Focus Skill Level 2:

Terminate procrastination

Power up the most well researched psychological technique with tech augmentation.

Procrastination corners us into tight spots.

Wastes away our time, opportunities, and then leaves us with regret.

We have all experienced how corrosive it is.

However, it is our very human nature to avoid pain and frustration and to seek out pleasure.

The quicker the gratification, the better it is.

Not only that, when actions become knee-jerk, we don’t even think before doing them.

It almost seems as if our conscious will is offline, and as if our meagre self-control is too feeble to do anything other than letting us be carried off by a stream of consciousness.

While this might sound like a description of procrastination, it perfectly describes psychological flow - our peak mental performance.

The same human nature, emotion, desire, habit can be bent to our will, or erode our self-control in almost no time, and lead us into self-sabotaging.

So why fight against our human nature, and not use it to our advantage instead?

Emotion, desire, habit and self-control are pseudonyms for 4 brain abstract networks that neuroscientists have deciphered in recent decades.

And we are going to exploit these recently developed knowledge: “mental contrast with implementation intention” - a simple step that is proven not only to improve academic performance, but also to reduce procrastination.

The logic is pretty simple, our mental imprint of ideas, such as consequences to actions are usually in a fuzzy liquid form.

Using mental contrast would help us solidify this mental imprint, together with the emotion and desire pertaining to it, to make the decision to stop procrastination or not.

This simple step of solidifying the idea (quitting procrastinating) and an emotion (fear of regret), and a desire (craving for catharsis), put our human nature as the weapon of our choice, instead of the hurdle we need to overcome.

When the notion of the consequences of our action are in a fuzzy liquid form, it is human nature to lean toward immediate gratification.

However once emotion and desire for consequences solidify with this simple step of mental contrasting, we work human nature in our favor.

Not only that, when used together with implementation intention in a sequence, it works habit in our favor, helping us solidify notions to break the inertia and get the ball rolling to start work.

Every time we repeat this particular sequence, it gets more into our habit until it becomes intuitive.

Invest in yourself.

Practice and get this skill into your knee-jerk.

Objective

Practice the following “If-Then” and build this Level 2 Focus Skill into your knee-jerk in 66 days, the natural habit formation lifecycle.

A: you feel that you are procrastinative, or
B: you receive a distraction streak, or
C: you receive warning on risk of Procrastinative Loop.

THEN

Step 1: do an Anti-procrastination Self-talk.
Step 2: do a 10-min Level 2 Biofeedback Training.

If A: you feel that you are procrastinative.

The feeling of procrastination is the direct opposite of feeling in control while doing things, like making your favorite breakfast, you don’t need to think about what you should do, you just do it.

This typically happens when you anticipate effort, negative emotions or even pain. For example, starting a long and difficult task, working on something you find emotionally toilsome or are struggling with. At times, even the thought of the problem is enough to cause frustration.

This feeling of procrastination means that you not only actively avoid thinking about the problem, and are happy to be distracted, you may even proactively seek out distractions to help forget the problem at hand. For example, you might start to read irrelevant news, catch up on social media or even start to daydream, doing whatever helps you delay getting started.

What essentially happens, is “reason is the slave of the passions”. Your desire and emotion make the decisions for you, and then you rationalize afterwards. So even if you think “I have to finish up this trivial task first, to get it out of the way” or “I need to read this news to stay in the loop” sound like rational decisions, actually they are not. They are merely a reflection of priorities decided by your desire and emotion.

In contrast, when you are not in a procrastinative state, both your desire and emotion want to get the task at hand done, and you would no longer rationalize the delay, but rather see distractions as obstacles that prevent you from finishing the task. You know what you are doing, and you feel in control.

If B: you receive a distraction streak.

In FOCI, you can tell you are in this procrastinative state, when you start to form distracted streaks. This is because your focus is offline, and you are likely to have been carried away by distractions for quite some time.

Figure 1. You can tell that you are in a procrastinative state, when you start to form distracted streaks. This Deep Work Session Report shows Amy was in a procrastinative state for the first half of the 30 min session.

If C: you receive warning on risk of Procrastinative Loop.

In FOCI, you can tell you are in this procrastinative state, when you receive advance warning on the risk of Procrastinative Loop. Risk evaluation from Negative Emotion Analytics is in the orange or red region.

Figure 2. You can tell that you are in a procrastinative state, when you receive warning on risk of Procrastinative Loop either in the orange or red region.

Then Step 1: do an Anti-procrastination Self-talk.

At the prompt of the cue keywords below, recall the relevant memories and the associated desire and emotion. The purpose of this self-talk is to construct cues to help you remember and elicit the memories, desires and emotions to work human nature to our favor.

There are two types of self-talk, the first one is easier to start with. If there are parts that are uncomfortable to you, you can omit them until you feel more comfortable with them.

The second self-talk is only good when you have good grasp of all four cues. When you have become very good with this skill, all you need is a simple trigger to prompt yourself, to get back to form.

Self-talk 1

(Your name),
You know you hate procrastinating.
It is toxic.
And you don’t deserve it.

Because in the end, you lose not just time, but the chance, the freedom to choose what you really want to do ^{Cue 1} .

It happened to you before.
Regrets ^{Cue 2} , losses, and it might happen again this very moment, cornering you, into an unsettling future ^{Cue 3} you don’t even dare to think.

But now, this moment, this chance, is in your hand.

Because every time you beat your worst self, you get better at it.
Because it is difficult, and not anyone can do it.
But you can do this ^{Cue 4} .
Because you’re (your name).

Self-talk 2

I know what I want ^{Cue 1} .

I don’t want my life to fill with regrets ^{Cue 2} , and no future ^{Cue 3} .

I can do this ^{Cue 4} .

Because, I can.

Cue 1

Remind yourself of the goal that you are working towards. For example, the pride of doing well in the exam, getting a promotion, providing security to your family or yourself.

Cue 2

Remind yourself of regrets of procrastinating. For example, the embarrassment of missing a deadline, producing sloppy work, wasting time.

Cue 3

Remind yourself of an uncertain future that you would not want. For example, the fear of failing an exam, the rejection from admission into particular schools, or job.

Cue 4

Remind yourself of the achievements that you are proud of. For example, winning a competition, organizing a successful event, acquiring a new skill.

Self-talk makes use of psychological commitment and consistency, and would create cognitive dissonance - an unpleasant feeling, if the self-talk is inconsistent with your subconscious decision to pinch fear or bad memories in order to make yourself feel better.

The process of unpinching these memories is emotionally painful and challenging at the same time, however, the benefit is huge. You can use these memories to gather emotional strength, to make decisions that would otherwise be too hard to make.

The often misconstrued “iron will”, is in fact not self-control, as our brain’s executive control is very limited biologically. Because of that, “motivation” is often disappointing. That is, it was. Now, “motivation” can be whatever you want, if you master the skill of eliciting the right memory and associated emotion and desire. This skill of consciously manipulating your own motivation can give you an “iron will’.

Then Step 2: do a 10-min Level 2 Biofeedback Training.

Level 2 Biofeedback Training helps you find self-control to bring procrastination impulses under control.

Get the feel for controlling the ripples. With a good mastery (80%) of level 1 training reflex, you would need 30 seconds to grasp its oscillatory motion and turn it golden. The ripples would start to converge when you achieve 80% control, and fully converge when you manage to sustain 10 minutes in this state of control.

Figure 3. Sustain Focus Depth of more than 80% for ripples to converge, and reduce your procrastination impulses with this Biofeedback Training.

To find the intuition of self-control, let the biofeedback metric’s value guide you while you:

1) Deliberately relax your body every time you breathe in.

2) Try to feel as much bodily sensation as you can, as you breathe out every time.

Repeat these two steps.

It is important to use Focus Breathing Technique with the guidance from inhale and exhale beat.

Figure 4. Focus Breathing Technique: Breathe in twice with one beat, and breathe out once with one beat.

Summary

IF

A: you feel that you are procrastinative, or
B: you receive a distraction streak, or
C: you receive warning on risk of Procrastinative Loop.