Procrastination workbook

This is a short, no-nonsense, research based program to help overcome your procrastination habit. It
is based on the book “Solving the Procrastination Puzzle” by Timothy A. Pychyl (Associate Professor
at the Department of Psychology Carleton University, Ottawa). I’ve created this workbook for my
clients to help them pursue their goals and live their dreams. If you like this material, please consider
purchasing the original. If you’d like to know more about how I help clients reach their full potential
check out my website www.carlageenen.nl or blog www.howtodowhatyoulove.wordpress.com.
Chapter 1 – introduction to procrastination
“Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite the knowledge that this delay
may harm your task performance, the accomplishments of your goals, or even just how you feel
about yourself.”
That the delay is voluntary doesn’t mean the procrastinating person is happy about his or her
procrastination, or consciously chooses to do so. It just means that the delay is not necessary in the
face of external circumstances, but is a way of avoiding unpleasant feelings associated with the task.
In order to beat the procrastination habit, you want to gain awareness of when, why and how.
Exercise
In order to gain insight in your procrastination pattern, please fill in the table below. List those tasks,
projects or “things” in your life on which you tend to procrastinate.
Next to each, jot down what emotions and thoughts come to mind when you think of each of these
moments of procrastination. Do not overthink this.
When you have finished your list, look for patterns in the emotions or thoughts involved.
Task, Project, Goal,
Activity
Feelings and Thoughts about this task/activity
E.g. Writing an essay
I feel uncertain about the task at hand, and my ability in this
area.

Chapter 2 – costs of procrastination
“Procrastination is failing to get on with life itself”
Both philosophers and psychologist have found that happiness is to be found in the pursuit of our
goals. It is not necessary that we are accomplishing anything in particular. We experience fulfillment
by engaging in the pursuit of what we think is meaningful in our lives.
Still, everybody procrastinates. An estimated 20 % of the Western population procrastinates on
chronic bases. Among students, this number goes up to 75 %.
Procrastination leads to lower achievement, inability to reach personal goals, negative feelings, low
self-esteem, and health problems.
The next exercise is about creating the necessary motivation to change.
First I want you to focus your attention on the costs of your procrastination. What harmful effect has
procrastination (had) on you, and those around you?
Second, I want you to focus on your commitment to your goals. Why are these things important to
you? What would it mean for you to achieve them?
I would recommend for you to look at both a short term as a long term perspective. Take into
consideration the benefit of getting necessary tasks done. Also reflect on the alignment of your goals
with your values and long-term life goals.
Task, Project, Goal, Activity
Costs of Procrastination
Benefits of Acting

Chapter 3 – procrastination and emotions
Procrastination is a form of self-regulation failure. We fail to regulate our behavior to achieve our
own goals. We make an intention to act, but we do not use the self-control necessary to act as
intended. Mainly because we don’t want to feel the negative emotions associated with the task (like
anger, frustration, anxiety, guilt, boredom, resentment). Chronic procrastinators are running away
from negative feelings by putting of tasks.
Procrastination is an attempt to feel good. Avoiding unpleasant tasks is temporary rewarding
(reinforcing the habit), but it doesn’t make us feel good in the long run. We want to learn how to
focus and strengthen our ability to regulate emotions, instead of taking the path of least resistance.
The first step at the moment of procrastination (for example when thinking: “I’ll do this tomorrow”)
is to stay put. If you turn away in an effort to make yourself feel better, it’s over. Breathing can help
you stay present in the moment. It can also help to have a mantra at hand to say to yourself when
faced with a tendency to run and procrastinate.
I, for example, like to say to myself: “In order to feel empowered again, I have to face this challenge”.
Now take a moment to create your own mantra.
We don’t need to pretend the negative feelings are not there. It’s good to acknowledge the
emotions. Just don’t identify with them too much. If, for example we experience fear, know that WE
ARE NOT OUR FEAR. We are more than just our fear. There is for example also the will to succeed,
the desire to live our dreams, the compassion for our inner wounds, and curiosity.
Acknowledge and accept the fear, and DO IT ANYWAY.
When we give in to feel good, we will only enforce the procrastination habit, and add to the fear.
Every time we turn away from the things we are afraid of, our brain will conclude: “if I went to all this
trouble avoiding this thing I was afraid of, it must have been really scary/dangerous.”
If we stay put when faced with a task involving difficult emotions, like fear, we will experience that by
doing it anyway, we will gain positive feelings like energy, confidence and pride.

Chapter 4 – manana, manana
“We won’t feel more like doing it tomorrow”
The Latin roots of the word procrastination mean: “to put forward to tomorrow”. But the problem
with tomorrow is that it never comes.
We think we’ll feel more like it tomorrow. But humans are not good in predicting how we will feel in
some point in the future.
When we say: we’ll do this later. We will feel good because we don’t have to act now. Also we can
pride ourselves that we have made the resolve to do so in the future. So we are on a high.
We predict we will feel just as optimistic later, when faced with the task we postponed. Of course
this is not the case. What we don’t feel like doing today, we won’t feel like doing tomorrow neither.
So when about to postpone say to yourself:
“No, I probably won’t feel more like it later.”
Another thing to take into consideration is that feeling like it, is not all that important.
To think that your current motivational state has to match your intention in order to act is an
important, common misconception. When we are pursuing our goals we tend to believe that we
have to actually feel like it. But we don’t.
Attitudes follow behaviors more than the other way around. When you start to act on your intention
and goals you will see your attitude and motivation change.
So when you don’t feel like doing it now, say to yourself
“My current motivational state does not need to match my intention in order to act.”
In short, when you find yourself needlessly postponing necessary tasks or activities remind yourself
of your personal goals and just get started.
Another very useful strategy is the IF/THEN intention. Decide ahead of time how you will react when
a certain thought or behavior pops up. That way you’ll be prepared when it happens. For example
IF I feel negative emotions when I face the task at hand, THEN I will stay put and not stop, put of
the task, or run away.

Chapter 5 – recognizing our flags
Becoming aware of your flags, and choosing to act differently next time
We humans tend to:
1. Choose short-term rewards over future rewards.
2. Wrongfully assume we’ll feel more like it tomorrow.
3. Underestimate the time things take to finish (as a rule of thumb: double the expected time
with 100 %)
4. Self-handicap to protect self-esteem (e.g.. start just before the deadline so any
underperformance can be accounted for by “starting late” instead of “low capability”
5. Think irrationally about the task at hand (e.g. If I make any mistakes I am a failure, my
performance needs to be perfect)
6. Change our thinking in order to be consistent with our behavior (when we do not finish our
task we’ll change our thinking about the task, e.g. it wasn’t important, I first need more
information, it could have been worse, I work better under pressure, I simply forgot about it)
These emotion-focused strategies are not nearly as effective as planful problem-solving strategies.
They elevate our mood for now, but will keep us from reaching the goals that matter to us and it will
leave us feeling bad about ourselves in the long-run.
How to get past these tendencies?
Knowledge is power. Becoming aware of our biases and patterns of thought and behaviors is an
important first step. Identifying specifically what we tend to do can be the beginning of change.
These tendencies should become our flags. If we hear ourselves say or think one of our typical
procrastination responses, than that is your cue to stop and act differently.
Ex. if we hear ourselves say: “It’s not that important” than we stop and remind ourselves that this is a
form of self-deception. Instead of giving in, we’ll just get started on the task.

Exercise
Make a list of the things you commonly do, say or think, to justify your procrastination. As you might
not be aware of some of them, you may need to compile this list over the next few days or weeks.
Whenever you find yourself thinking, saying or doing one of these things when confronted with a
difficult task, stop and change your response. An effective new response is: “just get started”.
My typical excuses for rationalizing a
needless delay
What to do/think instead:
E.g. “I am not concentrated enough right
now to do hard work”
“I’ll just get started”

Chapter 6 – just getting started
In the last chapter we identified our flags. Whenever we observe one of these flags, this is our cue to
start on anything related to the task at hand.
Why? Once we start it’s rarely as bad as we think. Research shows us that, instead of avoiding,
getting started creates a much more positive perception of the task. And not unimportantly, about
ourselves as well. Progress on our goals makes us feel happier and more satisfied with life.
On top of that, positive emotions have the potential to motivate goal-directed behaviors and
volitional processes (like the self-regulation needed to stay on task).
If you’re blocked, just get started on anything that has to do with the task. Don’t think about “getting
it done” just yet (this might cause overwhelm), focus on “getting started” first, and take it from
there.
For example if you have to write an article, you could sit at your desk and stare into space or start
surfing the net. Or you could just start writing. Start by putting your name and a date on the page; a
quick outline of what you want to write about; maybe even something about why it’s so hard to
write this article; anything that will get you from not-doing to doing.
As a strategy, you may find that you have to just get started many times throughout the day, even on
the same task. This is common. Even in meditation we have to gently bring our attention back to our
focal point, whatever that may be.
To further help you succeed some tips on goal setting:
1) Make it concrete
By setting out in advance when, where and how we will achieve a goal (or at least a sub goal
within this larger goal or task) we’ll be more inclined to act on it.
2) Keep it simple.
Divide big goals and tasks into smaller ones. This way we won’t feel overwhelmed as much,
and we’ll be able to finish things in a small timeframe. Finishing something, just like getting
started, boosts our self-esteem and motivation.

Exercise
Pick a task or project that you are procrastinating on and that is really bothering you. Write down as
many as the subtasks that you can think of that are required to get this task done. You might use the
first column to indicate which subtask is your priority or which subtask makes the most sense for you
to complete first.
Now pick a task and “Just get started.” If you lose momentum, notice this gently. Don’t blame or
condemn yourself for it. But do get back to your list of tasks and: “just get started”
Remember that just getting started in this stage is enough. Regardless of the outcome of your
efforts, you’ve made a first important step into beating your habit of procrastination.
Priority or
order of
completion
List of sub tasks

Chapter 7 – how to keep going
We need to be prepared to deal with distractions, obstacles and setbacks
When we get to doing an avoided task, there is usually a sense of relief. These good feelings can
become a little bit of a trap for us. They can make us overly optimistic and some of our biases in
planning and thinking may begin to emerge again. So in order to keep going after we started, we
need to identify points in which we typically abandon our goal pursuit (e.g. when faced with a
difficult part, just before finishing the final draft, when we need to make a decision about something,
when distracted by a co-worker or telephone call, etc.).
We have to be prepared to deal with distractions, setbacks and obstacles. In order to do this, make
predecisions for these kinds of moments. By making predecisions on how to act when faced with
difficulties we reduce the risk of getting caught up in thinking, choosing, deciding. We have already
made the decision, so all that is left for us now is to act.
There are two main approaches to setbacks and distractions:
1) Reducing the number of distractions before we begin our work (e.g. shutting down your cell
phone and social-networking tools)
2) Decide ahead of time what to do when setbacks occur. It helps to make these predecisions in
the form of an “If…then” intention.
Excursive
Think about your main procrastinated task(s). In the table that follows list the kinds of distractions
and obstacles that may result in further procrastination, and what you can do about it.
Distraction, Obstacle or
Setback
Remove Proactively If/then intention
E-mail
Shut it off before work
Stuck on my work
IF I feel like I am stuck, THEN I
will stay put and write
something down anyway
Someone asks for help
IF I am asked by someone for
help, THEN I will reply that I am
busy until lunch, but I can help
after that.
internet search
Don’t do it, or set timer
Need information from other
person
Contact person (preferably
over the phone/life)
Emotional overload
What is the fear? Acknowledge
that part, than do it anyway

Chapter 8 – the power of self-regulation
Our ability to self-regulate is a limited resource that we need to use strategically. It’s harder to stop
procrastination after a long day of self-regulation, than at the beginning of the day. Take this in
account when planning your week. Remember that social meetings and gatherings also take a lot of
self-regulation.
We can move past momentary feelings of depletion by focusing on the goals we’d like to achieve and
their importance to us. When we say to ourselves “I’ll feel more like it tomorrow” we need to stop,
breathe, and think about why we intended to do the task today. Why is it important for us? What
benefit is there in making the effort now? How will this help us achieve our goals?
If from there, we can muster the volitional strength for one more step, that is, to “just get started”,
we will find that we had more self-regulatory strength in reserve than we realized.
Chapter 9 – the internet and other distractions
Research shows that almost half of our time spend online is time spend procrastinating. With a click
or two we can leave the task that we feel bad about and seek immediate mood repair.
Information and communication technologies are great in many ways, but they can also make us
waste time in unexpected and unanticipated ways when we don’t want to. We think: “I’ll just take a
minute to e-mail/Facebook/google, and before we know it twenty minutes have passed in which we
have not gotten any work done, and we have lost focus and momentum working on our task at hand.
The answer here is painful but simple: shut it off.
Shut of everything except the program(s) you need to do the task at hand. All the time you put
between the impulse to go online and doing so, is time you can use to decide if this is really what you
want/need to be doing right now.
If you really need to go online for the task do this consciously and with a clear goal/task in mind.
This does not mean you can’t plan e-breaks to check e-mails and other social media. Just do it
consciously and within a predetermined and limited time-frame.
End of the Workbook – Start of ….
Under this link you can find a mind map depicting all this information in one image:
http://www.xmind.net/embed/nSpM/?size=small
You can do this! Stop procrastinating and start making process on the things that matter to you.
Become who you are, love what you do.
Love on,
Carla Geenen MSc. (www.carlageenen.nl or www.howtodowhatyoulove.wordpress.com)

Procrastination workbook

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