Precommit to Action

Hi,

We often procrastinate despite our best intentions, but one thing that can help is to make good use of our intentions while they’re fresh.

To do this, precommit to taking action early on, before it’s time to get started on your work, by making it harder to procrastinate later. As an example, if your issue is that you keep getting distracted by your phone while you should be working on a task, you could:

• Eliminate temptations, for example by leaving your phone in a different room.

• Make temptations more inconvenient, for example by turning off the internet on your phone.

• Make temptations more unpleasant, for example by putting a timer on your phone that makes an annoying alarm go off once your scheduled break is over.

• Associate negative consequences with temptations, for example by betting your partner that you’ll do extra chores if you touch your phone in the next hour.

I hope you’ll find this helpful.

Have a great week,
Itamar