Turning Procrastination Into Productivity

1. Introduction: hi, everyone, my name's catch mill. And today bringing a class on how to turn procrastination is the productivity. So let's get started. We've all fallen victim at one point or another trip across the nation, the action of the laying are postponing something that requires your immediate attention. It's a state in which, let's be honest, nothing of substance gets done as we actively seek out distractions. It's also characterized by a restless state of anxiety and fear of being overwhelmed by the things that require our attention but an inability to actually start tackling them. So how do we combat it? Is it possible to be procrastination? The answer is yes, but it does require effort and exercising the muscle we call willpower, as well as implementing some of the tools and strategies that we're going to talk about in this class. You'll notice that by putting in the effort, you'll be able to tackle procrastination as it arises and be able to redirect your focus. Though it's more productive behavior and more importantly, the more routinely you engaged in productive behavior, the easier it'll be to stop procrastinating. Now this class does assume a prior knowledge of behavior or habit formation, which is a topic that I covered in my first class, creating habits that stick and I encourage you to watch that first if you haven't already, just because some of the strategies and tools that we're going to talk about in this class do assume a prior understanding of how best to form habits or productive habits. So go have a look if you haven't already. I'm hoping this class with you to everything you need to know about procrastination, including how to identify triggers but most importantly, how to combat it by creating a path of resistance against your vices or the things that you turned to in order to procrastinate. And lastly, we're going to talk about how to create an environment that is prime for productivity rather than procrastination by talking about how we can block or eliminate distractions in our environment. So let's get started. I'll see you on your side 2. Causes and Triggers: identifying triggers in this section, we're gonna talk about identifying what sparks procrastination and some of the causes behind it. You may have caught yourself thinking on more than one occasion. Why do I keep procrastinating when I know it causes me so much anxiety? So what are the hallmarks of procrastination? Well, you know what you need to dio, but you don't do it or you wait until the last minute and time and time again, the pattern repeats itself. You feel caught trapped in a vortex of anxiety, stress and ultimately you and the procrastinating. It's important to identify what leads you to procrastinate, as this will make it easier to identify the problem as it arises and to tackle it right away. Now, an important aspect of procrastination is that it is often caused by a skewed vision of reality. You'll see what I mean in a minute when we dig into the different causes. But in a nutshell, we all skew reality in different ways, and procrastination is the result of not focusing on facts but rather assumptions about ourselves. Others the world in general. Sometimes all you need is a change of perspective. By bringing your focus back the facts. Let's dig into the causes of procrastination. What causes someone to procrastinate varies from person to person, and the falling mindsets are some of the most common and becoming aware. Such mindsets, and working to change them is the first step in helping you to overcome procrastination. Once we've gone over them, I encourage you to spend some time determining which one speak to you. Which ones could be behind your reason to procrastinate? You may feel you identify with one or more of these mindsets, and that's perfectly normal. The number is less important than actually pinpointing the factors that lead you to engage in procrastination because ultimately, what I want to teach you is how to create a plan of attack to beat procrastination as it arises. So I also suggest you write down the ones you identify with, along with solutions that I mentioned the combat thumb and keep that information accessible for those times when you feel yourself slip into procrastination mode again. The goal here is to identify the problem as it arises, which will make it easier to fight back 3. Overwhelm and Self-Labeling: the first cause of procrastination that we're going to talk about is overwhelming yourself . There's several ways you might overwhelm yourself into doing absolutely nothing. You might magnify a task to the degree that it seems impossible to tackle. You might assume you must do everything at once instead of breaking each job down into small, discreet, manageable units, which you can complete one step at a time. You might also inadvertently distract yourself from the task at hand by obsessing about endless other things you haven't even gone around to doing yet. Now, how do we tackle this? Well, the first step is that before you even begin to tackle demanding task or project, and right before that overwhelming feeling starts taking over, take some time to break down your workload. Break it down as much as possible into smaller tasks that are less tedious and may even spark some excitement, prioritized um, and then get started one at a time. This simple yet effective tip will have you feeling empowered and eager to cross awesome tasks off your to do list. Now we'll go over how best to do this a little later in the class, but for now remember that breaking tasks into chunks is the first step in limiting the feeling of overwhelming next stuff. We have self labeling Now the more you procrastinate, the more you condemn yourself as inferior. This further saps your self confidence and ability to act. This problem is compounded when you label yourself a procrastinator or a lazy person. This labeling causes you to see your lack of effective action as the real you, and in turn, you expect little or nothing from yourself. So if you're the type of person that has created a label to justify your actions, you need to drop it quickly. Otherwise, you will fall victim to a self fulfilling prophecy. Change your mindset first, and your actions will follow. Likewise, if you're firmly convinced of the negative appraisals you make about yourself, for example, that you're inherently bad, worthless, unlovable or unchangeable, you will naturally feel the process and motivated to get started on your workload. So be kind to yourself. There's such a thing as holding yourself accountable for past mistakes, And then there's the act of not forgiving yourself and being unable to move on. Be ready to forgive past failures the focus should always be on the present and not the past, which you've failed to do in the past is just that part of the past. Thoughts such as I should have started earlier or I'm no good. I always in the procrastinating are no way beneficial and getting started and meeting your deadlines at this very moment. So redirect your focus to the present on what you can do to get yourself closer to completing your tasks right now. 4. Undervaluing Rewards and Perfectionism: undervaluing the rewards associated with the work you need to accomplish. Sometimes you fail to initiate any meaningful activity because you perceive almost any task as being terribly difficult or because you feel the reward simply wouldn't be worth your effort. This is where you will have to dig deep into creating rewards for yourself that are intrinsically motivated. So tap into how completing this task will make you feel. When you procrastinate, you tend to focus on your short term goal, such as avoiding that. The stress that the task may but probably won't give rise to the key here is to bring your attention back to why you're completing the task in the first place. What are some of the benefits of completing it? How would completing and make you feel this thought process can be used in any situation and is not limited toe work or school projects? Now, for instance, you want to begin a new exercise plan but are dreading how difficult maybe to get through it, turn the thought process into a positive one. How great will you feel finishing up a workout? How energize will make you feel what agree? Boost your self esteem. Will it provide? Likewise, when it comes to work projects, try to think in terms off. How much will you learn through this process? What opportunities? What you get in the end. Basically, you have to focus on the prize. And the important thing is the prize needs to be an internally driven one, moving on to one of the most common causes of procrastination. Perfectionism. You defeat yourself with inappropriate goals and standards because you will settle for nothing less than a perfect performance in almost everything you dio and you frequently end up making tasks more time consuming and laborious than they need to be. This is something that I'm guilty of, and unfortunately, this ritual calmly results in avoidance and believe it or not procrastination, because you believe that things should be done perfectly. The result is that nothing gets done at all, and when faced with the task, you become overwhelmed and frustrated, paralyzed by impossible standards. And that's what perfectionism is now in the same way that you need to drop the self blame. If you're the type to self label, you also need to let go of the expectations of perfection. Perfectionism is the slippery slope that often leads the procrastination. The sooner you realise perfection is not attainable, the sooner you'll free yourself of the expectations associated with perfection. What you need to focus on is simply good enough. Now I know that might be a tough pill to swallow for some people, but good enough is by no means subpar. It's a healthy balance where you can showcase your heart working talents without sacrificing yourself, your health, your sleep and your relationships in the process. So let go of the idea of perfectionism. It's an unrealistic expectation. 5. Fear of Failure, Success and Criticism: next up, we have fear of failure or catastrophe. Izing. Another mindset which paralyzes you is the fear of failure because you imagine that putting in the effort and not succeeding would be an overwhelming personal defeat. And this is one of the most common over generalizations. You reason. If I fail at this, it means I will feel it. Anything. This of course, is impossible. Nobody can fail it everything now. A second mindset that contributes to a feat of failure is the tendency to evaluate your performance exclusively on the outcome and the discounter individual effort throughout the whole process. This mindset reflects a product orientation or and result orientation rather than a process focus and could be detrimental to your self esteem. You want to focus on the whole process and all the effort that went into completing a task or a project. So look at the big picture. Now, the thought of putting an effort but still failing can make you anxious. So you choose avoiding and procrastination instead. In this way, when your project feels you can rationalize that it wasn't a true test of your abilities anyway. And had you had more time, you might have succeeded. So the first step in overcoming this is to let go of that irrational fear or catastrophe izing how difficult or miserable the task at hand might make you feel, or how you might fail miserably at it. Researchers found that procrastination stems from a task aversion or the belief that the task that requires work will be hard to complete and might cause you some distress. Now the truth is, completing a task will neither kill you nor make you sick. But across the nation will definitely increase your stress level, especially as a deadline looms near now, while a small dose of stress has been shown to be beneficial and increase your performance by as much as 15% on standardized tests, we've all heard of the negative effects of chronic stress has on her health and, inevitably, our cognitive performance. It supported to keep in mind that you will not benefit from this mindset at all. Fear of success. Now, this may come as a surprise to some of you, and yet I'm sure at least a small percentage will still identify with this mindset. So let's try to put into context what do we mean by fear of success. Well, it might arise from an inherent lack of confidence and the belief that your abilities are not due to actual internal abilities because of your lack of confidence. Success may seem even more risky than failure because you're certain it's based on chance. Therefore, you're convinced you couldn't maintain success, and you believe your accomplishments will falsely raised the expectations of others. You might even think to yourself that when the awful truth that you're naturally just a loser ultimately comes out that disappointment, rejection and pain will be all the more bitter. This, of course, is absurd. But this thought process is in line with the analogy that if you feel sure he will eventually fall off the cliff, it seems safer not to go mountain climbing at all. Now, others might fear success because of all the underlying characteristics it comes with, such as more financial responsibility, potential backlash from others as the rise to fame, on increasing responsibility and so on. Now procrastination comes in and protects you from the higher expectations and greater responsibilities that might come along with succeeding, like those who procrastinate because they fear failure. You keep yourself safe from facing your true limits by avoiding challenges and putting things off. So what you need to do here is a look at the future and the change that might come with a perspective of addition. What do we mean by that? Anything that you will undertake moving forward, whether it's a project, new tasks, new goals will provide you with added skills, experience of overcoming challenges and, most likely, new opportunities. There's no doubt that success might bring along a period of change in your life, but with it comes the added benefits, too. The important thing is to maintain self confidence by using positive self talk. Ultimately, you're the one sabotaging your chances. And in order to stop the cycle, you will have to prioritize your self confidence by maintaining a positive, encouraging and confident opinion of yourself. Whether it's through journaling or self affirmations, confidently declaring I'm worthy of success, I can succeed and I deserve. Success can do wonders. Your self esteem will spend some time identifying your strength and let your focus be directed to those. Lastly, we have a fear of this approval or fear of criticism that might spark procrastination So the thought process is that you imagine if you try something new, any mistake will be met with strong disapproval and criticism, because the people that you care about won't accept you if you're human and in perfect and make mistakes. Now the risk of rejection seems so dangerous that to protect yourself, you adopt a really low profile and turn to procrastination. And your reasoning is that if you don't make any effort, you can't mess up. Now let's think about this. Do you know what is worse than criticism or disapproval? The fear of criticism and this approval? Because it can lead to a slippery slope of people pleasing and needing praise. Ultimately, it takes away from an internal motivation to succeed and places this need on external factors over which we may have no control over. Here are a few things to keep in mind about this. Criticism provides an opportunity for learning and growth. Now we often confuse criticism over work with a personal attack over self worth. This is not the same thing. Criticism is external and should be dealt with in the same way. Criticism is also a result of someone else's reality which may have been influenced by your variety of factors that may or may not even be related to you personally north, as in Make it on ultimate truth. Remember this? Keep that in mind. Criticism is in direct relation to the environment in which it was delivered and the person delivering the message. So what does that mean for you? It means that it is specific to a time and place, therefore, does not reflect your entire history. It's based on someone else's assumption about your work, and this is not a universal truth. Remember, the remain rooted in assumptions, and ultimately it means that criticism should not negate everything good about you. Learn to use what is given to you constructively and brush off the rest. 6. Why Procrastination Doesn't Work: where we've seen by looking at all these causes is that while the reasons for procrastination might vary from person a person, the results are often the same. A seemingly endless cycle of anxiety, avoidance and shame. Nothing gets done, and you can't even enjoy anything with that guilt hanging over your head. Maybe you watch TV. Maybe you choose to read instead of working on your presentation or your project. But the image of not completing that work low that's just sitting on your desk. It just nags at you during the entire time. You can never really relax because there's always something else you should be doing. So what are we learned by looking? All these causes is that procrastination doesn't work because avoidance doesn't erase that anxiety. It just delays it, and it's just not worth it. Over the course of researching material for this class, I came across a number of quotes. That the scribe would Procrastination is by talking about the fact that we delay things that should have been done yesterday by doing them the day after tomorrow and so on. But what I found interesting is that Edward Young decided to focus on the effects of procrastination or the consequences. And I love his quote the most because it rings true. Procrastination is the thief of time. Remember that nothing of substance gets done, and all you're really doing is wasting time. In the next section, we will dive right into some effective ways to help you regain control and get you back onto a productive path. 7. Regaining Control and Setting Goals: the next step is regaining control. The first thing that you need to conquer is self awareness. As we discussed earlier, you need to identify your reasons for procrastinating and whether you do this by writing down your feelings in a journal or talking to a trusted coworker confidante. Verbalizing. The stress and helplessness you might be feeling is the first step towards regaining control. Remember, you are your most productive self when you learn to identify where your limitations are and use them to your advantage. But I'm gonna go as far I say that we also have biological limitations, and one of them is our brains inability to perform at its best when we multi task. Likewise, sleep deprivation also hinders our productivity, just like daily variations in her blood sugar levels impact our attention span and our decision making abilities. Learning to identify or recognize when your productivity dips and when you slip into that procrastination mode will help you counter act these effects. Now the best plan of attack is one of self awareness. While some causes are related to limiting self beliefs, as we discussed in the first half of the class, somewhere just inherent limitations tied to our biology. No amount of planning or breaking down goals will counteract the effect of poor sleep on your performance. So as we move into actionable ways to be procrastination and for these methods to be effective, you will have to ensure that you become aware of your limitations. Now it said that without action, knowledge is meaningless. I'm gonna go step further and add that without knowledge, an appropriate course of action is unlikely. You have to start somewhere, so why not? No. I invite you to also spend some time doing some introspection and find out when you're your most productive self. What conditions need to be met for you to excel? Because, as you become aware, these implementing the following strategies will talk about will help you carve a successful path towards productivity. But first you need to spend some time finding out when you're your most productive self. The next step is the determine which aspect of the situation you have control over and which you do not. So spend some time writing down your stresses, your daily challenges, your goals, then separate them into two categories. Things you have control over and things you do not the keys to identify areas where your efforts will have a real impact so that you can focus your energy accordingly again. As I mentioned earlier, we want to focus our attention on facts on the present moment and on things which are under our control and letting go of those limiting beliefs we have about ourselves so we can be proactive about what's been holding us back. Next stop. We need to examine her goals as we previously discussed. Once we right, then divide what sparks procrastination. What's holding us back? We can start actively tackling it. And one of the most effective and proactive ways of doing this is by looking at her projects tasks and breaking them down into manageable ones or smaller goals. It's been shown that setting goals of moderate difficulty is best. They're not so easy that we don't have to try, but not so difficult that we get discouraged and give up because of that fear we mentioned earlier, which is related to task aversion when the tasks we face are particularly challenging and the payoff remains far away, setting smaller, more manageable goals, help us build our confidence and celebrate our forward progress, and it keeps us committed to the task at hand. Focusing on tiny, incremental changes is best because what we want is to maximize our abilities and not feed into our insecurities or letter limitations. Drive us to procrastinate. Instead, we want to use this inherent ability to tackle too many things. I want to our advantage, because research has shown that multitasking is not a desirable course of action because it tends to lead to an increase in errors. Ultimately, what you want to achieve is to increase your sense of self control, and by attaining small, achievable goals, you will do just that, which will give you the confidence to pursue other goals. 8. Vices and Path of Resistance: in this section, we're going to talk about identifying your vices and creating a path of resistance against them. So what does that mean? It means make it harder to waste time. First, find out what your vices are. What do you turn to when you procrastinate? Is a food? Is it social media? Do you watch movies? No matter what they are, identify them. Be aware of them because the time that we spent on distractions is only part of the problem . The larger issue is that our attention hits a wall each time we stray. And research has shown that the average employee gets distracted every 11 minutes, and on each occasion it takes about the same amount of time to get back off task. The loss of concentration and flow takes as long to recover from as it took to engage in the distraction. And nowadays, with Internet at our fingertips smartphones, distractions have become the norm. We live in a universe of diversions, which makes focusing on task that much more difficult and challenging. Keeping that in mind, we realized that it isn't a sheer volume of destructions that is so much the problem as the ease of access to thumb. So destructions have become what positive psychologist Shawn Equal refers to as the path of least resistance. Being distracted has become the default status. And so our job has now become to redirect the path by making it harder to get distracted, so changing the default setting to productivity rather than distractions. Now, how do we accomplish this? Well, you can find a number of creative ways to put barriers between yourself and your vices. If you've taken my class on habit formation, you will know that one of the key aspect of increasing your chances of success at forming new habits is creating a path of least resistance or facilitating. Engaging in the behavior by anticipating setbacks and making it easier to perform the behavior in question. Naturally, when it comes to procrastination, we have to reverse the process and work backwards, so creating a path of resistance will decrease our chances of giving into distractions and engaging in distracting behavior. Now, the more you increase the time that it takes you to give into a distraction, the less likely you are to give in because the reward is simply not worth your effort. anymore. So redirecting the path is a concept that Dr Sean Record does discussed at length in his book The Happiness Advantage, which I do highly recommend. And he discusses the 22nd rule, which is to say that you want to create a path of resistance that is going to test your commitment to destructions. You want this path to require you to exert at least 20 seconds of additional effort. For example, if you procrastinate by watching movies or series on Netflix or some other online streaming platform. One way to increase the path of resistance would be to not have your password and user name saved on any device which would require you to log in every single time. It could also mean not having the website bookmarked on your computer again to take away from the habit. Formacion class we discussed at length. We cannot rely only on willpower to enable behavior change. Ah, lot of scientists now believe that willpower is a finite resource, and relying on Lee on willpower to prevent you from getting distracted and engaging in procrastination will most likely result in failure. Instead, what you want to be doing is combining willpower with all these methods that we're going to talk about and even better save willpower for productivity purposes. And don't waste it on procrastination. 9. Eliminating Distractions: in line with the method of creating a path of resistance against your vices. We're not going to turn to specific ways in which you can eliminate distractions. I often hear of people spending more time answering emails and returning calls in a work they actually advancing their work. And the truth is, with all these advances in technology, we are to blame for the standard that we've set out for ourselves and others. We no longer have the boundaries we once did. And just as we expect others to reply to us shortly after we click, send on an email, we feel the pressure to reciprocate to either an email or a missed call soon after we received them. But the truth is rare are the times that a matter is a life or death situation, and more often than not, the world hasn't fallen apart if we haven't responded. More importantly, however, is that such lack of boundaries in minimizing incoming destructions hinders our productivity. Let me explain. I think about the number of notifications you get in a day and consider them all email notifications, messages, very social media notifications, appointments, meetings, phone calls, voicemails now, depending on your line of work and your settings. You probably get quite a few of these throughout the day. But did you know that every time you get distracted, it not only interrupt your workflow, but your brain requires up to 25 minutes to refocus on the task at hand? We mentioned that checking an email can take close to 11 minutes to get back on task now, depending what your destructions are. It could take your brain up to 25 minutes to refocus. Not only that, but we are more prone to errors once we resume a task of following an interruption. Now I personally cringe at thes facts, but they ring true. Allowing destructions to disrupt your work will result in less time during the day actually spent working and Warren re focusing your attention. And it's frightening to think that answering a call or an email while working will result in so much time lost in a day and possibly increase the number of errors you later make. But ultimately, our brains need time to dive back into the work at hand. And if we want to maximize our brainpower, we also need to be aware of its limitations. So here's some tips on how to limit distractions and how to block them out and maximize your productivity throughout a work day blocking distractions. Now there's a number of APS available that will help you block notifications on your phone , and you can use this or you can just silent your phone as you work that a timer and working blocks, however, you need to be able to hold yourself accountable and realize that no destruction on your smartphone is effective without your attention. And so you need to exercise that power to block out distractions as well, So use a bit of that willpower. But if you find out that's becoming really difficult than definitely use, uh, notification blocking APS next up is sharing your methods with others, so this is more in a social contacts kind of way. Let others around. You know that you'll be trying out new methods of tackling work and increasing your productivity and explain why they should not expect your return texts or calls until a specified time. People can be incredibly receptive when you kindly offer an explanation as to why your habits are changing and remember that you are in control of the expectations you set out to receive from others based on your actions, so there might be a few of them that might feel irritated when you don't get back to them right away. But eventually people tend to catch on set a specific time for reading emails and answering them. More than ever, research suggests that multitasking hinders productivity, and I've mentioned this before. Reading emails as they come in may seem like you're accomplishing a whole lot, but in fact it's been shown to incredibly disrupt your workflow and increase your stress levels. And a study found that when researchers cut off email usage for five days in an organization, employees of multi tasked less remained focused for longer periods of time on a specific task and had decreased stress levels. So it's definitely something to keep in mind, not to mention the fact that certain emails that come in are emotionally charged and so that can even increase the time it takes for you to get back on task. Once you do on the side to switch tasks next up, we have time blocking tasks Now. This is incredibly effective because once you block out distractions during work time blocking tasks An effective way to block out distractions during work hours if you find your productivity to suffer from destructions, is the time block. Now, time blocking is almost like back in college when you're attending different classes in an hour and 1/2 box with said breaks. And so planning is key here. You need to have some sort of self discipline to plan your work day each morning. So when you do start a block, you know exactly what you need to dio, and you should also block together tasks that are related. But the most important aspect here is to be strict with the start and end of that time block and not allow destructions to interrupt your flow. And you can set time blocks for an hour and 1/2 for an hour. I person like to work in 25 minute blocks, allowing five minute brakes, because that allows me to get up and move around for five minutes, which is a good thing to do, especially if you're sitting down at a desk the whole day. It's good to get up and move around so 25 minutes works for me. You might be able to stretch it out longer, figure out what works for you, and, uh, work with that next up, we have tackling the hardest task. First, you should plan to tackle the hardest and most demanding tasks early in the day. Morning time is not the time to answer emails and returning phone calls. As attractive as this might be. Try to leave these tasks for sometime after lunch as we experience a bit of a dip in energy at that time. And it is best to leave. Effortless tasks during such times also include mindless tasks in your time blocks. Mindless tasks are different from distracting ones, such as checking emails, which also have the added negative consequence of inducing stress and worry as we read them . Mindless tasks such as filing documents entering data, for example, are tasks that allow your brain to take a break without hindering your performance. Every position has mindless tasks associated with it. Find what you consider light, mindless tasks that can give your brain a break and incorporate them into your time blocks . Next up, we have setting yourself up for success, create an environment that is enticing and motivating for you to work in. And that means the clutter in your workspace and establishing set breaks to do something that allows you to relax and disconnect from the work at hand. We have determined that we all have different reasons to procrastinate, and we also do that in different ways. What remains constant is that we all tend to feel guilty and stressed out by engaging in these distractions. This is why it's important to allow set times to disconnect and enjoy activities that bring us joy without having that guilt loom over heads. Likewise, be sure to reward yourself for completing your projects or tasks, the cool years to see yourself succeed. And the way to accomplish that is to set yourself up for success in multiple ways. Take note of your deadlines. It goes without saying that this is a crucial step in maximizing your productivity and in eliminating the risk of procrastination. So it's time to take the calendar out and right down deadlines for the different tasks related to a project that you're trying to accomplish once you've broken it down in different goals, and this is a great way to keep yourself accountable. I person like the set a personal deadline of a day sooner than an actual projects due date , and this little tip has worked on numerous occasions, and it's provided that cushion that I needed to review my work on that last day. Stress free now, depending on your workload and the industry you work in this may or may not be possible. So keep that in mind and allow yourself to be flexible. Creating deadlines also pushes you to block time periods during your day and week when you will work specifically on those tasks in order to meet your deadlines. Now keep in mind that demanding tasks or projects will require more time than we first anticipate. And this is another. One of those biological limitations we have as humans is that we tend to underestimate the length of demanding tasks, which is why I allow that extra day when I set up, then lines to tie up loose ends 10. When Procrastination is a Larger Issue: in this section. I want to talk about the possibility that you've listened to this class. You identified your causes. You've put into practice some of the suggestions that I made and increasing your productivity. But you notice that you still cannot get a grip on procrastination and you still can't handle dealing with distractions. And your productivity is suffering. I want to tell you that it's nothing to be ashamed off. It just means you might need to get in touch with a life coach or a psychologist that will provide you with some one on one help to get you back into a productive mode. I feel compelled to mention that's perhaps because of my background in psychology. But if it can help at least one person, then it was worth mentioning. Now, some of the common methods that are used in such settings include cognitive behavioral therapy and Conquer Be Hero Therapy, or CBT, is a problem focused and action oriented form of therapy, meaning it's used to treat specific problems. And there's some studies that suggest that CBT might be ineffective treatment for those that struggle with severe procrastination, and that a group format may be better for some to sustain the benefits over time. So it is important to know that procrastination has been found to be negatively related to examination scores and grades and positively related to symptoms of stress, depression, visits, the medical professional course withdrawals and course failure. So it's something to keep in mind and do seek help if you feel like you cannot get a grip on procrastination. 11. Summary and Conclusion: we made it were at the end of the class. So let's try to take all this information and summarize it in some cohesive way. Us. You can get right to being productive. So we began by talking about how the causes for procrastination very greatly from person to person, but that most require a change of mindset in order to overcome. Then we talked about identifying your reasons for procrastination as the first step in building a plan of attack. We talked about regaining control and setting small, moderately difficult goals, as well as identifying your vices in creating a path of resistance against them. And then we spent quite a bit of time discussing how one can eliminate distractions in their environment in order to prime that environment for productivity. And one of the number one things we talked about was blocking your notifications and setting specific time to check those notifications as opposed to having them disturb or interrupt your workflow. We then talked about sharing your progress and intentions with others, your significant other, your friends or co workers. Also, we talked about setting specific times for highly distracting tasks such as reading and answering emails and returning phone calls because the time that we spent engaging in those distractions will also be time taken away from our concentration. In order to achieve that, we talked about time blocking tasks in 30 60 90 minute blocks, whatever works for you and also including specific times for breaks which are very important in order to engage in those vices that you like to engage in. We also prioritized that hardest tasks should be tackled 1st 1st thing in the morning, ideally, but that throughout the day we should also have mindless tasks as part of our daily schedule because they allow our brain to just take a little break without becoming distracted. And so all these culminate into would we call setting yourself up for success. But we also talked about creating an engaging work environment or one that is prime for productivity. And lastly, and very importantly, we want to take note over deadlines, and writing these down is very important. As you break down your tasks into smaller, manageable goals. You want to put in deadlines for each one of those goals because that will create motivation to keep going when things get a little tough. So I hope you've enjoyed this class and can take away some information that you can benefit from or that you can implement into your work routine. So thank you again for watching, and I'll leave you with a class project. 12. Class Project: I hope you feel a little more confident now in handling procrastination as it arises now that you're armed with an extensive toolkit of strategies in dealing with it. So for the class project anchored you to post a picture of a creative way that you found in order to create a path of resistance against one of your biggest vices and share that with the rest of us. I think this should be as fun and creative as possible. And if we can just help one another change your default setting from a destruction mode to a productive one, that would be great. So I can't wait to see what you guys have to show.