6 Hacks to Help Stop Financial Procrastination in Its Tracks

Hi everyone. Today I found a great article in the LearnVest that I know many of you will enjoy reading or possibly relate to. The original article can be found here - https://www.learnvest.com/2015/02/financial-procrastination/ - if you’d like to read the article there, or I’ve pasted parts of it here to share it. It’s well worth a read.

Perhaps you’re not really a procrastinator—you just work best under pressure. Once the 11th hour strikes, the creative juices start flowing, and you can tackle just about anything, right?

Actually, no, says Timothy Pychyl, author of “Solving the Procrastination Puzzle” and associate professor of psychology at Carleton University. “We make more errors [under pressure],” he says. “It’s not that you work better under pressure—you only work under pressure.”

In other words, you can’t get anything done unless you have a fire lit under you, which is when you start cursing yourself for not having the willpower to start earlier.

The good news is that sheer willpower isn’t the whole story when it comes to defeating procrastination. And there are plenty of ways to outsmart yourself, so that you can beat your own tendencies toward procrastination.

In fact, with the help of some behavioral and financial pros, we’ve gathered six strategies that can help you stop delaying the money-related tasks that can enable you to reach your financial goals.

Procrastination Hack #1: Accept That You’ll Likely Never Feel Ready

How often have you used the excuse “I just don’t feel like it right now” as the reason to put off tomorrow what you can easily do today?

Let’s face it: You’ll never feel like it. In fact, part of the reason why we keep delaying action is because procrastination is a coping mechanism—it provides a temporary reprieve from an emotionally difficult task.

But if you accept that your motivational state is never going to match the task at hand, you can stop using that as an excuse for procrastination—and, soon enough, you may notice your motivation start to build because you’ve finally kicked off a course of action.

Procrastination Hack #2: Commit to Just 5 Minutes

And by getting started, we literally mean just get started—even if only for a few minutes.

By minimizing the commitment in your head, you make it much easier to put pen to paper, open your laptop, log into your bank account—whatever the initial step is to tackling that money task you keep putting off.

Our discomfort, fear or nervousness is what fuels the belief that tasks like paying bills or checking an investment portfolio are going to be worse than they actually are.

The reality, however, is often very different from perception.

Procrastination Hack #3: Make All Deadlines Feel ‘Present’

It happens to the best of us: We set a deadline for ourselves that feels totally doable—only to find that there’s just a few days left to complete the task, and you haven’t even started.

So why do we find it so hard to stick to deadlines? The answer may lie in how we categorize time in our minds.

One study found that people tend to view the completion of tasks in one of two ways—as having to happen now or later. The more likely we view the task as happening in the present, the more likely we are to initiate action toward completing it.

The rub? We don’t always view our “nows” and “laters” very logically.

Case in point: The researchers tasked two sets of people with opening a savings account, giving everyone a six-month time frame in which to complete the task.

The ones who were given the task in June, and told to complete it by December, were more likely to open the account right away because the deadline was in the same calendar year. Meanwhile, those who were given the task in July, with a deadline of January, didn’t feel the same sense of urgency and took their time opening an account.

So how do we trick our own brains into overcoming these lapses in logic? Start setting deadlines based on what you consider “present” time, even if it’s sooner than you might actually need.

For example, if you’re the type to think of this week as the present and next week as the future, then give yourself a calendar deadline to complete a task—say, paying your utility bill—within seven days instead of eight. Or if you want to boost your savings, think about what small amount you can stash away this week, versus at the end of the month, that can help you eventually reach your goal.

Procrastination Hack #4: Make Big Goals Bite-Size

Sometimes the goals you set for yourself can seem so intimidating or tedious that it feels impossible to even get started.

That may be because whatever you’re ultimately trying to achieve feels too vague or big picture. But breaking down your financial goal into action items can help make it feel more concrete and manageable.

On its own, none of these tasks feels intimidating, and you can set mini deadlines for yourself to take one of these actions every day or every week until you’re finished completing the bigger task at hand.

Retirement is another good example of a larger goal that may feel less daunting once it’s broken down into mini-deadlines by years, months or even weeks.

Procrastination Hack #5: Create Roadblocks … for Your Roadblocks

Usually, making things harder for yourself isn’t something we’d recommend—except when it comes to all the ways you enable your procrastination.

If you often find that “just two more minutes” of, say, your favorite sitcom usually morphs into two hours, then it’s time for drastic measures. When it comes to money tasks, pinpoint what your biggest barriers are to getting things done—then make it nearly impossible to do those things until you’ve completed your financial to-do.

Hint: You may need to enlist the help of a loved one to police your procrastination. Perhaps it’s the person who knows where the remote is hidden, or holds onto your smartphone until you’ve held up your end of the bargain.

Procrastination Hack #6: Bribe Yourself

Giving yourself small rewards—like that 30 minutes of TV time—can go a long way toward beating procrastination, both in the short term and in the long run.

Perhaps that next episode of your favorite drama is your incentive for working an hour on your taxes. Or maybe if you complete three different financial tasks during the week, you can treat yourself to dinner at your favorite restaurant over the weekend.

If you’re working toward something that requires more consistent discipline, like putting away money in an emergency fund each month, try tying your reward to that goal.

Not only will the reward give you something to work toward, it also gives you the positive reinforcement you need to keep doing the small things that could eventually help you reach bigger-picture goals.

Hope you found the article interesting. Look forward to any thoughts and perspectives. Please feel free to contact me on (0425) 403-465 or email at [email protected]

Cheers!

David