I know I should study and also clean the room but I'm tired now so let me just take a short nap and then I will do it it's only afternoon I still have time until tonight this is the last slice of cake starting tomorrow no more sweets after all nothing is going to happen with one slice H this task is quite big today I'm already tired so let me first read the emails tomorrow when I'm fresh I will get to it these are just a few of the examples of how I used to procrastinate if
you are a master procrastinator like I used to be then I'm sure some of them sounded familiar to you but no worries because today I'm going to summarize a book called the end of procrastination by Peter Ludwig and Adella shiker I have five takeaways from the book that I personally found useful so let's get started with the first one lesson number one training your emotional elephant the author says that every single one of us is made up of two creatures the wild elephant and the rider the elephant is a symbol of our emotions and the
writer of our rationality the size difference between the writer and the Elephant symbols the inequality between the rational neocortex in the emotional lyic system to put it simply the elephant is the reason why instead of studying or working you're watching this video right now to stop procrastinating our rational selves in other words our Rider needs to train the elephant to behave the way we want only when the riter and elephant are both on the same page then we are doing what we're supposed to do the key to self-regulation is something called the cognitive resource you
can imagine the cognitive resource is a glass full of water from which the riter is drinking in order to have the energy to tame the elephant but once the glass is empty and the rider goes out of energy the elephant starts behaving exactly the way we do not want to he starts watching the TV scrolling on Instagram or smoking the elephant starts to procrastinate the good news is that we can refill the glass with water throughout the day and also expand the capacity of the glass over time so how do you refill the glass and
restore the writer's energy the author says that cognitive energy is in direct correlation with glucose and overall having sugars in our blood so for example eating an apple or drinking orange juice for a snack can help the rider with proper elephant coaching or another way that the author recommends is to do easy manual labor that will help us to refill the glass with water something like having a 5-minute walk outside can help our Rider a lot it's also necessary to refill the glass on a regular basis and not only when you feel like burning out
or wanting to start watching Netflix and how does one increase the capacity of the glass it has been proven that increasing our willpower is basically the same as growing muscles you have to regularly train it you can't go to the gym for a few weeks and then expect to have a six-pack in the same way if you're having a hard time sticking to your New Year's goals it's because your cognitive energy resource does not yet have the capacity to withstand all the big resolutions you have set the main reason we start to procrastinate is that
our goal is too big so when the elephant sees the barrier he gets emotionally paralyzed and rather procrastinates then tries the author says that one of his colleagues was able to run a 111 km long ultra marathon but just a few years back he was not even running how did he manage to do that just by starting with small steps and gradually adding the load as he improved this helped the elephant to overcome the initial emotional aversion the recommended strategy is to reduce the initial barrier as much as possible and then repeat it 20 to
30 times before increasing the workload for example if your goal is to start exercising and lose that extra fat then the first 20 to 30 days should be very light training such as doing a few push-ups a day walking or doing some body weight exercises for 5 minutes I've seen people starting very aggressively and then giving up completely after a few weeks because they scared the elephant I almost hear you saying 5 minute exercise for 30 days is nothing people I see on Instagram lose 3 to 4 kilos in 30 days I'm sorry to say
this but if you take those people as an example you'll probably fail in the beginning the goal is not to lose fat but the goal is to train the elephant not to get scared of exercising your goal is to learn how to walk without knowing how to walk there is no way that you will be able to run so the solution is to get over the emotional barrier no matter how small the first step is the author says that when he decided to write this book he promised himself to write just two paragraphs per day
of course he knew that with this pace the book would be finished in a couple of years but it was the initial and most crucial step to get him over the emotional aversion once he got used to it in a couple of days he started to slowly increase the workload since the emotional barrier was not there anymore if he said to himself that he wanted to write a few chapters a day then there's a high chance you would not be watching this video right now lesson number two how to keep your habits for the long
run vacation or being sick is one of those situations that can test our willpower and even break our habits therefore it is necessary to know what to do in order to get back on track as soon as possible imagine you are going to the gym on a regular basis and then you get sick for 2 weeks so you miss a few workouts and as soon as you are healthy you just rush to the gym and want to get back on track right now but this is where the problem comes in your inner elephant got a
bit lazy over the course of the last two weeks so when you try to do the same workout as before your illness he will probably get scared and start to misbehave which will lead you to not continue with your workout routine the solution is quite simple just start as if you were a beginner maybe a few push-ups and ab crunches could be enough for the first workout I'm sure a lot of you are saying right now well I don't see the point in doing a few push-ups I used to lift heavy weights before my illness
I totally understand you it might feel quite demotivating to feel like a beginner starting out but you know what will be even more demotivating trying to get back to the same routine the first day and finding out you actually can't make it this time is not necessary to repeat it 20 to 30 times until you get back on track but keep in mind that rushing it won't help you lesson number three how to break bad habits and leave them for good to break a habit we can use the same strategy we use for learning a
habit Just In Reverse the author says that one of his clients used to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes per day he previously tried to break this bad habit but failed every time so now he did it differently he tried to slowly decrease the number of cigarettes smoked per day but again slowly not to scare the elephant for the first month he set himself a limit of one pack per day this was not a big deal so he got used to it quite quickly after 20 days he started to decrease the number even
more in the second month he got from 20 cigarettes to only 10 during the third month he moved from 10 cigarettes per day to zero Yes you heard right to zero cigarettes per day in just 3 months and now it's been a few years and his client is still a successful non-smoker and how to keep yourself from returning to your old bad habits once you break them the author says that we should intentionally put big barriers in the way that will discourage us from getting back to our old habits let's say your bad habit is
spending too much time on Instagram if that's the case simply uninstall the app from your phone so the next time you want to check it you would have to download it first which will probably leave Le to actually not doing it at all lesson number four too today the author says he used to work with a client who was burned out in his job as a Project Director the reason for his burnout was having too many tasks and too little time for working on them by the time he finished one task two new tasks came
in he felt like he was pushing a snowball in front of himself that was constantly getting bigger and was scared that one day the snowball would just crush him so we sat down with the author and created a to-do today list to help him with his daily tasks to create your to-do today list focus on the following steps one place your daily tasks randomly on a blank paper the reason why traditional to-do lists do not work is that as soon as we see the long list of tasks our elephant gets scared and a verion kicks
in so we then rather just don't do anything two name your tasks precisely by naming your tasks precisely you can imagine them better and it will decrease the aversion to the unknown for example calling mechanic sounds better than just mechanic three divide bigger tasks and merge smaller ones every task should take you somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes if you have a more difficult task for example writing a book then divide it into smaller ones long and hard tasks scare your elephant and that's why you procrastinate on the other hand smaller tasks can be merged
into one for example calling the car service and responding to emails can be done in one session four color code the priorities use a red color for the tasks with the highest priority a blue color for those with medium priority and a green color for the lowest priority tasks five determine the path across your day connect the tasks with arrows based on the way which suits you the best to do them the author recommends starting the day with the hardest tasks since your cognitive energy source is at its highest level also don't just place four
hard tasks one after another switch it up and make sure you take on some easier tasks after the difficult ones six estimate the times try to roughly estimate the time when you will be doing each task throughout the day from the beginning it won't be that precise but the more you do it the more accurate you will be seven focus on one task only as soon as you start doing one task keep the maximum focus on this one thing and do not get distracted mute your notifications or completely turn off your phone and ask your
colleagues not to distract you this will keep you in the Flow State and the work will be done quicker and more precisely eight learn to end the task after finishing each task cross it off your list in Black most people have a problem not only with starting a task but also with actually ending it nine refill your cognitive Energy Resource as we discussed previously you need to fill the glass with water for your Rider so your elephant does not misbehave simply create a small break between each task to regain some energy to put it simply
don't rest when you get tired rest before you get tired the harder the task the longer The Brak should be but don't overdo it it if you have done something more creative then take a break and do something manual and vice versa 10 make your to-do today list a habit ideally you want to prepare your to-do list every evening for the following day this will give you a Clear Vision of what the next day will look like this will also improve your sleep as you won't have to think about the things that you need to
do tomorrow you will get your thoughts on paper and sleep like a baby if you can't prepare it in the evening then do it early in the morning lesson five finding the right motivation at the beginning of the book the author talks about his trip to Denmark where he spent some time in a company called noo Nordisk which is the leader in insulin production right after his arrival he noticed a lot of high motivated employees across all positions ranging from drug developers to the cleaning lady since it was a pharmaceutical company the author first thought
that maybe they were adding something to the drinks for the employees in order to keep them so happy but after some time in the company he realized that the answer was much simpler the employees were just motivated in the right way Peter describes three types of motivations from which only one really works for us long term motivation Number One external motivation with sugar and whip this motivation is based on a system of rewards and punishments it can be seen for example in schools if you will learn well then you will get an A and praise
from the teacher the so-called sugar if you don't learn you'll get an F known as the whip unfortunately with external motivation humans are unsatisfied in a low amount of dop doine is released because of that the person is not creative and it's hard for them to learn a person's negative emotions are socially contagious and what's more after the sugar or whip disappears you're not motivated to continue with whatever you were doing this is the reason why most people stop learning in their life after they finish school there's just no one to reward or punish them
for their knowledge motivation based on external Rewards or punishments is working only shortterm and from the long-term perspective such external stimulators are deep demotivating unproductive and make the person procrastinate motivation number two inner motivation based on a goal this type of motivation usually results in the same feeling you experience when you buy a new car or phone you're really happy about it for a few days maybe even weeks and then it's just another toy for you this is what we call the hedonic adaptation the motivation and joy disappear and you set a new goal in
order to experience the feeling of Joy again the author says that this type of motivation is really similar to the experience of a drug addict a drug addict always looks forward to the next dose but after he takes it he dreams about the next one and the next one don't get me wrong wanting to achieve something and having goals is really good in all areas of your life but it can't be the sole motivator and the reason you are doing things because the only moment you really feel happy is when you get to the goal
and achieve it you don't feel happy before having the dream car because you still think you are missing something and you also don't feel happy after getting it since the dopamine runs out fast now you might be asking if having more money can make you happier well it turns out that money can make your life happier but only to a certain point just look at this graph on the screen money can make you feel happier but only to the point where it helps you and your family to secure the basic needs for your well-being from
this point on more money does not affect satisfaction motivation number three inner motivation based on the path so what was the magical substance employees in Novo Nordisk were getting in their drinks well it turned out that the reason behind the high motivation of nearly every employee was caused by a strong company Vision everyone working there could connect their job with something important they really saw and felt that they were making better lives for people with diabetes this type of motivation is called intrinsic Journey based motivation instead of focusing on goals you concentrate on the activities
when you do the activities you want to achieve a state of flow when you are on Flow your brain constantly releases more dopamine resulting in higher levels of creativity and more effective learning abilities which help you now reach Mastery you're also experiencing happiness now and more often now you might be saying yes this is all nice but I'm not working in a pharmaceutical company and I just want to know how I can keep my New Year's resolution of burning more calories and losing weight for example a lot of people want to start running every day
and they promised themselves to buy new shoes if they could keep doing it for just the first month but right now we know what happens after they keep running for one month and buy the shoes as a reward right their motivation will be lost after 2 days of buying their new shoes and if they don't set a new goal they will probably stop running and even if they decide to make a new goal we already know their motivation will be lower and lower with every goal and their chances of keeping their resolutions going are very
slim so what is the solution well the solution is to find an activity that you enjoy doing which will also help you to burn more calories for example joining your local football club or joining some boxing club might be a good idea you will still burn plenty of calories and there's a high probability that you will enjoy just doing the sport without any rewards in the book there are multiple tools that can help you to find your intrinsic motivation and be in a state of flow one of the tools is a personal SWAT analysis it's
an acronym from English that stands for strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats although knowing these four things about us is one of the most important pieces of information we can have not many people possess it the author says he used to have an accountant that completely lost his Company accounting documentation for the last 3 years he wasn't a bad person nor did he want to hurt the company but he didn't possess the strength an accountant should have the knowledge about your strengths should guide you when picking the right school job or even a partner so take
a piece of paper and divide it by two lines into four equally big squares first fill the two squares on top in the top left Square put your strengths and in the right Square fill in your weaknesses make sure you have at least 10 personal traits in both squares the second step is to fill opportunities in the lower left square and threats in the last Square let's examine each category in detail strength you should spend most of your time doing the activities that fall under this category what about the weaknesses well you're better off if
you can avoid them the author suggests spending only 20% of your time on improving your weaknesses and 80% on improving your strengths I personally try to avoid improving my weaknesses as much as I can if the weakness is something that I can Outsource to someone else very easily then for me there's no point in improving it let us move on to Opportunities by thinking about the opportunities you have in life you can discover the possibilities the world can offer you it's very important to pick out only key opportunities and slam the door in the face
of others for example imagine someone who thinks daily about whether to move to New Zealand change jobs or find a new partner this will repetitively drain his energy analyzing threats is important as a preventative measure you should always think about the obstacles life might throw at you often people discover that no significant threats face them this discovery helps relax worries and eliminate the fear of the future and gives a greater feeling of assurance you will experience the most amount of satisfaction and achieve a state of flow if the things you do fall under the strength
and opportunities category thanks for watching
