducted the most interesting socio-psychological experiment, called the “Stanford Prison Experiment”
Zimbardo tested a group of volunteers - ordinary people, and chose the most “ordinary” from them. Then he divided them into two groups, one called “Prisoners”, and the second - “Guard”. The "Police" arrived, arrested the "Prisoners" and put them in a "prison", where the "Guards" were already waiting for them.
What do you think happened?
Horrible things - people who played the role of guards began to come up with such harsh punishments that a few days later the study had to be stopped. After that, the psychologist spent 40 years to answer and understand where such aggression comes from.
Few know that Zimbardo also studied the issue of heroism. The answer to the question why
in an emergency some people stop and try to do something is very interesting, because the causes of aggression and the causes of heroism are very similar.
Now I will explain why this is so. I met Zimbardo three times in my life. The first time 5 years ago, before I wrote my book. I was interested in what was his secret, how he fights procrastination. In one of his books, Zimbardo wrote the following phrase:
I think this is very important and I asked him if he knew a way to get himself to do something. Instead of answering me with words, Zimbardo did something unusual - he took a black marker and painted a large bold dot on his forehead. I thought that maybe he is already beginning senility.
Then he explained what was the meaning of his action. For me, this is one of the wisest thoughts that I would like to share with you.
Zimbardo said that if you go out in public with such a thick spot on your forehead, for example, in a shopping center or in public transport, you will begin to get used to the fact that people look at you differently. You begin to acquire the ability to overcome going beyond social comfort .
We humans have 2 comfort zones:
But outside the comfort zone there is a zone of discomfort when, for example, we wake up, get out of bed and start to do something, or when we stop next to an accident, or when we shout in the crowd when everyone around us is silent.
The most important thought about heroism: the skill to overcome a comfort zone is heroism.
No one is born a hero. We become heroes, overcoming ourselves . Every time you overcome some kind of personal difficulty, the chances that we can overcome the same kind of difficulty in the future increase.
A similar study was conducted with children, they also drew a point on the forehead. A woman was put in the room, pretending to be ill. Children with a dot on their foreheads stopped much more often to help a woman than those whose forehead was not marked with a dot.
Many people incorrectly believe that our happiness lies in our comfort zone, furnished with material values. It is not true.
To be happy, we need to regularly overcome ourselves .
Mahatma Gandhi once said:
There is another quote from Einstein:
Therefore, if you do not want to be ordinary, you do not want your life to be filled with boredom and procrastination, you need to become a hero for yourself. If you act and show heroism, then it will be easier for others to reach out for you , because when the first person stops next to some disaster zone, it will be easier for others to join him.
The most important thing is to be the first in this situation, because if there is no first, then no one will do anything.
There is one story that happened in my hometown near Prague. Once an elderly man sat at the main power station, and he choked on food. He died for 10 minutes, and no one helped him. The cameras showed how many people were passing by. 2 girls generally just sat nearby and continued to chat. Nobody helped him.
Do you think people are so angry because they have not helped a person? Probably not. It's just that their skill of heroism was very poorly developed. They could not take the first step. Most modern studies prove that evil lies in passivity. This is a strong lever of influence on society.
This is Nazi Germany of the 30s. It can be seen that all these people idolize Hitler, but one person who opposes this. Be such a person!
It is very important to follow your personal values.
Samurai have one tool for making decisions. When a samurai has a desire to be a hero in a situation, he applies the rule of 3 heartbeats:
The following quote from Edmund Burke describes this situation well:
For example, I recently walked past a burning urn, found water, and put out the flames. I spent only 3 minutes on it, but there were a lot of people around who just passed by, although the fire was strong enough.
Remember, the heroes - 3, 2, 1 - and act!
From my point of view, heroism is the basis of my work.
Now you know that to achieve personal happiness you need to work in two directions:
You also have three tools for working on them:
If you put it all together, you can defeat your procrastination, your life will be filled with happiness, and you will inspire others. I sincerely believe that if we want to change something in society, we need to start with ourselves, because the only way to influence others is to become better ourselves.
I would like to end with one simple thought:
The problem is that procrastination always makes us feel worse , affects our productivity and our level of happiness.
There is even a study that proves that the life of a procrastinator is shorter than the life of a person who does everything on time, because he procrastinates even visits to doctors.
There is no doubt that procrastination, and especially the fight against it, is a very urgent topic for all of us. The world we live in is very complex and very fast developing, there is the Internet, social networks, letters, chats and a huge number of different other distractions. Therefore, the level of procrastination is growing rapidly, and the ability to control it is most important in order to achieve success in your personal life.
Under the cut, Peter Ludwig's story at the Aletheia Business 2017 conference on how to put an end to procrastination using three simple tools. As soon as you introduce them into your life, you will immediately notice the difference. You will be more productive, feel happier and you will have more energy .
About the speaker: Peter Ludwig has been working on the study of procrastination all his life, and for the last 10 years he has been actively looking for methods to combat it. He wrote a book about this, which became a bestseller in 4 countries, translated into 7 languages and is in great demand. Which once again confirms how often people encounter procrastination.
Let's look at another example of procrastination. Suppose you have a task that you need to complete, there are classes that you like and that you want to do, and what you really do.
You know that there are certain tasks that will change the world for the better, help you become a better person, but ... You are watching the next episode of “Game of Thrones”, watering plants in the office or, for example, putting off the alarm clock.
If you do not wake up from the first ring of the alarm clock, this is also one of the formats of procrastination.
Let's start by not putting off the fight against procrastination!
Albert Einstein once said:
“If you cannot explain it simply, then you yourself do not understand it to the end.”I really like this quote because if you really want to understand something, you need to look for the simplest answer. That is why I use images both here and in my book.
What do you think, when procrastination began in the history of mankind? This happened much earlier than a few thousand years ago. The philosopher Seneca once said:
This simple sentence explains why procrastination is not good: when we procrastinate, we spend our time. From my point of view, time is the most valuable resource in our life. It is impossible to occupy, save or increase. Every minute spent on procrastination is spent forever.
"As long as we put off life, it passes."
Nowadays
As I said, we live in a unique time. I have some graphs that I would like to show you.
In the graph above, you see life expectancy over the past 10,000 years. Almost all this time, the average life expectancy was 25 years, but over the past hundred years, it has doubled. The reason for this growth lies mainly in the fact that mortality among children has decreased, and vaccines have been found against the most dangerous and powerful viruses.
Below is another interesting chart that shows what are the chances that you will be killed.
It shows that we live in the most peaceful time in history . There are fewer wars on Earth than ever, and the chance of being killed is minimal. If you lived 100, 200, 300 or even 400 years ago, it would be 10 times higher.
The growth of the development of science and technology in our time is happening exponentially. This is very noticeable on mobile phones, which are now more powerful than the coolest computer 20 years ago.
Let's take a look at how technology has changed over the past 100 years.
In 1903, we made our first flight.
Just 60 years later, we landed on the moon.
A few years ago we sent our first rover to Mars.
And, as you know, Elon Musk says that in 5-10 years he wants to send living people there.
Studies show that over the past 100 years, the level of success in technology development exceeds all that we have achieved in our entire history. We are very lucky!
But do you think that in our time people have become happier than 100 years ago?
Studies show that in fact, people are less and less happy . There are reasons for this. One of them is the complexity of our world.
As I said, complexity is one of the most important friends of procrastination .
This is the most terrible illustration of procrastination called Paralysis of Choice - the more choices, the harder it is to choose. We are experiencing this kind of paralysis in our daily lives: how to start writing, what job to go to, what kind of girl to meet, etc.
Therefore, if you find a solution to this problem, you can get rid of procrastination. What is the key to fighting procrastination?
I found one phrase that describes the key to defeating procrastination:
A plan without action is a dream.These two simple lines describe the most important problems that we face in the modern world.
Action without intent - a nightmare
Japanese proverb
There are people who want to start everything: a new life, running in the morning, their own business, but do not start. There are people who do a lot, but do not see the point. I deal with psychology, and in one of our studies we realized that the cause of depression in people is the lack of meaning . We call it corporate depression.
This is a formula for happiness. She needs only two main ingredients:
- Your own vision.
- Enough to take action on the path to his vision.
Now there is a lot of good research about happiness. Most of them show that the key to happiness does not lie in the realm of material things . It consists in living “to the fullest”: to fill every day with meaning and move towards your vision.
Further we will delve into the study of both ingredients - vision and action.
Vision
If you decide to formulate your own vision, first you need to understand the value of your time. We all have one thing in common: we are born at one moment, and we all die. The gap between these points is our time, which we are free to dispose of.
One of the most important issues in our life is how to manage this time in our personal lives or in our own business. If you can formulate your personal vision, then you will be more motivated, you will have a more adequate relationship, you will be healthier and your life expectancy will increase by 5-10 years.
The search for the meaning of one’s own life is the strongest motivator.There is one study in which older people were asked what they regret and what lessons they learned from their lives. They all had one thing in common.
“People in their lives do not regret what they did, but regret what they did not.”Therefore, it is very important to find your own meaning in life and move towards it. Even if you have failures and failures on the path to personal vision, you will still feel better. Sometimes in life you have to experience very difficult moments that radically change our outlook on life. For example, if you restrict access to drinking water for at least a week, after a week you will have a completely different assessment of its availability.
Philip Zimbardo
Sometimes we change our view of the world and the value of our own lives if we become very sick or we have many other problems. I had such a situation. 12 years ago I had severe health problems, I thought I would die.
I played basketball and during the match my right hand began to shake. A few hours later, the right side of my body was completely paralyzed. None of the doctors could make a diagnosis. According to statistics, in similar situations, some people die, but another survives. I was very lucky - I survived, and without any consequences. But I experienced terrible moments when I was dying.
This greatly changed my life, including a look at values, and helped make important decisions. I opened my own business and changed my field of activity (I graduated from the magistracy in IT). Later I wrote a book about how to start to value your time and how to spend less time on meaningless things, because procrastination is the exact opposite of a full life .
Therefore, the most important thing I want to say is never forget the value of time !
The second is finding motivation.
Motivation
There are hundreds of studies studying procrastination and motivation. Most of them show that the carrot and stick method, that is, external motivation, does not work.
Why does not it work? Because it gives a very short-term effect and people feel unhappy with a whip. If you need to do something, but you do not want to do this, you will not be happy.
The level of dopamine (the hormone of happiness in the head) drops. Which in turn affects not only the level of happiness, but also creativity, productivity, sociability - in general, brain performance decreases.
External motivation worked in due time, for example, when slavery existed. It works when physical labor predominates. But I believe that most of us require our intelligence in order to complete tasks. Therefore, we need to find a mechanism to turn external motivation into internal.
I used to think that there are two key points in life:
- Birth
- When we realize full responsibility for personal life.
Most of us do not reach the second stage. Therefore, the meaning of our life is to find, formulate a personal vision and move towards it, because on the way to personal vision we will be happy.
In psychology, there is a term for this - the state of the flow , that is, when we are so focused on any business that we do not think about any external elements. Time stops for us, we are in a stream, we are concentrated, we enjoy the action.
The state of the flow is the exact opposite of procrastination, because in it we are maximally productive , efficient, use our creativity - we are happy!
There is one study that studies the best people in their field - the best athletes, the best doctors, the best businessmen, writers and artists. They all have one thing in common - this is the state of the flow.
How to find and improve the personal state of the stream? How to find happiness in every moment of life?
You need to change the perception of one model in your head. Usually people think that results lead us to satisfaction. But studies show that the opposite is true: if we are happy with what we are doing, then only then will we achieve results .
Albert Schweizer's words describe the results of these studies:
Success is not the key to satisfaction. Satisfaction is the key to success. If you love what you do, then you will be successful.There are three main components in order to achieve a flow state:
- Meaning.
- Professionalism.
- Intrinsic motivation.
I want to highlight all these 3 ingredients.
Meaning
This is Sir Nicholas Winton, who during the Second World War saved 640 Jewish children from the Nazis. He organized the trains on which he sent these children to safe England. Sir Nicholas Winton died at the age of 106. It symbolizes what we call Ego 2.0 .
What are Ego 1.0 and Ego 2.0?
Ego 1.0 is all that we do for ourselves when we concentrate on ourselves. But we are not always selfish. Sometimes we do things for others, such as Sir Winton. We call it Ego 2.0 in the style of Mother Teresa.
One very good study shows that one part of the brain physically works and increases when we perform actions related to Ego 2.0.
Extremely selfish people live a worse life, their average life expectancy is shortened and problems arise in their personal lives. On the contrary, people who live in the concept of Ego 2.0 and give to this world live longer, happier and their life is more successful, they have the strongest motivation for action.
There is one Japanese word that I would like to tell you about - Ikigai .
In Japan, there are several regions in which the average life expectancy is 100 years. This is 20-50 years more than we live. The secret to their longevity is what is called ikigai.
Ikigai consists of 4 elements:
- What you are strong at.
- What you like, what you enjoy.
- The element of Ego 2.0, when you give to the world, you do what people need.
- Money, or rather, something that allows you to earn so much that you do not think about it.
All this together forms the Ikigai, if you find it in your life, then you will live 20 or even 50 years longer , you will be happy and you will find inner motivation.
Personally vision
The first tool I wanted to talk about was to write and formulate a personal vision. For example, next Sunday take a pen and a piece of paper and try to formulate your personal vision:
- Write out your values.
- Try to answer the question of what you are strong at.
- Think about how you can be useful to society, how you can give to this world.
If you write all this and then re-read it regularly, you can find the motivation in yourself because you will see the meaning of your actions.
In the book I have several tools that will allow you to most easily formulate your personal vision. But a very important point - no need to procrastinate in writing a personal vision!
Once a client came to me and said:Allocate some time for this one weekend. Do not worry - this document should not look perfect. You can start with the beta, write a few sentences, but you need to start.
- Take my money and write my personal vision.
- I can not do it. This is the only thing you have to do personally yourself.
Act
In this part, we’ll talk about how to:
- be more productive;
- manage personal time;
- prioritize.
All this fits into one word - self-regulation - the ability to give oneself tasks and the ability to obey. We humans are doing very poorly. Every day we command ourselves to do something, but we never obey ourselves.
Sometimes you want to start running, and you charge yourself: “That's it, I'll run now!” But you just sit still. Or we try to keep a diet, but at the same time we eat cupcakes. We hold back all day, but after 18:00 we open the refrigerator.
Why is it so difficult for us to maintain self-regulation? The answer lies in understanding the structure of our brain.
The human brain is divided into 3 main parts:
- Самая древняя часть — это мозг рептилии. Эту часть мозга никак невозможно контролировать силой воли. Никто из нас не сможет закончить жизнь самоубийством, задержав дыхание.
- Следующая часть мозга — это лимбическая система, отвечающая за наши эмоции.
- Последняя часть мозга — неокортекс — очень молода по сравнению с остальными, ей всего лишь несколько сотен тысяч лет. Эта часть мозга отвечает за наши рациональные действия, за принятие решения. В ней главное наше отличие от животных.
In the traditional system, it is believed that a person is rational. But this is not true.
Studies show that the number of connection channels between the rational and emotional brain is 10 times less than the number of return channels between the emotional and rational brain.
In reality, our emotions dictate our actions , but using a rational brain, we can deceive ourselves and pass off such ideas as rational. We are not rational. In 2002, Daniel Kahneman received the Nobel Prize for this study.
There are just a few people who do not procrastinate. Who do you think this is? Psychopaths! Because the psychopath has a disturbed emotional part of the brain. But these people make up only 1% of the population. The rest have an emotional brain, and we just need to find the answer to the question of how to combine the work of the emotional and rational brain.
I have one very simple explanation. This is a metaphor for the elephant and rider. Imagine that there is a wild elephant and a rider who wants to ride on it somewhere. The elephant symbolizes our emotions: he is older, bigger, but lives only here and now. Therefore, it is precisely the elephant who wants to order another beer or watch the next season of Game of Thrones.
The rider symbolizes our rational thinking. He is weak, but smart: he thinks about the future, makes plans, builds strategies. He wants to be healthy, wants to play sports and other useful things.
The rider needs to understand how to work with his elephant in order to get to the desired point.
Self-regulation is the skill of managing a personal elephant.
The largest study of procrastination suggests that its cause is a lack of self-regulation. The main point is to understand that an elephant lives in each of us and learn to control it.
The elephant control skill lies in our willpower. For clarity, imagine that your willpower is placed in a glass. If you want to do something useful for yourself, the level of your willpower in the vessel decreases. When we are tired, we have run out of strength, the level of our willpower is at zero, our elephant begins to stir up.
Our bad habits rise outside, because we don’t have the strength to refuse another muffin, a glass of beer, etc. Procrastination works to its fullest when we get tired and we have no willpower.
In this regard, I have two good news.
1. Studies show that you can restore willpower during the day.
- 5-10 minutes of walking can increase the level of willpower. For example, work an hour, go for a walk, and work another hour.
- Sugar in fruits and vegetables affects the increase in willpower.
You can combine: work an hour, go for a walk, work another hour, eat a few fruits. As your willpower grows, you will be more productive and able to perform more tasks.
I have one story to illustrate. The forester walked through the forest and saw a lumberjack chopping a tree with a blunt ax. He went up and asked:
“Why are you chopping a tree with an unsaturated ax?”This situation occurs in the lives of many of us. These are workaholic people who work 12 hours a day with a blunt ax. Therefore, remember that if you stop, relax a bit , think and sharpen your ax, that is, take a walk or eat fruit, then our productivity level will increase . We can cut a tree much faster.
- Leave me alone! I don’t have time! I'm chopping a tree!
Therefore, the key to the result of productivity is rest during the day. Do not regret that you are resting.
2. The second good news is that willpower can be pumped.
Many studies prove that willpower can be pumped like muscle. If you, for example, do push-ups 20 times a day, your muscles will grow. If you are doing an MRI at the same time, you will see that not only your muscles are growing, but also the physical frontal part of your brain, which is responsible for willpower.
Even if you are a very cool procrastinator, then working on yourself, you can increase your willpower. Procrastination is not inherent in our genes , nor willpower.
There is one study that studied identical twins in two different families. One grew up very happy and strong, with powerful willpower. The other was much worse.
Only 15-20% of our abilities are in the genes, the rest depends on us.
How to build up willpower?
If you can articulate your personal vision, it is very important that both the elephant and the rider move towards it.
If you are in a state of flux, your elephant and rider both enjoy the path to personal vision at the same time. The main point is to have 80% of your time in a state of flow .
But there are barriers to an ideal life. There are things that we want to do, but our elephant does not like them. For example, one of our personal visions is a healthy lifestyle. But for this you need to leave the house and run. The elephant does not like to run! Or, for example, one of our personal visions is the creation of a strong family. This means that you need to approach a representative of the opposite sex. But the elephant does not like the opposite sex.
The problem is that our rider - the rational brain - understands what he wants and knows about how to achieve this, but our elephant - the emotional part - most often does not want this.
How to deal with it? How to solve this problem? Question for a million!
Do not scare the elephant!
There is always a small action that the elephant will not be afraid of. The key to success - start small .
I mean this. For example, you want to start running right tomorrow. If you cheat yourself and think: “Tomorrow I will have to run 5-10 km”, most likely you will frighten off the elephant. You just do not run, you are procrastinating.
But imagine that tomorrow you need to run at least until the next entrance, or just go outside in a sports uniform - this is the minimum barrier to entry. Always start with the smallest, and then repeat this regularly.
If you repeat the minimum step 20-30 times, sometimes 10 is enough, you will develop a habit. These kinds of habits will help you strengthen your willpower. After that, you can increase your minimum and gradually raise it further.
This is shown in the graph.
Always start small and don't scare your elephant at the beginning. Once you manage to form a habit, increase the number. This kind of practice is pleasant to implement, because we do not need to scare our elephant with ideas about something unreal, about large-scale changes right tomorrow. We just need to step by step, gradually move and increase the minimum volume of changes.
In English, there is the term Micro habits (mini habits). Remember that few are many.
Kaizen
Another Japanese word that I really like is kaizen . Perhaps it is familiar to you. Japanese samurai have always practiced action in small stages . Even if you want to get to the very peak of the mountain, you always need to start with individual steps up the stairs.
You need to understand only 2 simple Japanese words - Ikigai and Kaizen. I have a practical tool for this.
Drill list
In English, this tool is called a list of habits (or self-abuses). In Russian, the “list-drill” is more suitable. It looks very simple - a table for 1 month in which you write down the skills that you would like to receive, and the minimum that will not scare your emotional part. Every day you have to mark what has been done and what hasn’t.
This method is very simple. If you have any difficulties in it, you can immediately see if you procrastinate or not, because you just have an empty list.
Da Vinci once said:
“Simplicity is the perfect solution.”This drill list allows us to develop certain skills and increase our own willpower. But the fact is that with an increase in willpower within the framework of these skills, it will increase regardless of what you want to use it in.
I’ll give you another study in which several sellers were taken and forced to run (voluntarily). The results showed that their sales began to grow. This proves that we have one willpower, and we can spend it on everything .
Below is an example table of one of my clients.
- The first skill is the skill of filling the drill table itself. If you procrastinate it, then it obviously will not help you.
- The following habit includes all aspects of sleep: how many hours you sleep, what time you wake up and what time you go to bed.
- Дальше любой вид спорта: йога, бег, спортивная гимнастика и пр.
- Также этот список может вам помочь избавиться от вредных привычек, например, курения, употребления алкоголя.
- Последняя колонка содержит оценку вашего дня, где 1 — не хочу, чтобы этот день повторился, 10 — хочу так жить каждый день. Вы отмечаете уровень своего счастья — насколько вам понравился этот день.
Every day we indicate the minimum steps to action. It takes only 2-3 minutes a day. For example, get up before half-past seven, run at least 100 m, restrain yourself and do not drink wine.
In this example, on the first day of the month, the person filling out the table woke up at 7 in the morning, ran as much as 150 m and did not drink a drop of alcohol. But, apparently, on the third day he passed a little and drank. The next day, his personal condition worsened - he did not fulfill the limits that he set for himself: he woke up at almost 10 o’clock, and did not run a meter. But he was able to recover - he woke up on time the next day, resumed running, drank quite a bit.
I think it’s now clear how this table works.
It is very simple, but greatly increases our chances of introducing new good habits into life. It is important that the habits you write to the table are related to your personal vision.
For example, if I want to learn how to play the piano and use this table to increase my results, but the piano has nothing to do with my personal vision, the whole table will be red.
But if you fill out this table with skills and habits that will help you achieve your personal vision , then you will enjoy the fulfillment, progress , and even the process of filling out the table itself. You will just feel much more energetic and happier.
Heroism
The last practical tool. I remind you:
- The first tool is a leaflet with a statement of personal vision;
- The second tool is a list of habits (list-drill)
- The last instrument is heroism.
You can start to do it right now!
Why heroism? Usually, hearing this word, we imagine something unreal: such a powerful and disinterested act that does not fit in our minds - for example, someone prevented a terrorist attack.
At the same time, small actions, for which we need to overcome something a little bit, can also be called heroism, just small. Waking up from the first alarm clock is a " small act of heroism ."
How to be a hero every day?
I learned this method from the person in the photo below. This is Professor Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University - the most famous psychologist who has ever lived. He conducted the most interesting socio-psychological experiment, called the “Stanford Prison Experiment”
Zimbardo tested a group of volunteers - ordinary people, and chose the most “ordinary” from them. Then he divided them into two groups, one called “Prisoners”, and the second - “Guard”. The "Police" arrived, arrested the "Prisoners" and put them in a "prison", where the "Guards" were already waiting for them.
What do you think happened?
Horrible things - people who played the role of guards began to come up with such harsh punishments that a few days later the study had to be stopped. After that, the psychologist spent 40 years to answer and understand where such aggression comes from.
Few know that Zimbardo also studied the issue of heroism. The answer to the question why
in an emergency some people stop and try to do something is very interesting, because the causes of aggression and the causes of heroism are very similar.
Now I will explain why this is so. I met Zimbardo three times in my life. The first time 5 years ago, before I wrote my book. I was interested in what was his secret, how he fights procrastination. In one of his books, Zimbardo wrote the following phrase:
I think this is very important and I asked him if he knew a way to get himself to do something. Instead of answering me with words, Zimbardo did something unusual - he took a black marker and painted a large bold dot on his forehead. I thought that maybe he is already beginning senility.
Then he explained what was the meaning of his action. For me, this is one of the wisest thoughts that I would like to share with you.
Zimbardo said that if you go out in public with such a thick spot on your forehead, for example, in a shopping center or in public transport, you will begin to get used to the fact that people look at you differently. You begin to acquire the ability to overcome going beyond social comfort .
We humans have 2 comfort zones:
- At the physical level. Imagine a warm bath in the morning or when you are alone in your own.
- Social comfort zone. This means that we are part of society.
But outside the comfort zone there is a zone of discomfort when, for example, we wake up, get out of bed and start to do something, or when we stop next to an accident, or when we shout in the crowd when everyone around us is silent.
The most important thought about heroism: the skill to overcome a comfort zone is heroism.
No one is born a hero. We become heroes, overcoming ourselves . Every time you overcome some kind of personal difficulty, the chances that we can overcome the same kind of difficulty in the future increase.
A similar study was conducted with children, they also drew a point on the forehead. A woman was put in the room, pretending to be ill. Children with a dot on their foreheads stopped much more often to help a woman than those whose forehead was not marked with a dot.
To be a hero is to act. The hero is acting.An interesting note: the path to happiness lies outside our comfort zone.
Many people incorrectly believe that our happiness lies in our comfort zone, furnished with material values. It is not true.
To be happy, we need to regularly overcome ourselves .
Mahatma Gandhi once said:
To do what we are most afraid of is the first step to success.To be a hero for yourself means to overcome your own fears, to leave your own comfort zone.
There is another quote from Einstein:
Therefore, if you do not want to be ordinary, you do not want your life to be filled with boredom and procrastination, you need to become a hero for yourself. If you act and show heroism, then it will be easier for others to reach out for you , because when the first person stops next to some disaster zone, it will be easier for others to join him.
The most important thing is to be the first in this situation, because if there is no first, then no one will do anything.
There is one story that happened in my hometown near Prague. Once an elderly man sat at the main power station, and he choked on food. He died for 10 minutes, and no one helped him. The cameras showed how many people were passing by. 2 girls generally just sat nearby and continued to chat. Nobody helped him.
Do you think people are so angry because they have not helped a person? Probably not. It's just that their skill of heroism was very poorly developed. They could not take the first step. Most modern studies prove that evil lies in passivity. This is a strong lever of influence on society.
This is Nazi Germany of the 30s. It can be seen that all these people idolize Hitler, but one person who opposes this. Be such a person!
It is very important to follow your personal values.
Samurai have one tool for making decisions. When a samurai has a desire to be a hero in a situation, he applies the rule of 3 heartbeats:
Act for 3 seconds.If you are driving past an accident, make a decision within the first seconds: 3, 2, 1 - and act immediately. It is very important to act in these 3 seconds, because after your brain begins to invent excuses for itself.
The following quote from Edmund Burke describes this situation well:
To defeat evil, it is enough that good people do nothing.It seems to me that this quote is true, because it is important to have personal values, but it is equally important to follow them. Sometimes it's just a little simple little step.
For example, I recently walked past a burning urn, found water, and put out the flames. I spent only 3 minutes on it, but there were a lot of people around who just passed by, although the fire was strong enough.
Remember, the heroes - 3, 2, 1 - and act!
- Perhaps you will have a chance to save someone's life.
- Perhaps you can change society for the better.
- Perhaps you will be able to start a business that will change the world.
From my point of view, heroism is the basis of my work.
Conclusion
Now you know that to achieve personal happiness you need to work in two directions:
- Vision.
- Act.
You also have three tools for working on them:
If you put it all together, you can defeat your procrastination, your life will be filled with happiness, and you will inspire others. I sincerely believe that if we want to change something in society, we need to start with ourselves, because the only way to influence others is to become better ourselves.
I would like to end with one simple thought:
Do not procrastinate when it comes to combating procrastination.If it seemed interesting to you, write down 1-2 tasks or habits that you are ready to implement in your life tomorrow. I wish you to overcome your fears, formulate your personal vision and be a hero for yourself every day.
Yet they know how useful it is to explain their idea to someone, you better structure your knowledge for yourself, to be well understood, get feedback, see new perspectives and more. We offer to tell, not just to anyone, but to the professional community represented by the participants of RIT ++ and Highload ++. Applications can be submitted in various technical and managerial areas by April 9th . In order to join the circle of speakers Highload ++ Siberia there is a bit more time - until April 30 .