Momentum is the Cure to Procrastination
The Amplified Impact Podcast
July 9th, 2023
Today, we’re tackling a universal struggle: procrastination.
We all battle with it, no matter how focused or motivated we are.
But I’ve got a six-step framework to help you overcome this beast.
Remember, greatness lies on the other side of hard work.
You need to know the rules of the game to win.
And with massive action is also massive failure…so take small, manageable steps to build momentum.
So don’t let procrastination hold you back.
Start kicking it to the curb and get things done.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“We have to stop the inertia. We have to stop the rock from rolling down the hill. We have to get underneath that bad boy and start pushing it back up.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
Yo, what’s up everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. Today want to talk about something that we all struggle with. It’s a battle that is constantly being waged. No matter how focused you are, no matter how disciplined or motivated you are, you are eventually going to butt up against the desire to procrastinate, the desire to put off just a little bit longer that thing that you know you should do so that you can maybe go for a walk or do the dishes, clean up your desk a little bit before you can really zero in and focus on this thing that you have to do. Or maybe you need to go and actually prepare a little bit more. So you got to do a little more reading and research before you’re ready to do the thing. Whatever. There’s so many different ways that procrastination can crop up.
Anthony Vicino [00:00:39]:
And one of the things that I found in the people who are the most successful at getting shit done, they’re really great at recognizing in the moment that they’re procrastinating and then making very subtle shifts of their behavior to get back on track. Because one of the things with procrastination that I found is that the more you procrastinate, the easier it is to continue procrastinating. It’s like the flywheel, the momentum, the inertia just kind of builds upon itself. And interestingly paradoxically, the cure or the fix to procrastination is momentum. If you can get just a little bit of momentum, doesn’t have to be a ton, doesn’t have to be a ton of traction, just taking small steps that kind of compound and build upon themselves. That is the cure to procrastination. So momentum is what we’re seeking. And on the one side, as we start procrastinating, the goal is we have to interrupt that momentum.
Anthony Vicino [00:01:37]:
We have to stop the inertia. We have to stop the rock from rolling down the hill. We have to get underneath that bad boy and start pushing it back up. And once we get that thing rolling, we get it to the top, it’s going to start rolling faster and faster and faster. Okay? So what I want to share with you guys is just a six step framework for thinking through procrastination and how you can overcome it. Because I think if you can do that consistently, it’s about shortening the time between when you recognize that you are procrastinating and then when you finally get back to the task that needs to be tackled. That’s the goal. Shrink those times because you’re never going to eliminate procrastination.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:13]:
It’s just your lazy brain is trying to distract you because it doesn’t want to do the hard thing right. But you are committed to greatness. And so you are going to forge ahead because, you know, on the other side of all things worth having is the hard action required to get there. So the first thing in overcoming procrastination is that you have to become aware that you’re delaying. You have to become aware that you have a problem before you can solve that problem. And the biggest difficulty is that we all have devices on us at all times of the day that are just infinite distraction machines. They are designed to suck you into the void of glitzy pixels and sliding images and cat memes. And these things are intoxicating.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:57]:
And I’m talking about the phone. I’m holding it up. If you guys are watching on YouTube. If you’re not, then you’re probably confused. So it’s about recognizing when we are procrastinating, when we are distracted. And one of the techniques that I use for this is something that leads into step two, which is to reclaim your intention, right, by becoming aware that we are procrastinating. And we go, oh crap, I’ve fallen down this hole. Now I need to reclaim the intention.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:21]:
One of the techniques that I use for recognizing that I am procrastinating is something called the what’s my outcome or intention maintenance question. And so what I did in the beginning this is many, many years ago. I don’t do it anymore because I’ve just kind of ingrained my brain. I’ve gotten really good at observing when I’m not doing the thing that I should be doing. I’m really good at not getting sucked into that anymore. I’m not necessarily great at resisting, but I’m really good at becoming aware that I’m doing it. And the reason for that is at the beginning of my journey of trying to figure this game out and turn my ADHD into superpower, I would program random alarms into my phone throughout the day. That was accompanied with the question, what’s my outcome? And the reason that was so powerful is because the alarms would go off and I never knew when they were going to go off.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:10]:
I might be in the middle of a meeting. I might be walking to lunch, I might be in the middle of a writing session. And they would catch me in all these different situations where those are situations that are ripe for getting distracted or procrastinating. And a lot of times we just go mindlessly through our day without any self reflection. And so that alarm and that question, what’s my outcome? Gave me the opportunity to reflect in real time, what am I doing right now and is it moving me towards my goal? And if not, then why am I doing it right? So it could be if I’m walking to lunch and I’m scrolling on my phone, I could ask myself, what’s my outcome right now? Well, I’m just going to get to lunch and this time of scrolling on the phone, I’m going to have consumed a little bit of social media content. But am I going to have done anything of value during this period of time? Have I really reset my focus? Have I enjoyed the walk itself? Have I been present in the moment? Or did I use the social media that I’m scrolling through with intention. So rather than just consuming other people’s content, am I actually going and engaging and try to build relationship and community? Or am I using this time to ideate about what my next piece of content or my next business idea? Whatever am I using this time? Productively. And so that question, what’s my outcome with those alarms? Is a very, very powerful tool.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:24]:
There’s actually a bunch of apps. There weren’t these apps back when I did this because this was a decade ago. They’re apps now that you can program the random alarms into. So go look those up, put them in there, whatever the question is, for me, it’s what’s my outcome? Because it gives me that start at the end and work your way back and figure out if I keep doing what I’m doing, where does this end? Right? So I find that very, very helpful. Step two then is to reclaim your intention. So once you become aware that you’re distracted or you’re procrastinating, you’ve got to get back on track. And the way that you do that is by reconnecting with the why you should do the thing that you’re putting off. And this is really important because again, the things that are worth achieving in life are always on the other side of hard activities.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:10]:
And those hard activities, the reason that they’re so often difficult is because there’s a long time period, a long gap between when you take action and when you receive the positive result, right? Your health, the time between going to the gym, doing the reps, and finally seeing the six pack or finally getting that beach bot. It’s not instantaneous. The gap between eating a healthy meal and then feeling great, there’s a gap between that. The gap between everything worth having in life is longer than the alternative decisions which you could make, which would prioritize short term gratification. So for instance, eating the potato chips or that cheesecake gives you the instant gratification of the dopamine going off in your brain and being this was delicious and great. However, it’s not moving you long term towards your goal. And when you reclaim your intention by saying, like, what is my long term why? Why should I eat healthy? Why should I do the workout? Why should I do this work right now? That when you get that really crystal clear in your mind, you remember, yes, this is supposed to be hard. There is a gap between what I’m doing now and what I’m trying to get to.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:19]:
And the only way to get to where I’m trying to go to is not to get off path and prioritize that short term gratification. So connecting with your deep, deep why. Step three, you have to define the objective. You can’t win a game if you don’t know the rules. So the next step is that you have to chalk the playing field. You have to create the playbook and say, what are the rules by which I’m going to measure success and failure right now? What would it look like to win the game? And it’s surprising to me that very few of us actually take the time to ever do this, much like on a week basis, much less a day basis, much less an hour or task by task basis, what does it look like to win at, say, recording this podcast? Get really crystal clear on that. And then once you have that field chalked, I want you to set the tiniest next step goal. This is step four.
Anthony Vicino [00:08:10]:
Because massive action often leads to massive failure. Because we get overwhelmed, we give up. Instead, if you just focus on getting the tiniest little bit of traction and try to translate that into forward momentum, then we have the law of motion on our side, which is, as Sir Isaac Newton said, an object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. So our goal is just to get into motion. So when we’re procrastinating, we know we should be working on that report, that whatever, that paper that we should be writing. And it feels so big and insurmountable. You’re like 3000 words.
Anthony Vicino [00:08:46]:
It’s going to take me hours. No, don’t set the goal to sit down and write the 3000 words. Set the goal that you’re just going to sit down and write one sentence. Make that goal so tiny that it’s harder to fail than it is to succeed at it. And then once you get that sentence done, you have your momentum, you have that little bit of traction, and that just continues to snowball into itself. Okay, so I skipped the step here. After we set the tiny goal, before you actually take action, what I do want you to do is set a timer, okay? So if you say, I’m going to write one sentence in the next minute, right, set your timer. And then when that minute runs up, write that sentence.
Anthony Vicino [00:09:26]:
Or if the tiny goal is time bound and you’re saying, okay, I’m going to write for five minutes, then set the timer for five minutes. Temporal landmarks are incredibly important. I was reading a report on this recently research article about the idea of temporal landmarks and how it’s the idea that humans are really great at delineating moves from one phase of life into another. For instance, like New Year’s, that is a temporal landmark marking the delineation between last year and this year. Or the Monday, the start of a new week versus the end of the old week, or your birthday start of this new year of existence versus the old year, right? We love these temporal landmarks. And what ends up happening is that for whatever reason, humans, when we set goals, we never want to start them in the midst of a temporal period. We always want to start it at a landmark, right? So it’s always like, oh, I’m going to start this next week, or I’m going to start this next year, or When I turn 40, right? We always project it forward, but the real goal is that’s just procrastinating, right? We’re trying to bring that forward so that we go, oh, I’m just going to take action now. So how do we get that temporal landmark to shift forward and have it delineated right now? And the way that you do that is by setting a timer, right? And then final step, step six.
Anthony Vicino [00:10:45]:
This is where the rubber meets the road. You have your timer, you have your tiny next step action. You’ve chalked the field. You know what winning looks like. You’ve reconnected with your why. And now it’s just time to take the action and start doing the thing. And tiny actions compound into become very big things. And so in the beginning, when it comes to overcoming procrastination, your only goal is just to take the tiniest first step towards the goal.
Anthony Vicino [00:11:11]:
It’s not to achieve it, right? Like, we get overwhelmed and we go, that’s too much, and we pull back. We never even start. One of my favorite quotes of all time is that you can’t win unless you start, and you can’t lose unless you quit. And that’s pretty much the recipe for success in a nutshell. I hope it serves you really well. I’ll see you back around these parts tomorrow. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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