hey I'm Dan Willingham I'm a professor who studies human learning here with a video about dealing with procrastination my last video I talked about the advantages of planning school work by time instead of by task the message was that Planning by time makes it easier to keep up with your work here I want to point out it also helps with procrastination now procrastination happens when you decide I'm not going to do my schoolwork now I'm going to do something else first I'm going to react to my friends b-reels or laundry or whatever it is because
procrastination is a decision it's natural to think that what you need to do is make better decisions but that's not it the better way to deal with it is by removing the decision altogether think about anything you do that's a habit like brushing your teeth you don't decide each night to brush your teeth when you're getting ready for bed you just kind of find yourself brushing them no decision made so how do you make a daily work session a habit like brushing your teeth three things first because you're planning a block of work time it's
natural to think of scheduling it for a time of day but habits aren't triggered by a time on the clock they're triggered by something in the environment or something you do for me the habit of Shaving is triggered by finishing my shower not because it's 7 A.M so think of something that's already part of your daily routine that's going to be the trigger for your work session I eat supper I help clean the kitchen then I work not I work from Seven till nine now ideally it'll be the same trigger every day but if you're
schedule varies you can have different Triggers on different days it may take a little longer for the Habit to develop if your schedule is very inconsistent from day to day you make a habit of picking your work time maybe the very first thing you do when you pick up your phone in the morning is figure out what schedule makes sense today for my work session second thing to think about plan for challenges you want to think now about what might prevent you from completing your work session what if you're about to start in your favorite
content creator post something amazing don't just say well that shouldn't interrupt my studying be more realistic you've got this other thing you want to do what's your plan for doing it and getting your work done too you don't want to have to come up with that plan in the moment third thing to think about you know that developing a habit means doing it every day and you should feel good about it if you do but don't think in terms of streaks the problem with streaks is that they inevitably end and then it feels like you're
starting all over again but you're not because it was never about the streak it was about getting your work done and you know what there are days you should skip if you're at dinner with your boyfriend celebrating his birthday and you're peaking at the time thinking about your study streak you need to rethink your priorities study most days take breaks
