How To Stop Procrastinating
In this blog post, I want to go over my favorite section of the book Atomic Habits where James Clear goes over the 3rd Law of Change: Make it Easy.
The reason I love this section of the book is because the main problem that I face in my own life is finding useful tactics that I can actually implement.
So I just wanted to share these principles because I think they are very applicable to other people as well.
One of the things that I noticed when I was studying in pharmacy school was that I constantly had a problem with a concept I called “Study Inertia”. This basically means that my biggest problem was in those first few moments when I was deciding that I needed to study. Once I started to study the habit took care of itself.
So this was a major problem that usually happened whenever I took a major test and wanted to relax because once I felt comfortable it was hard to force myself to really study again. So I had to start creating tactics that allowed me to work a couple of minutes and then the rest of the habit would take care of itself.
Here are the concepts from the book that I internalized and implemented:
Focus on quantity over quality. Over time the quantity will improve the quality.
This is how I came up with my tactic of studying intensely for a minimum of 2-3 hours per day.
“When preparation becomes a form of procrastination you need to create a system of repetition that does not focus on perfection.”
“The most effective form of learning is practice, not planning.”
The Law of Least Effort: We naturally gravitate to the option that requires the least amount of work. Instead of trying to overcome the friction in your life, you can reduce it.
Prime the Environment for Future Use: Think how can you make bad habits invisible and good habits more convenient.
Example of making a bad habit invisible: Put your phone in a time locking container for 1 hour
Example of making a good habit convenient: Clean desk and only leave materials needed to do work.
2- Minute Rule: Scale your habits down into a 2-minute version
Instead of having the mindset of studying pharmacology scale down to going over 10 flashcards of pharmacology.
“It’s better to do less than you hoped than to do nothing at all. The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.”
