The Science of Getting Started: How to Beat Procrastination, Summon Productivity, and Stop Self-Sabotage

by Patrick King

This form of procrastination can be tricky to spot and address, as it can look like you’re making good use of your time when in fact you’re not.

Task initiation. This pertains to your ability to simply start and get going on tasks or activities. It is what enables you to break the inertia of inactivity and take the first step on the task at hand—or on any task, for that matter.

You set a “start time” for each of your intended tasks, but once that moment arrives, you always find a reason to reschedule the start to another time.

Task monitoring. This refers to your ability to evaluate and keep track of your projects, as well as to identify and correct mistakes in your work.

If your task monitoring function is impaired, you’ll likely find it difficult to weed out which tasks need to be done first, or you may forget what you need to do altogether.

If you lack the ability to track your tasks, you’ll fail to prioritize your activities properly, leading you to focus on the less important stuff.

Emotional control. This encompasses your ability to modulate or regulate your emotional responses.

Such inability to control your emotions is also likely to negatively impact your ability to control your thoughts.

Working memory. This comprises your capacity to hold information in your mind long enough to be able to complete a task.

Your working memory is what enables you to follow complex instructions, manipulate information in your mind (e.g., do mental calculations), and carry out activities that have multiple steps.

Scientists routinely estimate average working memory at having a capacity of seven plus or minus two items.

Poor working memory equals procrastination because you will literally forget what you are working on and why. It also lets you be more affected by temptations and distractions in your environment.

Unable to remain focused, you shift your attention to the office chatter happening at the next cubicle. The next thing you know, you’ve joined your coworkers’ conversation and have successfully abandoned your task for the day.

General orderliness. This refers to your ability to keep the things you need for projects well-organized and readily available, as well as to keep your workspaces orderly so that you’re able to find whatever you need when you need

procrastination may arise from problems in each of the nine executive functions: (1) inhibition, (2) self-monitoring, (3) planning and organization, (4) activity shifting, (5) task initiation, (6) task monitoring, (7) emotional control, (8) working memory, and (9) general orderliness.

“You may delay, but time will not.” —Benjamin Franklin

Not everyone procrastinates in the same way and for the same reasons, so knowing your personal tendencies and motivations is essential to later learning how to better handle yourself in the face of being tempted to procrastinate.

Procrastination Typologies Drawing mostly from research by psychology professor Dr. Joseph Ferrari, Alina Vrabie identifies five types of procrastinators: (1) thrill-seeker, (2) avoider, (3) indecisive, (4) perfectionist, and (5) busy.

Thrill-seeker. Also known as the crisis-makers, thrill-seekers live for the last-minute rush. As a deadline looms nearer, they feel more pumped up and ready to work.

If they’re procrastinating, it’s because they intend to. These are the people who claim to be able to work best under the stress of a deadline.

Avoider. Avoiders put off tasks until a later time in order to avoid being judged based on their output.

While you may think that avoiders steer away from work because they find the tasks boring or tiring, in actuality, what avoiders are trying to run away from is the threat of failure or, in some instances, even that of success.

Especially when given high-stakes tasks, avoiders shrivel up in fear of either messing up the entire thing or discover...

they’re also likely to feel a staggering responsibility to continue performing at their fullest capacities for the rest of the tasks they’ll encounter in the future. This is an awful lot of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts to carry unconsciously, so their psyches attempt to save them from the discomfort by compelling them to procrastinate instead.

instead of getting going on the task, she immerses herself in other activities, some of which are projects unrelated to what she’s assigned to do while others are recreational activities—anything to avoid having to work on a task she fears she’s going to fail at.

Indecisive. Indecisives procrastinate because they don’t want to be held responsible for a negative outcome.

Unlike avoiders, who fear either failure or success, indecisives mainly fear blame. While avoiders procrastinate to evade the judgment that comes after completing a task, indecisives procrastinate in order to shift the responsibility of doing the task at the present moment.

Perfectionist. Perfectionists delay tasks for fear that they’re going to do things wrong. They’ve set standards for themselves and don’t settle for a “job well done” or even “excellent job”; rather, they want nothing less than utter perfection.

Perfectionists have set such high standards that the thought of attempting to measure up to those yardsticks fills them with paralyzing dread. As long as they don’t touch a task, it still has the potential to be perfect.

To escape the pressure of having to meet those sky-high standards, perfectionists simply leave tasks untouched and prefer instead to procrastinate.

Busy. Busy procrastinators want to do it all, all at once.

In their attempt to cover everything, they fail to actually get anything done. Their to-do list is crammed with tasks that all appear equally important to them.

The main ability they lack is prioritizing, which leaves them fussing over too many tasks instead of working on them systematically. In reality, they’re constantly in motion but not necessarily working toward anything major.

personifies the busy procrastinator: always working but never done.

Action-based triggers are environmental prompts and physical activities that support the continued practice of procrastination.

Remember that while sticking to a task requires conscious effort, procrastination is more automatic. Thus, when there are prompts all around you that trigger you to act on that automatic impulse, then you’ll end up simply delaying what you need to do in order to indulge those triggers.

Thus, it is important to be aware of these action-based triggers, catch yourself once you start to do them, and know how to deal with them appropriately to get yourself back on track.

Being aware of your go-to activities once you get bored or find the task too difficult is the key to catching yourself procrastinating next time.

turns out there are at least five ways procrastination can actually be useful in certain instances.

First, there are times when certain tasks and obligations simply disappear of their own accord, so you won’t need to complete your intended tasks after all.

Second, some types of procrastinating can push you to clear out the rest of your to-do list. This is because some tasks may seem so unpleasant to you that in order to avoid them, you would do anything, including the other tasks you need to do anyway.

Third, procrastination can give you an opportunity to reevaluate tasks that may not be necessary or relevant. Putting off a task long enough can lead you to later look at it with fresh eyes and not even remember why it’s on your to-do list.

Fourth, procrastination may be a function of your intuition, working to help you avoid jumping into something that might not be right for you. This applies especially when it comes to procrastinating on making decisions.

And fifth, procrastination may be your unconscious way of protecting yourself from the threat of failure.

The greater the risk of failure, the more likely your brain will push you toward the road to procrastinating.

There are at least three ways you can build a mindset that’s iron-clad against the ever-constant lure of procrastination: (1) mastering the physics of productivity, (2) eliminating the paradox of choice, and (3) finding the right motivation to kick-start action.

The Physics of Productivity Who would have thought that productivity and procrastination could be viewed through the lens of physics, math, and equations?

Bestselling author Stephen Guise found a way to do so using Newton’s three laws of motion as an analogy to formulat...

And now applied to the science of human cognition and behavior, these laws can also illuminate the mechanisms behind procrastination—and how to manipulate those mechanisms to drive productivity instead.

First law of motion. According to Newton’s first law of motion, an object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion continues to be in motion unless an outside force acts upon it.