Reducing Procrastination With Mindfulness

Join me in this talk focused on reducing procrastination for those who experience anxiety, stress and/or writers block. We will practice mindfulness exercises and discuss tips to reduce procrastination. This event is specifically designed for students, academia and those who write for a living.

Transcript

Hi unique learners,

Welcome to this workshop reducing procrastination with mindfulness.

You heard that right,

I call it a workshop because it's partially a meditation and partially it contains exercises.

So perhaps have pen and paper at hand.

My name is Iveta Vermeer and I welcome you all.

To lower your expectations I won't give you a quick fix,

It's a practice.

I invite you to sit with a straight spine comfortably like a mountain.

Close your eyes or gaze in front of you and try to focus on your breath.

Now let's try to do a nostril breathing technique which will help you with focus and reducing stress.

I invite you to breathe in through your left nostril for 4 seconds,

Hold it and breathe out for 6 through the mouth.

It might be helpful to place your right thumb on your right nostril when you breathe in.

So let's give it a go.

Breathe in,

Hold it and breathe out.

One more breath in,

Hold it and out.

Next time in through the left,

Hold it and enjoy and out.

If you are listening,

You might know what procrastination is or even be a victim of it.

I know I am one.

Procrastination is this voluntary delay of an intended task which usually results in a lot of anxiety.

It is a form of self regulation failure.

We give in to feel good and we put off a task that we really really really don't want to do,

To avoid the negative feelings associated with that task.

So we trade in temporary relief for longer term problems.

Please give in to feel good and step up to what you should.

And the first step in reducing it is becoming aware.

Notice when you have an intention and don't follow it through.

Notice and record what your thoughts and feelings were about the task and excuses,

The mission giving thoughts you have about putting the task off.

Awareness is the first step that will change.

And I give you a little tip.

A big one can be I will do it tomorrow.

Another exercise that you could do is to list all the costs of procrastination.

What is it that you do and what is it that you don't do?

So what has procrastinating made you think,

Made you feel about yourself,

Your life,

Your future?

So try to list the benefits of acting in a timely fashion.

Making change takes effort.

And identifying the costs of procrastination and the benefits of change can help you to maintain your motivation as you make these changes.

So try to make a list of all the good things that will happen when you stop procrastinating and the not so good things that will happen if you continue.

But none of this will help without the proper motivation.

Can you think of your motivation to finish your work without it just being I want to finish this work?

So let's do a little bit of an exercise.

And I call this the purpose post-it.

I don't know if you have a post-it at hand or a piece of paper or just make a mental note.

However,

What has helped me is to write it down.

Why are you doing the things you do?

Why are you working?

And you write this down on your post-it and you place it on your laptop,

Bathroom mirror or fridge.

And it can be one sentence,

One word or a couple of abbreviations.

But not just like I want to make money or I want to finish this work.

And of course those are good reasons,

But I don't think that's your sole purpose in life.

Why do you need this work to be finished?

Why do you want to make the money you have to make?

There is a reason behind it.

And you might think,

Well,

For example,

Mine is the four H's.

I want to be healthy and have a house with a husky and make people happy by sharing my experiences.

Okay,

So what does this have to do with finishing your work?

Well,

It plays me back in perspective that my happiness comes first and my health.

And if I'm stressing about finishing that piece of work,

Well,

How does it fit in my goals?

Or you know,

When I was procrastinating,

Writing down what I wanted to say for this meditation practice,

Okay,

Then I remembered my four H's is part of my purpose.

So here I am sharing my experience and I will give you a few moments so that you can think of your purpose.

If you cannot find one right now,

That's okay,

But I do invite you to start thinking about it.

So now you've worked on your purpose.

It's okay if you have one or you haven't or that it might change,

But take this practice with you right now and go back by sitting comfortably with a straight spine and become aware of your breath.

And now imagine and see yourself the moment before you start work.

Try to visualize yourself and breathe in through the nose and breathe out slowly through the mouth.

Now place your right hand on your heart and your left hand on your right hand.

Cradle your heart and once more a breath in through the nose and breathe out slowly,

Completely emptying the lungs.

This is the moment you're about to start work.

And you can take a moment for yourself when you do this.

You can place your hands back on your lap and rub and feel your upper legs and try to make contact.

And now feel your feet on the floor and make contact with your feet by rubbing them on the floor.

Move your feet and one more deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Now try to go inwards.

How are you feeling?

What emotions are you experiencing sadness anger fear or happiness?

Try to name them but not dwell on them.

And if you are distracted by your thoughts come back to your breath.

So a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

When you label your emotions you can say I feel fear and that's okay or I feel angry and that's okay.

So you've done your grounding exercise.

What will you do next?

You can start with the worst first approach.

The harder and more unpleasant the task is the better it is to do it immediately.

Get it out of the way.

And this is particularly true for big pieces of an assessment which can be overwhelming and require more time.

And this approach can be combined with the bits and pieces approach.

Do anything in connection with the task you want to accomplish.

Start with something relatively easy like deciding on a topic and gradually do more and more until the task itself does not seem so impossible to do.

This is a good way to start on large and overwhelming assignments to reduce the stress levels.

Getting started is often the hardest thing to do.

So try to break it down.

If your task seems too big or overwhelming,

Break it down into a series of smaller,

More achievable tasks or steps that will add up to completing the job.

For example for a writing piece the small steps might be deciding on a topic,

Find 10 relevant articles and read and summarize each of these articles and then plan the structure of your writing piece.

And so on.

But make sure that you also include a step where you review what you've done and check you're on the right track.

If this sounds too overwhelming for you,

I advise the 5 minute plan.

Sit down and work on something for just 5 minutes.

At the end of the time move on to something else or set yourself another 5 minutes on the original task.

Chances are you'll already be involved enough to keep going.

So what I've discussed is the worst first approach,

Bits and pieces,

Break it down and the 5 minute plan.

And another thing you can do is stating mantras.

One mantra could be,

If I feel a negative emotion about the task at hand,

Then I will stay put and not stop,

Put off the task or run away.

If I feel negative emotions about the task at hand,

Then I will stay put and not stop,

Put off the task or run away.

Another helpful mantra can be,

Feel the _____ put in negative emotion and do it anyway.

For example,

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Using a mindfulness strategy to acknowledge the emotions that you have wanting to put the task off and then moving your attention to something that will help you feel motivated can be helpful.

What else can help you feel motivated?

One other practical tip to reduce procrastination could be to reward yourself.

Set up a system where you use pleasurable activities,

Even small ones,

As a means of rewarding yourself when you've done the work you plan to do,

Rather than using those activities as a way of avoiding that work.

For example,

Have a nice cup of specialty after writing that paragraph or buy a nice soap when you finish that small project.

And besides rewarding yourself,

You can also ask for help.

If you get stuck for any reason,

Ask someone for help.

This could be a friend,

Classmate,

Tutor,

Lecturer,

Colleague,

Rather than abandoning the task altogether.

Can you imagine how a friend or colleague can help you when you are procrastinating?

And remember that it is okay to ask for help.

You can become accountability buddies.

Or sometimes it's just nice to talk about the issues you're experiencing with procrastination with a friend.

To close off this session and you're procrastinating,

When you notice you are doing it,

You can start with a suitable grounding breathing exercise we've just done in this talk.

But you also have the practical tips like start with a simple 5 minute task immediately in the morning and follow this up with the 25 minute difficult writing task with the help of the Bologdor technique.

I have more sessions about this on Insight Timer and you can listen to my time management bits on Insight Timer.

However,

If that's still not helping,

What you can try to do is write out anything that's bad.

Are you having negative thoughts even before you get anything on paper?

Write it down.

Write down what that inner critic is saying.

Because at some point,

The inner critic doesn't have anything new to say and it will just become a carousel.

And if you write it down,

Place it in bullet points,

You will see that it isn't that bad and it will stop.

But also,

Please try to reward yourself and be kind and remember that it's all part of the process.

It's no quick fix.

And you aren't getting anywhere without the proper motivation.

So don't forget your purpose posted.

So lovely unique learners,

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for being here and I wish you a lovely day or night ahead.

Namaste.

May you be loved,

May you be safe and may you be well.

Reviews

Great coaching!👍🏼
I will say; “Feel the disinterest …feel the aversion… feel the urge to procrastinate!… and do it anyway!Now!!” 😆

Amazing!! Thank you so much ❣️

Very interesting! Thank you!

Thank you! Very good advice. Many blessings ❤️🙏