Put First Thing First (PFTF)

Put First Thing First (PFTF)

This was precisely 1st January 2017 ,when I attended my first Toastmasters meeting . I got impressed with speakers giving motivating  speeches in front of a huge gathering and I decided to join immediately, aspiring to become one of them soon . Journey started and have earned several accolades for being Best Speaker, Best Evaluator , Best Role-player and Best Table Topic Speaker several times .

The path blossomed as earned title of Competent Leader . I completed project no 6 in competent communication manual and aimed to achieve my Competent Communicator Award . However instead of becoming a Competent Communicator by finishing 10th Project , I actually rewarded myself with Master Procrastinator. Yes you read it right it took 2 years and 4 month to move from CC-6 to CC-7 which I could manage to finish recently on 3rd of April 2020 . However, have earned my award recently but such delay invoked a thought inside to study more about this kind of behaviour and thus ,could develop a fair understanding to share with you all.

Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing a task or set of tasks. 

It’s a challenge ,I am sure we have all faced at one point or another. For as long as humans have been around, we have been struggling with delaying, avoiding, and procrastinating on issues that matter to us.

The problem is so timeless, in fact, ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle developed a word to describe this type of behaviour : Akrasia.

Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. Loosely translated, you could say that akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-control.

Why this happens ??

A psychology research has revealed a phenomenon called “time inconsistency,” which helps explain why procrastination seems to pull us in despite our good intentions. Time inconsistency is the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards. 

To understand this lets imagine we  have two selves:  Our Present Self and Our Future Self. When you set a goal for eg. losing weight or writing a book or starting a business we actually make plans for our Future Self. We perceive or envision the way our life should look like in the future. It has been established that when we  think about our Future Self, it is quite easy for the brain to see the value in taking actions with long-term benefits.

However, while the Future Self can set goals, only the Present Self can take action. When the time comes to make a decision, we are no longer making a choice for our Future Self. Now we are in the present moment, and our brain is thinking about the Present Self.

Researchers have discovered that the Present Self really likes instant gratification, not long-term benefits or rewards.

So, the Present Self and the Future Self are often at odds with one another. The Future Self wants to be trim and fit, but the Present Self wants a pizza or fried foods . We all know that we should eat healthy to avoid being overweight in 10 years. But consequences like an increased risk for diabetes or heart failure are years away.

How to stop such behaviour?

We cannot rely on long-term consequences and rewards to motivate the Present Self. Instead, we have to find a way to move future rewards and punishments into the present moment.

This is exactly what happens during the moment when we finally move beyond procrastination and take action. For example, let's say we  have to submit a sales analysis  to the senior-management in a weeks time  . We have  known about this during entire week and continued to put it off day after day. We experience a bit of nagging pain and anxiety thinking about this report we  have to prepare, but not enough to do anything about it. Then, suddenly, the day before the deadline, the future consequences turn into present consequences, and we prepare that report hours before it is due. The pain of procrastinating finally escalated and we crossed the “Action Line.”

How to Stop Procrastinating Right Now ??

Option 1: Make the Rewards of Taking Action More Immediate

Option 2: Make the Consequences of Procrastination More Immediate

Option 3: Design Our Future Action

Option 4: Make the Task More Achievable

One of the best productivity systems I have found is having below mentioned six steps:

1. At the end of each work day, write down the six most important things we  need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
3. When we arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. 
5. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
6. Repeat this process every working day !!

This is possible what we need to do is “Put First Thing First” (PFTF)