Knowing How You Spend Your Time Start with knowing where your time goes. For the next 3 days, allow yourself to behave as you normally would - don’t fight the procrastination. Keep a log of your activities. Make a log similar to the one below:
| Activities | Importance | Time in Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | A | 20 |
| Checking email | C | 15 |
and so on. Make 4 tables for the following time slots (you can change the timings if you have a different schedule):
- 7-9:15am
- 9:15-12:45pm
- 12:45-6:15pm
- 6:15-11:30pm
The Importance column indicates how important it is (A being the most, C being the least).
Then analyze these to find out interesting patterns. Things you could omit. Behaviors you could change, etc.
For any given activity you do periodically, estimate the time you spend on it (e.g. per day).
What are you doing when you’re really productive? How does it differ from times you are busy but unproductive?
Could it be you misestimated the time something would take? That is often a source of procrastination. If you’re often late, surprised by deadlines, procrastination on a dozen projects, and feel you don’t have enough time for recreation, then time management is a likely source of problems. Having too many “urgent” tasks is also a symptom of time management being a problem.
Do not try to get 8 hours of quality work per day. Much of the legitimate activity in life is not tied to productivity (“necessary waste”).
Do you find yourself taking an hour to “settle in” to the important tasks? Look for patterns such as reading email before starting on the work and try to modify the automatic behavior. Can you commit to spending time on the important task before even checking your email? Use your log to identify what you’re doing in the settling in time. See if there are events that trigger negative habits.
The Procrastination Log In addition to the above, keep a procrastination log (not just for 3 days, but perhaps permanently):
| Date | Time | Act ivity | Pri ority | Tho ughts & Fee lings | Just ifica tions | A ctual Act ivity | Resu lting Tho ughts & Fee lings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/6 | 9 :15am | I ncome Tax | A | I don’t want to! | It’s too nice ou tside | Got one file, took a walk | Glad I got st arted and en joyed the walk |
| 2/7 | 10 :00am | S creen Door | B | It’s a Satu rday! | Ov erbur dened | Wa tched TV | Felt gu ilty, b lamed self, f eared w ife’s wrath |
Activity is the activity you should be doing.
The first Thoughts and Feelings are your thoughts about the activity you should be doing.
Generally speaking, log:
- Time of procrastination
- Activity that was postponed and its priority
- Thoughts and feelings about doing that activity
- Reason you procrastinated
- How you procrastinated (watched TV?)
- How you tried to mitigate any resulting anxiety
- Thoughts and feelings about the procrastination
The goal of this log is to identify the cues that lead to procrastination behavior. There are often emotions tied to them. You need to identify those emotions.
Note down any patterns on types of activities you procrastinate on. In particular, note which “solutions” lead to positive thoughts, and which lead to negative thoughts. Be completely honest with thoughts and feelings, even if they seem irrational (“Why the heck should I file my taxes?!”)
He gives an examples of someone who always had a pile on his desk. He chose 3 times in the week to spend at least half an hour organizing and filing the inbox. Note the specificity (3x/wk, 30 minutes each).
After a few days of maintaining this log, you’ll have an idea of which thoughts and feelings lead to achievement and which lead to delay, along with negative thoughts (shame, self-loathing, etc). Things like completing one form for his taxes, and taking a walk as a reward, are things to notice!
Look for the types of situations in which you are most likely to procrastinate.
Definitely note all the negative attitudes and beliefs that lead to feelings of victimhood, deprivation, pressure to be perfect, or fear of failure.