Do the Hard Things First: How to Win Over Procrastination and Master the Habit of Doing Difficult Work (Do the Hard Things First Series Book 1)

by Scott Allan

In a mad shuffle to finish tasks at the last minute, you end up failing to do anything worthy of quality.

every damn day

Coping mechanisms favor the present you to the future you.

You are fixating on your mistakes and constantly thinking about how you procrastinate, and then guilting yourself for being so lazy. To compound the feelings of worthlessness, you begin to eat junk food and feed into your own self-loathing.

Later is the enemy of creativity and transformation.

You Deprioritize the Task and Make a Promise to Do It later.

I do this a lot, especially with chores like laundry.

which they view as someone else’s problem (i.e. as the problem of their future self).

Begin working on something and the motivation and energy will come. You start with the 5-minute strategy. Get started now.

The moment you take ownership of your procrastinating ways, everything will change.

deprioritize meaningless tasks and focus on the top priorities that deliver results you want

Implementation Task: ● Decide what hard thing needs to be done. (Previous Step) ● Write it down five times. ● Block off five minutes on your calendar. ● Get to work on it. ● If you develop momentum, push it to ten minutes. Identify any small tasks that can be accomplished in five minutes or less. These are your small wins! The purpose of this is to get started taking action.

“Sometimes you’ve such a large to-do-list that procrastination seems the only sensible option.”

For example, if you want to check your phone for notifications, count to 5 before reacting.

Add a delay before indulging your impulses. When you get the sudden urge to take off and start checking something, count to five. Then count to ten.

Commit to 100 words a day for the first week. Take it up to 200 words the next week. Build up to 1000 words a day if that is your goal.