by David Parker
In time, you’ll see an improvement in your ability to handle chores, no matter how unpleasant they may be, or may have been in the past. Overcoming procrastination means living life on life’s terms, and that means dealing with one task at a time—to the best of present capability. In time, you’ll be amazed at your success. Just give yourself the willingness to go through the process.
Don’t create an overly long “to-do” list.
You may feel a certain temptation to walk around your living space with your notebook in hand, writing down every little task that you see. However, be cautious. We procrastinators are great at making “to-do” lists: I know, because I used to have several “to-do” lists perched on my kitchen table at any given time. However, the principle of The J.O.T. Method™ isn’t to see how many tasks you can write down; it’s actually to deal with each task immediately after having jotted it down.
The trick is to only give yourself one task to “do”—remember, the letters J.O.T. stand for “just one task.” So if things haven’t gone well for you, throw out your current J.O.T. list, and start writing a new one. You can even make your new list’s first task: “T/O old J.O.T. list.” Then toss your old list in the trash, and put a line through that first task to make it look like this: “T/O old J.O.T. list.” Then, continue on with your new list.
Never put a line through a task unless the action has been completed.
I developed The J.O.T. Method™ as a way of dealing with my own habitual procrastination, and as I used the technique, I soon discovered that if I strayed from its simplicity, I got into trouble using it. For example, there were times when I jotted down a very minor task, and since I wanted to save time, I’d put a line through that task the moment after I’d written it. Unfortunately, doing that has the unintentional side-effect of sabotaging the method because even if a task seems insignificant, accomplishing it and then rewarding yourself by putting that line through it afterwards is enormously important to us, because that line formally and properly draws a conclusion to that task. And it’s a conclusion that we can look back upon again and again.
Moreover, it’s crucial to focus at first on the simplest tasks that you can find, because in all probability, the easier the task, the quicker it will get done. However, what I’ve found from my own experience is that after having accomplished fifteen or more relatively simple tasks, I would occasionally grow overconfident, and begin writing tasks with the completion line already through them before I had actually dealt with them. After a little while longer, I’d look at my list and see something like twenty completed tasks, and I’d feel confused and I’d start making negative self-statements, like: “Which one’s haven’t I done? Why haven’t I done these yet? I’ve screwed up somehow. I’ve got so much to get done! I’m such an idiot!”
What we don’t want is for you to become overwhelmed, which is exactly what happened to me. Instead, we need to approach each and every task as an individual item, and that means finding a task that needs “do”-ing, writing it down on your J.O.T. list, accomplishing the task, and then, and only then, putting a line through that entry.
Always do a complete action.
Whenever you engage in a task that you’ve written on your J.O.T. list, always make certain that the task is “do”-able as you’ve written it. If the task doesn’t seem “do”-able, then stop for a moment, rethink it, and re-write it if you need to, following the directions that appear in Chapter 11 in the section entitled “How to Rewrite a Task.”
Always draw a line through a task after it has been completed.
There may be times when you won’t feel like putting a line through a task on your J.O.T. list that you’ve just completed. This may happen because you felt like you were on a roll, so you plunged right into your next task. This often occurs when the tasks that you are doing are very simple in nature, like getting rid of things that you know have little value, such as expired coupons and unsolicited junk mail.
However, there are good reasons for following The J.O.T. Method™ and one of them is to develop the rhythm of “do”-ing. This is because after you’ve used the method numerous times, you won’t need to think to yourself, “What do I do now?” or, “What do I do next?”
As previously mentioned, many habitual procrastinators become overwhelmed by their tasks quite easily. In fact, many need only think of the tasks that await them, and they may feel panicky. That, in turn, can result in producing a feeling of panic within you, which may make you feel like giving up on pursuing your tasks. After all, one of the prime reasons why many of us have become habitual procrastinators is because when we feel that panic, we take that feeling as if it were a signal from our bodies telling us to stay away from the things that upset us. So, the last thing we want to do is to set off a false alarm in our faulty nervous systems. Luckily, the best way to avoid doing that is easy: all you need to do is follow along with The J.O.T. Method™ step-by-step, keeping on track with each task from the moment that you’ve jotted it down in your notebook, until you’ve drawn a line through it upon its completion.
Remember too that every time you draw a line through a task, you’re silently telling yourself, “Yes! I did it!” This will give you a sense of accomplishment each and every time you draw a line through a completed task. You might say that “do”-ing and then putting a line through the corresponding task is like killing two birds with one stone, because you’ve completed a task, which is fantastic, and you’re rewarding yourself for a well-done endeavor. Don’t deny yourself that reward: stop all activity for a moment, look at the task that you’ve just completed, draw that line, and feel good about what you’ve done.
If you consistently use The J.O.T. Method™ as suggested, you will have consistent results. So force yourself to keep to The J.O.T. Method’s simple formula for overcoming habitual procrastination.
Do not be concerned over how long a task may take.
Even the simplest task that can no longer be broken down into smaller steps will sometimes take longer than expected. In addition, we may sometimes be resistant to dealing with a particular task: for more on this, return to the section, “Many Procrastinators Feel Frustrated When They Return To An Abandoned Task,” which is featured in Chapter Four.
Needless to say, the best course of action to take—is to take action. Allow a task to have its way with time. If a task is taking longer than you had planned, do as much as you can do and then transfer the remainder to your next day’s J.O.T. list. Don’t see this as a setback—instead, see it as a fallback, because you now have something to “do” tomorrow.
Then, when tomorrow arrives, you won’t need to worry, “What should I take care of first?” All you’ll need to do is to look at your J.O.T. list and you’ll have the answer.
When life happens.
Life sometimes gets in the way of even the best non-procrastinator; that’s just the way life is. However, although events may cause you to detour from your plans, it’s comforting to know that if you’re forced to veer off track for a few hours or even for a few days, you can always refer back to your J.O.T. list, which is your roadmap.
I recall a great piece of advice a friend once gave me, “Plan your work—and work your plan.” I still follow that advice to this day.
Lastly, here’s a table that contains a comparison of two different scenarios. Which scenario do you prefer?
How Can You Expect To Feel Good? Why Wouldn’t You Feel Great?
You didn’t complete any tasks for yourself last night after you came home from work, where you “do” for others.
Last night after coming home from work where you “do” for others, you got a few chores out of the way. Now you’ll have more free time over the weekend.
You stayed up far too late last night, which made you feel like you’re not in charge of your own life.
You got to bed at a reasonable hour last night, because the tasks you completed during the evening made you feel like you had earned a pleasant night’s rest.
You woke up late this morning, which also made you feel like you weren’t in control of your life.
This morning, you awakened a few minutes before your alarm clock was set to ring. You felt calm after a satisfying night’s rest.
You didn’t complete any tasks for yourself before going to work, where you “do” for others. As a result, you felt like you didn’t serve any purpose, other than “do”-ing for others.
Before heading off to work, you took care of some light housekeeping chores because you felt like “do”-ing for yourself before “do”-ing for others at work. It’s just as well, because you like the feeling of coming back to a tidy home after a day of work.
You didn’t exercise today, which made you feel tired and sluggish. In fact, you had such an overall downer of a day; you didn’t feel like you had enough energy to exercise.
After work, you dropped in at the health club, pumped a bit of iron, and ran a couple of miles on a treadmill, just to get your blood flowing. You feel great.
You feel drawn out and would like to crawl under a rock, if only you could. So then, how’s tomorrow looking to you?
You feel warm, strong, and satisfied. So then, how’s tomorrow looking to you?
In short, the scenario that you find yourself in tomorrow will be based on the decisions that you make today.
Chapter Thirteen
Advanced Techniques for Overcoming Procrastination
I AM OCCASIONALLY ASKED WHETHER I ever engage in procrastination? It’s only fair that I get asked that, and the answer to it is—only on the rarest occasions. You see, I’ve now become so used to taking care of my responsibilities that to deliberately delay acting upon a task would be to go against my newfound nature.
However, there’s another reason of even greater importance that makes it quite difficult for me to evade my tasks, and that’s because of the connection that I’ve found between procrastination and depression. I have learned through first hand experience that the decisions I make today—determine how I will feel tomorrow. It seems that no matter which angle that I look at this from, it always holds true. As long as I place my concern today, for how I’ll feel tomorrow, I know that I will act accordingly. After all, if I put a task off by finding a distraction, I’m still going to have to face that task tomorrow, when I’ll again need to make a decision on whether to deal with it, or to avoid it once more.
In the past, I thought I was putting off my tasks for another day, a day when I’d feel more up to them. Today, I know differently. I’m now aware that if I deliberately put off a task today, I’ll not only be less likely to deal with it tomorrow, but I’ll also feel poorer for that decision. And, if I continue putting that task off, I’ll soon begin wondering if I’m less capable, or less than, other adults. Today, thankfully, I know I wouldn’t want to put myself in a bind like that again. Been there, done that.
So, while I could procrastinate if I really wanted to, it simply wouldn’t justify all of the sadness, anxiety, low self-esteem, negative self-talk, and loss of energy from depression that I’d go through the following day, or longer. And that’s too high a price to pay for what was otherwise supposed to have been an act of pressure relief.
Life Today
The way I live today is remarkably different from the way I lived in the past. For example, upon returning home after withdrawing money from an automatic teller machine, there’s a positive force that’s present in my life that makes me remove the transaction slip from my wallet which prevents me from carrying it around for several days while my checkbook remains unbalanced. While I might not enter the transaction into my checkbook the very minute I arrive home, that positive force simply will not allow that transaction slip to linger on my kitchen table in the same way that I once would have allowed it to. That force is the force of positive habits, which has replaced the force of negative habits, which had pretty much ruled and determined my existence.
The same is true concerning other household chores. Dishes and silverware no longer accumulate in my sink—not because I’ve become overly fastidious about cleanliness, but because I’ve developed the positive habit of washing the utensils I used to prepare my meal, either while the food was still cooking, or just before I sat down to eat. And, after I’ve finished eating, it no longer seems to make sense to leave dirty dishes in the sink without first washing them. That doesn’t mean that I’ve become a perfectionist, far from it, because I will leave dirty dishes in the sink if I don’t have any other options; for example, if I need to go somewhere immediately after eating, then I go. However, I know that when I arrive back home, I’ll only have a few dirty items that require my attention because many of the utensils I had used to prepare my meal had already been washed before I sat down to eat. If you haven’t already read the section “Science Experiments in the Kitchen,” then I invite you to read through it in Chapter One in order to properly contrast the person that I am today from the person that I was only a few years ago.
After putting an end to my habitual procrastination, I took the next step and became a non-procrastinator. Just to be clear, that doesn’t mean I never procrastinate, or that I will never procrastinate ever again. Rather, I began acting like the kind of person who isn’t all that troubled if they happen to procrastinate on something, because they engage in it so rarely, that it’s hardly consequential in their life. In addition, as I previously mentioned at the start of this chapter, the price that I would have to pay for engaging in procrastination is so high that it never seems worth the risk of the downside.
It’s important to point out that the changes that I have undergone have been gradual, and have taken place over a long time span. If you’ve just become acquainted with The J.O.T. Method™ and have recently begun working on your own issues with procrastination, be aware that there’s no need to immediately delve into these advanced techniques, because the last thing you want to do is put yourself under any unnecessary pressure. What’s more, remember that you can always come back to this chapter whenever you feel ready to improve upon your productivity.
So then, what improvements did I find? First, over time, I improved my overall productivity by creating a couple of enhancements to The J.O.T. Method™. Then, I found a different relationship to “do”-ing, which involved becoming comfortable with tasks that required greater amounts of time to complete. And lastly, I found some additional aids to productivity that had less to do with an orderly procedure like The J.O.T. Method™, and much more to do with how I developed an attitude of orderliness within myself.
Improvements on The J.O.T. Method™
If you’ve mastered the basics of The J.O.T. Method™ and are ready to take your next steps in reducing the role procrastination plays in your life, consider two improvements to it that may facilitate your “do”-ing. The first improvement can help you to reduce the amount of time that you spend writing your J.O.T. list by combining similar items that you’ve accomplished, while the second improvement is geared towards increasing your motivation.
The Combining Technique
Let’s say that Barry, whom you met in Chapters 10 and 11, has implemented The J.O.T. Method™ into his life and has been successfully using it to help him get his tasks done. Six months have passed since Barry first started using The J.O.T. Method™. Let’s look at Barry’s most recent J.O.T. list entry:
Not only can we readily see that Barry has had a very productive Saturday, but we can also see that he has completed a variety of tasks. In order to keep things moving, Barry sometimes completes two tasks of the exact same type in a row, while at other times he mixes things up by completing a task of one type, and then following it by completing a task of a different nature.
By juggling things in this way, Barry keeps things moving and he averts the risk of becoming overwhelmed by anxiety or bored by monotony. Notice as well, the item in his J.O.T. list’s first column, showing that Barry even allowed himself to play pinball on his computer for twenty minutes. You might say it was
a “pre-planned break.” So long as Barry returns to his work once his break has run its course, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t enjoy a reasonable intermission from his tasks. While playing pinball isn’t a task in the traditional sense, it still merits being placed on his J.O.T. list because in time, upon review of his notebook, Barry will have a clearer picture as to what activities he chose, and the order in which they were performed on that particular Saturday.
We can also see that in the second column of his J.O.T. list, Barry’s written, “Start list of groceries needed,” which is then followed by six tasks, and ends with “Shop for groceries.” It’s not particularly difficult to imagine that just after Barry started writing his grocery list on a separate sheet of paper, he then began completing additional tasks in conjunction with his J.O.T. list. It only follows that while he was working on those tasks, he was probably thinking of what he needed from the supermarket, and would then write those items down while switching between working on the grocery list and whichever task was at hand. Lastly, just before leaving home to go shopping, Barry completed his last task, “T/O (throw out) junk mail item,” which he then officially completed by drawing a line through its appearance on his J.O.T. list. Below that we can see, “Shop for groceries,” and since no line has been drawn through it, it’s probably safe to say that Barry is at the supermarket right now.
