Overcoming Procrastination: A Guide to Breaking the Habit

good evening and welcome to tonight's January jump start you have joined us for overcoming procrastin the

procrastination habit let's get started so my name is Dr Lisa Matic I'm the director of the academic support center

here at AU if you've not been to the academic support center yet I invite you to come

and visit us our office is located on the first floor of the Phillips library in the in the back right side of the

building if you need help finding us please go to the front desk and a student worker will assist you

if you need to make an appointment with a tutor whether it be a writing tutor or a tutor that is specific to the course

that you're taking please go on to OCTA and click on academic support net that is where all the calendars are located

for the different types of tutors that we provide and you can make an appointment there that fits your

schedule okay so let's talk a little bit about overcoming procrastination

so what we're going to do tonight is a few different things first we're going to talk kind of generally about

procrastination and what it is we're going to talk about what we do when we procrastinate what's actually

happening we're then going to get into the why why do we procrastinate we'll then talk about the

procrastination cycle and why it's so hard to break but then we're going to talk about some

more positive things we're going to talk about what works in terms of keeping yourself from procrastinating and then

at the end we'll have some final thoughts and summary of what we've discussed

so no matter what people say procrastination is not about being lazy you will hear people claim that they do

better when they procrastinate and work best under pressure we're going to need to unpack both of

these ideas today one thing I did want to point out before we moved on is that you will see quotes

throughout this presentation I may not stop and read each of the quotes to you but I wanted you to see what some famous

people have said or written about procrastination and how it's affected their own lives you will see Comedians

and famous writers with their thoughts on procrastination so we're going to start off with a little Mark Twain who

said never put off tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well

so let's talk a little bit more about what is happening when we procrastinate so experts Define procrastination as the

voluntary delay of some important task that we intend to do despite knowing that we'll suffer as a result

procrastination is not waiting it's actually more about delaying it is a decision not to act

and more importantly experts tell us that procrastination is really about emotional management

we'll talk a little bit more about that later so let's talk about some examples what

do we do when we procrastinate if you procrastinate then you always have the excuse of not having enough time

in the event that you fail at doing the task because if you say to yourself I didn't

have enough time and it comes out really badly then you've proven yourself correct your sense of your ability to do

things is never really threatened because you didn't think you could do it in the first place

our reasons for delaying and avoiding are rooted in fear and anxiety we're worried about doing poorly actually even

worried about doing well of losing control of looking stupid of having one sense of self or self-concept

challenged we avoid doing work to avoid our ability to be judged

and if we happen to succeed when we're procrastinating we feel that much smarter so for example if you wait until

the last minute to work on a paper and you actually get an A on that paper well then you feel pretty smart don't

you because even though you put it off you still did just fine unfortunately that's a trap we'll have

to talk about that so with procrastination what's really happening is that we're prioritizing our

short-term needs over our long-term needs and this is where emotional regulation

comes into play what we're doing when we procrastinate is actually kicking the can down the

road with the false hope that our future self will be in a better position to deal

with the task so I wanted to kind of get a little personal here and I wanted to talk about

my own procrastination problem with this presentation I've been researching procrastination

and the reasons behind it and this emotional regulation that we're going to talk about since November I was excited

to share this information with you during our January jump start I had bookmarked a bunch of things on my

Chrome browser I had articles highlighted I had notes from books and other resources

handouts created by some of the writing tutors at the academic Support Center all of this work was done and yet I

struggled to put my thoughts down to actually work on the presentation

so because of that I thought to myself maybe I should investigate my own

reasons for procrastinating on this project if the Project's about procrastination perhaps I should think

about why I'm procrastinating what I found was that I chose short easy tasks to accomplish instead of working

on this big task this presentation I could say at the end of the day I did these 10 small things aren't I a good

person I congratulated myself in doing those 10 things and yet I left this big task this

presentation this high stakes task because on Monday I had 430 people and today I have 235 and I had 200 and

something yesterday high stakes right lots of you out there I was putting off tomorrow

I just I was putting off two tomorrow what I could do today what I found was that I would rather

have had that sense of accomplishment from those 10 smaller tasks that I did instead of actually tackling this larger

project I was not emotionally ready to fail at this task and so I procrastinated

so putting things off as long as possible is probably familiar to many of us but there's another aspect to

procrastination fear fear of the unknown

of letting someone most likely ourselves down there's a fear of failure

and this fear often comes at night be careful of panic inducing nighttime talk that you do give to yourself

because everything is always more dramatic at night all right so I've come clean now it's

your turn here's a quick poll what I'd like you to do is choose one or

more of these statements that tell me what your avoidance strategies are Tick Tock Runs Out to the be the

beginning winner of this particular poll not surprising I'm also guilty of that oh it's good to see some other cleaners

in the group I'm a cleaner I wish my son was oh sometimes their rooms look like a

Battlefield yeah a lot of this is you know obviously

something portable right we can watch YouTube we can do Tick Tock and Instagram we play video games all that

kind of stuff all on our phone so a lot of this is uh something that we can take with us at

all times oh napping yeah napping's a good one I'm tired I'm gonna take a nap yeah that's a

good or I'm too tired to work on this anybody else have that conversation with yourself

so it seems like Tick Tock is the big winner at 74 uh that's pretty significant but it I can see why right

it's fun it's easy it's fast they don't last very long and we get something of value right most of the

time we're laughing at a tick tock though not all um but we're entertained and that's

definitely a big part of it all right so we can see the results here you can just see overall what everybody

chose so that like I said Tick Tock big one closely follow well not too closely but

followed by napping in YouTube so I think those are both uh great things to kind of to think about here

all right so um what we're going to talk about now really is that

um what these strategies mean what's going on here you know I told you that one of my strategies is to clean and

that's pretty weird right most people are not like I'm gonna clean um but when I have something big to do

that's usually where you will find my house to be the cleanest I may not have cleaned out that particular Closet in 10

years but all of a sudden with this presentation looming that closet is really really clean and I took

several bags full of items to Goodwill so let's talk more about the emotional aspects of procrastination I had

mentioned this earlier but let's talk more about this emotional regulation that's going on

so emotional regulation is how we regulate behavior and impulse control to achieve a task or goal

it's a habit it affects everyone to some extent and it's tied to the difficulty of

managing our emotions surrounding the tasks that we have to complete when we procrastinate we're actually

involving ourselves in something called a short-term mood repair when we have big tasks in front of us a

lot of us go ugh and that's okay totally understandable but because we're kind of sometimes

feeling a little overwhelmed or stressed or a little anxious um

procrastination is a short-term mood repair fixer it comes in and helps us here's some biochemistry for you did you

know that when you do something you enjoy you get a dopamine hit but did you know that when you avoid

doing something and choose to do something else you want to do you are giving yourself that dopamine

hit so for example if you like Tick Tock and a good chunk of us do when you watch

Tick Tock video whether it's funny or sad or just somebody doing something that gives you a little rush

that little rush is that dopamine and your brain says I like this dopamine makes me happy Tick Tock makes me happy

and so when you avoid doing something and choose to do something else that you want to do

like watching a tick tock video you're giving yourself that same dopamine hit procrastination makes us feel good

because of those chemical feelings created by dopamine to overcome procrastination we need to

understand that we what we are doing is really attempting to manage our moods we have to break ourselves of the

procrastination cycle so that we have positive feelings when we don't procrastinate

we've got to get away from those little hits of dopamine so let's talk about the procrastination

cycle as I mentioned it's a tough one and it's hard to break so this procrastination cycle as you can

see here starts with we procrastinate and after we get that short hit of procrastination and we get that dopamine

hit from a tick tock video or the nap or whatever else we choose to do we immediately will then feel guilty

we feel guilty because we know we should be doing something else then if we feel guilty long enough we

begin to panic and this is where that nighttime talk comes in when you talk negatively to yourself

oh my goodness I got to get this done I'm not doing it what's going on then we start to make excuses

well I'll get to it or I have more time tomorrow and then all of a sudden we're procrastinating again

and the cycle continues until we choose to break the cycle procrastinators carry accompanying

feelings of guilt shame or anxiety with their decision to delay this cycle is all about how we are

feeling all right another poll I'm gonna put this with this one up what

do you tell yourself most often to justify procrastination I have more time later

it's not really that big of a deal I do better under pressure boy we say that a lot don't we

I have so much to do this will just have to wait but wait until what

what magical things what moons have to align for us to do that project

how often do we put other people in front of what we need to do if your friend calls up and says they

need me you drop everything and go and I'm not saying you're a bad person for doing that

but recognize that part of that is procrastination as well and then of course

one of the other ones that happens most often it's not uh oh that one's misspelled no

wonder nobody was going to choose that one it's not do yet that's what it should say it's not due yet so I have

plenty of time telling yourself you have time all right so two of the bigger ones just

the ones we mentioned at the beginning right I have more time later My Future Self

well miraculously have more time all right or I do better better under pressure

do you have you ever not done it under pressure how's that gone

remember emotional management here right so as the poll highlighted we tell ourselves a lot of different things

about our progress I'm sorry if you tell ourselves a lot of things to put off doing what we need

what we know needs to be done this is all about our emotions we feed into the procrastination cycle with something

called negative talk negative thinking or negative self-talk we feed into the procrastination cycle

with this negative self-talk but yet look at all the things that happen when we're looped into the cycle

so when you think you just can't do it this negative self-talk is really what causes us anxiety it

erodes our confidence and something that was interesting to me was that it disrupts your creativity

I never thought of it that way and this was something that I learned while I was working on this presentation the idea

that if you tell yourself I'm under a lot of pressure I've got to get this done I it really actually

interferes with your ability to create and sometimes we think about creativity in terms of artwork or music but what we

have to think about creativity is that it's part of everything we do every homework assignment that we turn in

requires us to have some creativity involved writing a paper and how you organize it and how you begin and end

your paper requires creativity so if we think about this procrastination when you think you just can't do it and

you're telling yourself that that negative self-talk is actually going to make it much more

difficult to complete the tasks that you needed to do but one thing that a lot of us don't

understand is that long-term procrastination actually has long-term effects on our body we often if if

you're a procrastinator or what we like to call a chronic procrastinator you do it often you will find that you have

problems sleeping you will find that you may have bouts or increased bouts of depression

again you can have get anxiety or increase the anxiety you already have and the other one is it can play into

giving you a sense of low self-esteem when you procrastinate enough you think I'm just I just can't

or look at me I keep putting it off again that's negative self-talk that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about that

makes you feel bad about who you are so can you see why time management may not be the answer to the procrastination

problem it's not that you aren't making time it's that when you have the time you're

choosing to do something else so I'm not telling you to throw your planners in the garbage or to stop

making to-do lists what I want you to focus in on the fact is that you still need to allot time to get things done

but now we have to have better habits during those times when you're supposed to be working

and we want to keep you or we want to avoid procrastination during those times so time management is different

than procrastination procrastination is all about emotional management how we regulate our emotions but time

management is about how we re-regulate our behavior and our impulse control to achieve a task or goal a time you know a

plan or a time management makes you aware of what you need to get done and the time in which you have to get it

done you can rearrange things time management is about Arrangement right

prioritization figuring out what tasks need to be done first and in what order and time Management's also about

adaptation if something comes up then making a move so that items still have the same amount of time allotted to it

that it would have had the schedule gone perfectly the first time management

in itself is not a habit but the actions that lead up to time management are procrastination is also a habit it's

something that you get into once you figure out that procrastination gives you something emotionally you will tend

to procrastinate more because everybody wants to feel good everybody wants that short-term

happy feeling right so we need to talk about what works we're going to take all that information

about procrastination and what we're actually doing and feeling and we're going to reframe it

so let's talk a little bit first about how we reframe procrastination we know it's a we know it's a habit we know it

has to do with our emotions can we reframe it so that we're getting a different outcome than kicking something

down the road so forgiveness and self-compassion when you start to feel that either that

you're going to procrastination or that you have procrastinated I want you to stop and realize what you're doing

remind yourself that the thoughts that led up to your procrastination are really emotional regulation on your part

forgive yourself for wanting to feel good and for wanting to procrastinate give yourself some Grace

with that Grace comes self-compassion which actually increases your motivation feelings it also increases your feelings

of self-worth and other positive emotions see how we're looking for ways to

regulate our mood without that dopamine hit that we get from putting things off let's talk about this next small step

let's start the tasks that you have to do the assignment whatever task it is that you have to do

start it even if it's the next smallest task the next smallest step ask yourself what is

it what's the first small step that you need to take

we know from the experts that motivation follows action if you take that first small step

you move forward you will naturally continue to move forward it's easier to move forward at

that point you've become motivated so I like taking bigger items bigger tasks and chunking them into smaller

bits and bytes and that's because if they're in smaller pieces then it's easier to see with that next small step

is and all of a sudden you'll find yourself doing two or three in a row without even realizing it because you

have propelled yourself forward so let me give you an example you've got a paper due right

the first next small step I should say the next small step that you have to do is you've got to open a Word document or

a Google doc and put your name on the paper that's it

there you've started your essay next small step you will then realize that that step is

over you'll feel good about that stepping over you'll motivate yourself to start the

next step the Nar the other part I wanted to talk about with reframing procrastination has

to do with removing roadblocks procrastination uh is it's a complicated thing right you need to actually create

Bearer barriers to keep yourself from procrastinating so you want to remove roadblocks

let me give you an example let's say you decided that you're going to start going to the gym in the morning

the problem is and I apologize for the dogs barking if you can hear that somebody rang the doorbell

if you get up in the morning and well you want to go to the gym right how many of us roll out of bed and go ugh I don't

want to get up this early oh now I have to go to the gym I really don't want to do this

so in terms of removing your roadblocks if you want to wake up and go to the gym first thing in the morning sleep in your

gym clothes I know sounds silly but the idea is that you've removed a roadblock because if

the alarm goes off and your feet hit the ground and you're already dressed it's much harder to say to yourself

I'm just gonna go back to bed you're up you're dressed you're dressed already now we just need our shoes and keys and

phone when we're out the door remove roadblocks last part here I want to talk about are

things called Keystone habits Keystone meaning that something that's at a point right

so you want to do things each day to start yourself off in the right mindset I want you to learn to control your

emotions right from the start of your day so one way to do that is to make your

bed in the morning I know you've just groaned and rolled your eyes at me didn't you

but what I'm getting you to do is to do a task first thing in the morning that you can cross off

your list of things to do you cross something off at the beginning of the day it will give you that

dopamine hit we've been talking about that same dopamine hit that you enjoy from procrastinating and going on tick

tock but in this case you're getting a dopamine hit for doing something positive it's a positive activity I

promise you it'll make you more productive for the rest of your day all right what are some other things

that work well I'm going to tell you right now about positive self-talk we've already talked about negative self-talk

where we're concerned about the fact that we say things to ourselves that make it even more difficult to get

started but positive self-talk is going to be a little bit different we're going to talk about how positive self-talk

will help you with your emotional regulation and make you less likely to procrastinate

research says positive self-talk helps reduce stress gives you better relationships and

increases your self-confidence and actually will give you better or New Perspectives when things do go wrong

all right so I chose a sentence here that we're going to break down and talk how we can change this negative sounding

sentence to a more positive sounding sentence that's going to help all right so this sentence may not be exactly what

you're thinking about but I'm sure you've said something similar to yourself so I have to finish this long

important project it should already be done by now and I need to plow through it

so we're going to take these two sentences and kind of break them up a little bit we're going to break them up

into these six sections and we're going to talk about how we can take that language and turn it into something

positive so that at the end you're actually feeling better about the task at hand

and be less likely to procrastinate all right so the first phrase that the sentence says was I have to and instead

of saying I have to do something is that that makes us feel like there's a burden right when you say I have to it's

generally not a happy thing I have to go get ice cream I don't know how many of us say that I'd like to say that more

often but I have to I'd rather start thinking about terms of I choose to or I get to

do you see how choosing and getting are more positive so what you need to do and when you're

thinking about reframing or reframing this particular um

type of talk to yourself think about when you are negatively speaking about a certain topic or task

and when you realize you're you're negatively speaking about it stop and think about what are you actually

saying what emotions are coming with the words that you're saying and then turn it around and say what is

a more positive thought that I can give myself I have to I choose to

so the sentence talked about I have to finish this long important project right I have to finish instead of finish which

is something in the future that we really can't see right it's very vague I'd rather you think about things about

starting what can be done right now focus in on that now focusing on the small step forward because starting is

something that can happen immediately finishing is still kind of down the road and it's a little abstract it's hard to

get excited about a finish you can't see so I mentioned in that in those two sentences that it was a long project

well instead of looking at it as a long project or a big project or a large paper think of it more about being a

short task a series of short tasks that's where that chunking comes in you know if you look at the fact that you

have to write a 10-page paper in class you can't look at the fact that it's a 10-page paper you've got to break that

down somehow because if you say to yourself if you put on a to-do list write essay

well that involves a ton of steps not all of which are very um easy to to identify but if you think

about a long paper in terms of chunking and short tasks you're more likely to start work on them so if you look at

that 10-page paper you say to yourself hey I need to have a title page and I need to have a reference page why don't

I go ahead and at least get those modified all right fine then I have to write an introduction so that should be

on your to-do list I have to write um several body paragraphs that each body paragraph should be on the list

then you have to write a conclusion right and that should be on the list of things to do

and so even when you're looking at that larger paper if you break it into shorter tests you're more likely to get

it done so sometimes that next smallest task is like I said opening the word doc opening

the Google Doc putting your name on the page or creating the title page as soon as you've done that you've started your

essay you see word start looks better you're not finished that's okay but you've

started it and then you'll be able with that time management piece on those planners you have find time to work on

the next short task you want to ignore the larger picture you want to be laser focused on the next

thing that you have to do and that's it don't keep thinking about the whole 10 pages later what's the next

small task you need to do this part gets a little weird and people are a little uncomfortable here and let

me tell you why so we talk about something being a long important project

instead of thinking of things as important or crucial those are words that make us anxious instead I want you

to think about you're going to take that next small step and I don't care if it's messy

I don't care if it's not perfect I don't care if you're gonna have to go back and revise it did you take the step great we

can always go back and fix we don't want to focus on perfectionism because if we do it's going to paralyze

us every sentence in that paper is not going to be perfect the first time you

write it down I have been writing papers for a long time I was an English major in college that's all I did

but I guarantee you the first sent the sentences that I wrote down on those first drafts I changed a lot and often

you have to give yourself permission to be messy I will tell you I have a really good

friend that she struggled with writing and you wouldn't know it if you met her highly successful

um you know got this great job she's got several degrees she's but she cannot write anything down on paper unless it's

perfect each sentence has to be perfect before she writes it down she's had to she's been working on this

one particular article for over five years and I think at this point she's probably

given up and that's because when she went to start she did not give herself permission to

be imperfect every sentence didn't have to be perfect but she was so uncomfortable with

being wrong that she actually froze and she procrastinated because she hoped her future self

would be better and it just hasn't happened writing is supposed to be messy it has a

lot of starts and stops things that you wrote yesterday are going to look terrible tomorrow it's just the way it

is even Stephen King said when you write something throw away 50 of it that's pretty hardcore coming from

Stephen King whose books are huge so when we think closely tied to this is this idea of it should be done by now

how many times have we told ourselves that I should have done this already this was why did I wait so long I want

you to change those words to I'll feel terrific and here's why when you talk about the word should it indicates blame

and guilt when you talk about should it's again about something imaginary

something that should have happened well wait a minute who's to say it should have happened

it didn't should means it's imaginary let's focus in on what we're doing right now

that's reality we got to focus in on that so let's folk and let's turn that should into I'll feel terrific when

with the idea that you're focusing not on how bad you feel right now but on how good you'll feel after you complete that

first small step that's what we want to focus in on this is probably the harder one

um this idea that I need to plow through that I've gotta you know dig in my heels I've gotta you know get in there and do

it uh more importantly like think saying self things to yourself like I've got to work all weekend to get this done what

you're doing is putting a lot of action harsh words into your brain and that's having a

negative reaction if you tell yourself I've got to work all weekend what you're doing is saying

I have to isolate myself to this just one thing and you begin to resent

not only the task but yourself and then the negative self-talk starts again

I should have done this okay should his blame right we got to get out of these so we've got to think

about getting away from plowing right and think about hey plenty of time for play I'm gonna have lots of breaks I'm

gonna give myself some rewards and if I get this task this first thing done I'm gonna watch three Tick Tock videos of my

own choosing then we're good so now we're getting hey we did something and now we're still

getting a reward okay those are the kind of things we think about if you think about little

kids every time they do something moving forward what do they get stickers right how many of us still like stickers I

still like stickers but it's that idea that you reward yourself along the way it doesn't have to be perfect but you

accomplish the task all right last bit that I wanted to talk about is what works what's another thing

that works to help us avoid procrastinations to help us overcome that so do you see how just changing the

way you talk to yourself about tasks can change your emotional response to them

you will not be skipping down the hallways this semester thinking about all the homework you have to accomplish

I guarantee you that but if you see that framing the tasks that you have to do in a more positive light will help you with

your emotional regulation you will feel better and therefore you'll be in a better

position to do what needs to get done it will be less of a burden it'll cause you less anxiety

and so we want to talk about creating good habits to help you with that procrastination is a bad habit let's

talk about good habits all right one last poll Aaron can you put up that last Poll for us

all right that's an easy question yeah tough day this is this is always interesting to me

and while you're doing all this and making your choice there I'm going to tell you my dad was in the army

and so even if I didn't want to make my bed when you live in a military house you don't have a choice and he was one

of those people that came and took the quarter and bounced it off your bed and made sure your sheets were nice and

tight let me tell you they never bounce real well for me I I don't know I can make the bed I just couldn't make it

those super tight corners but I also am not very good at wrapping gifts and I think

it's the same skill just saying all right so most of us so far are in

the know and sometimes category and that's okay I'd be surprised if 95 of you said yep I

get up every morning and make my bed it's okay my husband does not make his bed and we

sleep in the same bed it's very confusing I make my half and he doesn't make his

so if you come into my bedroom it's weird uh but uh

it's just part of that day all right we're up to 81 so I'm going to go ahead and end our poll we're getting close on

time here so overall the majority of people say no they don't make their bed follow closely

by sometimes and that's okay too so you're all doing well so why are we

talking about making our bed oops the key here is that we know we need to work on creating good habits and

making your bed is a great new habit that I'd like you to think about doing for 2023

and we're going to talk more about why these good habits work so I want you to think about

the type of person you want to be it's a new year somebody uh on the radio said it's 23andMe this year which of course

um a lot of people know 23andMe from the DNA testing but I guess they're naming this year 23 and me which I think is

pretty cool so you can begin taking small steps today to reinforce who you want to be by the

end of 2023. for some of you graduation's looming right you want to be a college graduate by the end of this

semester or by the end of December so you can take those small steps to reinforce who you want to be because

every action that you take is a vote or it's a movement towards the type of person you want to become

and so think of it in these terms every time you write a page you are a writer every time you practice

your violin or your clarinet you're a musician and every time you start a workout

I don't care what kind of workout it is every time you start one you are an athlete

so your identity comes from your habits so I want to talk about the four stages of habit formation this is a the largest

last part that we're going to talk about by the way for those of you keeping score at home the procrastination cycle

and the stages of habit formation are really good questions that might come up on a survey I'm just saying so stages of

habit formation um the first one is I'm sorry I should say habits that are

either good or bad are formed they don't just appear so what we're going to do is talk about

these stages and how we can create some new positive habits since we're starting off the year so the

first stage is a cue the queue alerts your attention to a habit and Promises a new reward it triggers your brain to

initiate a behavior your brain is anticipating or predicting that there'll be a reward

once an action is performed and once a habit is formed it's like it's very unlikely

to be forgotten so we want a good cue to tell us that something is happening

okay the next stage of habit formation is this craving so the Q tells us there's going to be a reward craving and

what we do for this stage is we have to make it attractive the cue is the first indication that we're close to a reward

the this starts the craving and I don't mean necessarily like you're craving food but I mean craving meaning that

your brain says huh I really want that reward how are we going to get that and so without motivation or desire we

don't act okay you don't want to turn on the TV per se you want to be entertained the

reward is entertainment the the queue is seeing the television the craving oh I see the television oh I

really do want to catch up on those shows and then you get to this make it easy to

perform I keep the remote in an area where I can see it at all times or or I'm not digging through the couch

looking for it and then the reward is to make it satisfying I want to be entertained

similarly if you think about it this way in the morning you don't want to put on makeup or do your facial routine

that's not the desire the reward is to make yourself feel better to in better your appearance to make you feel more

confident that's the reward but the cue is you're in the morning and you look at the mirror and if you have

all of the things that you need close at hand to do those things you're more apt to do that habit

the key too is that if you connect a habit with something you already enjoy it's easier to put into action

so you can kind of bring them together and call it like a Temptation bundle bring different things together you

could also create a ritual this is another way to create a habit you um so create a ritual can help and make

a difficult task more appealing so you just get into a you know into this habit so for example

brushing your teeth um if you hate brushing your teeth find a toothpaste you like and then all of a

sudden it's a little more attractive right a little craving if you play your favorite

song while you brush your teeth now again that creates a craving you know that at the end you'll have listened the

reward will be clean teeth and you'll have had a little bit of fun okay so

the other part is about ease remember I said it has to be easy to perform you're not going to do it if it isn't easy okay

this is the core of an actual habit it's the thought or action it's the actual habit that you perform okay so it should

be ease of response is the way to look at it so if the action requires more effort then you're willing to expend you

won't do it the other thing though is that you don't want to try too hard uh if you can find

new ways to make the Habit easier to start it's even more helpful so the different ways you can get it to work

that helps we naturally gravitate towards things that are easy and so if you want to start a new habit

make it easier for yourself to do that habit but you've got to be realistic a habit

can only occur if you're actually capable of doing it if you want to dunk a basketball but you aren't tall enough

to reach the hoop you are out of luck and that is not a habit you're going to be able to do so realize that habits

should be of things that you are capable of doing oh and I skipped already I apologize

last one reward so the actual thing at the end that you want the response that you do that ease of response that

response has to deliver a reward remember the cue is about noticing the reward the craving is about wanting the

reward and the reward does two things that satisfies us and it also teaches us

for a moment the reward gives you feelings of contentment and relief from the craving

isn't this weird how our body works this is all biochemistry reward actually teaches our brain too if

you do the action you get the reward anybody remember Pavlov and all of his dogs on the ringing of the Bells and the

food and the drooling really your brain is constantly thinking about your environment

what actions satisfy your desires which ones bring you pleasure your brain gets feedback from all of these actions and

feelings of disappointment and pleasure are stored in your brain and your brain evaluates those actions it wants you to

continue to do things you get an emotional high from and stop doing the things that you get nothing from

so the reason procrastination works is that you are getting some high we know now it's dopamine from avoiding and

that's why it's a difficult habit to break foreign

if you can maximize all four of these steps you can turn it into a habit without a cue the craving and the ease

of response you will not take an action and without all four of these stages you

um without all four of these stages the action is not going to be repeated it won't become a habit

remember we want to form new good habits to replace our bad habit of procrastination

all right here's our last quote for the evening procrastination is like a credit card it's a lot of fun until you get the

bill right constantly put it off not getting a lot

of that there my goal today is that you have a better understanding of why you procrastinate

hopefully during our time together you have found some real steps you can take to reduce your procrastination habits

and remember as you practice not procrastinating and as you practice forming new habits give yourself some

Grace have some self-compassion it's hard all right a little summary here before

so we now know that procrastination means we're putting short-term needs first we want those quick and easy

dopamine hits however we can get them and so we put those things first so things that take longer or long-term

tasks or long-term projects or long-term goals they're harder to get excited about to

get that dopamine flowing we have to work at it so while you're now that you've had this

time with me I want you to reflect on the reasons why you procrastinate think about your habits and the thoughts

that lead you to procrastinate What feelings have led you to procrastinate in the past how does it

make you feel are these positive and productive feelings

or are they negative and you want to change them the other thing too is I want you to

alter your perspective I want you to think about the big tasks in terms of smaller pieces

and it makes it less intimidating I promise you look for what's appealing about or what

you want to get out of the assignment that you're doing and not just thinking about the grade at

the end there's got to be more to it learning is more than just grades

commit to starting new habits if you feel stuck just simply commit to complete a small task any task and write

it down finish it reward yourself write down on your schedule or to-do list only what you can completely commit

to and if you write it down follow through no matter what

this is a habit for you to start writing it down following it through by doing that you'll slowly rebuild trust in

yourself that you will really do what you say you will do which so many procrastinators have lost

focus on what you want to do not what you want to avoid where are your goals here think about the productive reasons

for doing the tasks by setting positive concrete meaningful learning and achievement goals for

yourself this year be realistic avoid I'm sorry achieve achieving goals and changing habits take

time don't sabotage sabotage yourself by having unrealistic expectations that you

can't meet some things are like I said just out of our control so think more practical what

are things that you can do right now that will be helpful and create new positive habits and be

realistic that's what we want you to do moving forward

and don't forget about good positive self-talk notice how you're thinking and talking

to yourself talk to yourself in ways that remind you of your goals and replace those old

counterproductive habits of that negative self-talk instead of saying I wish I hadn't

say I will reframe the conversation with yourself well I want to thank you for joining me

today I know this was a long session I hope you found our time together useful if you have any questions or would like

to hear more about how we can help at the academic support center you're welcome to make an appointment with the

tutor using academic support net on OCTA you're also welcome to email me directly I will be here for a few moments uh to

take a few questions before we sign off please make sure to answer the survey questions that will come in the email on

Friday and don't forget make your bed

thanks so much Aaron let me know if there happen to be anything

um we had one that just asked if there is two papers due at the same time at the end of the semester do you have any

suggestions on how to help with that that's a tough one because I that's pretty true I was an English major and I

pretty much only had papers due at the end of the semester um it's kind of a combination of things

that's going to do a little bit of time management you need to see how long it's going to take you so you need to look at

the length of the paper the amount of research that needs to go into it and you're going to have to block time

further out you need to write papers start working on papers at least two weeks two to three weeks in advance

so if you've got two papers going at the same time you're going to need to start both of them earlier than what you think

and um I always suggest coming into the academic support center you can talk to us and brainstorm on more than one paper

so my suggestion is come in brainstorm figure out what your outlines are going to be for both of those papers and then

depending on which one or what parts might be shorter you want to tackle things first right like we just said

tonight taking that next short step so figuring out that um you may feel like I can't do both

papers simultaneously that's okay maybe one paper is the first week and week two is the second paper so the papers may be

going on at different times you'd be maybe hitting smaller goals within each paper at different times but the idea is

to make sure that one you do block time to get things done that's realistic and reasonable and if you're not sure how to

do that again come see us we can help you kind of strategize how to do that even before the papers are due

and then um for yourself to kind of avoid procrastination is saying what are the

next small steps I can take in each one of these papers to keep propelling me forward because that's the key right

movement forward is what's going to help you continue with your creativity it's going to continue with your motivation

to finish the task so yeah that one really is a kind of a combination of knowing when you have

time and getting things done to reward yourself um another question was any advice for

someone with ADHD that's a really good question actually because uh ADHD is a big part of the

conversation when it comes to procrastination and time management what we do know about ADHD at least what

the research tells us is that people who suffer from ADHD either and and small amounts or in large amounts don't have

that same emotional regulation that um or same biochemistry and so

um procrastination may be the the loop that feedback loop in your brain about what feels good and what not is doesn't

always work the same way so if you have ADHD you have to just kind of be more hyper aware of what you're doing the

rewards to give yourself at the end may have to be more significant you probably will have to

give yourself a lot more rewards than someone who doesn't have as many issues with ADHD and that's because uh as you

know if you have ADHD that it's that inability to kind of focus because what we want to do is much more appealing

than what we're currently doing and so it almost is taking that next small step to the extreme so every time you do some

even minor step in the direction of getting something done you reward yourself the problem is that you may

then also have to kind of back up the amount of time you give yourself because it may take you longer to complete

something that's it Lisa I think we're oh wait um how do I overcome chronic fatigue to

complete assignments my tiredness often interferes with getting through class word hard to focus and think of written

responses okay so that one is going to be a lot harder because you probably also suffer

similarly than ADHD it's almost the other way around right um in that you know sleep and you're

dealing more with a medical thing when you have that kind of chronic tiredness um that's gonna I would

my suggestion uh first is to make sure you're checking in with your health provider that there's not something else

going on because sometimes that could be a chemical thing that you may want to have someone look at and to kind of help

you out the thing that you may want to keep in mind though is your biorhythms when are you more productive during the

day than not um you will find that some people wake up

in the middle of the night and have like an hour where their brain is just kind of on fire and they get a lot of things

done and so when your roommate or your friend is studying and you are exhausted at that time that may not be the optimal

time for you to study so there is some conversation that you need to have with yourself about when do I feel most

productive when do I feel like things can get done throughout the day and trying to plan those small steps to fit

into those times that work best for you but it's always good to find someone um

in terms of if you're writing papers or even writing responses to questions on a Moodle shell or anything like that you

know again The Writing Center is a great place to come and have somebody kind of work through and give you kind of an

idea of like typical outlines of things that you can do and say try to get yourself into that there it's going to

be about making a pattern or a habit of getting through some of those assignments

I think that's it Lisa all right thanks Aaron and thanks to all of you especially those last 63 of you sticking

out here at the end so I appreciate it have a wonderful night and looking forward to classes on Monday thanks