It’s almost midnight. This article should have been submitted a long time ago. Instead I’m sitting here thinking about what to write about in the article that should already have been completed, and telling myself I must get it done with. Needless to say my editor is not very happy. I receive this message in my email – “Njeri, please, please, submit the article.” I can’t blame her; I’m not happy either. It’s really not for lack of trying that the article has not been completed, oh boy, I’ve been trying. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours focused on one thing only – getting this article done. I’ve spent time thinking about ideas, researching various topics, reading inspirational blogs, praying for motivation, meditating on writing the article, visualizing a completed article, focusing my mind with breathing techniques, calming my anxiety with tea, relaxing myself with TV, unplugging the TV, taking a break with naps, working at a desk, at a coffee shop, in a library, on my couch, in bed, on the floor, eating chocolate, eating fruits, doing yoga, going for a walk, taking even more naps, focusing hard, focusing really, really hard, not focusing at all, sighing, screaming, sleeping, writing something, writing anything, just writing whatever. Doing anything I could possibly think of to get this article done.
Yet the ability to get this article done continues to elude me and I can feel this sickly sweet sauce of frustration, guilt, failure and self-doubt that I’m marinating in beginning to boil. I wish I could say that this is a singular occurrence and that I’m just in a bit of a funk this month. But alas, almost every month I’m faced with this internal battle whilst attempting to create an article that would be worthy of your engagement. I want these words on paper. I want this article to exist. I want to entertain you and also entertain myself in the process. But man, it kind of sucks trying to get it out and just get it done.
I realize that this is not about simply getting the article done; it is about getting all kinds of stuff done. Any stuff done that I would much rather delay, avoid, or if possible, forget about. Whatever the task, be it as minor as taking the rubbish out, washing the dishes, or as significant as filing my taxes, if I can find a way to put it off, a way to rationalize that doing it anytime later, be it a month, a day, a week, or even a minute later will make the task easier, more pleasant, more enjoyable; if my brain can put together a theory that completely justifies my behavior then that is the path I will, more often than not, take. And you better believe that I will put together some fantastical theory as to why it makes perfect sense to delay getting this stuff done just a little bit longer.
You may call it laziness, apathy, disorganization, lack of self-control, or immaturity, all of which are labels that imply disinclination to activity despite having the ability to do so. Though I can fully attest to bouts of immaturity, it’s not that I don’t want to write this article or do the hard work, it’s that I can’t seem to figure out how to do the work or what it is that I’m meant to be writing in a way that doesn’t feel like downright torture.
All right, that’s a blatant excuse and quite possibly a lie. The fact is that I don’t feel like getting the article done. I don’t feel like thinking. I just want it done. I know that things worth having, the really, really good things in life don’t come easy and require hard work. And I know that work involves discomfort, the curtailment of leisure, and in economic terms, disutility; the degree to which a commodity or activity fails to satisfy human wants. But what if there was a way to ease the discomfort of getting this stuff done? What if there was a way to acknowledge, approach and understand whatever feelings that arise when facing the dreaded task in order to make them more bearable? Does getting stuff done really have to cause so much anguish? One of the problems I constantly find myself facing when trying to get this article done is that all I want is to be able to tap into that inner volcano of creativity and ideas where things just naturally gush out like molten lava and cover the blank pages in black and white ashes that instantaneously merge into sentences. Where everything just comes out and is laid on the ground in perfect form and matter just as it’s meant to be.
Instead it’s usually more like an anthill. You can see or feel the movements of the busybody ants, aka my brain cells, but you can’t tell if anything is being created.
Just tiny, hardworking ants mulling around aimlessly. It is this sense of aimlessness, this lack of direction, the not knowing where I’m going, what I’m writing, the uncertainty behind it all, wanting to have this whole picture, this whole article, this whole story done and gift wrapped and bow tied and ready to present to the world, but I can’t seem to figure out what that final product is meant to be. Or if it will be!
Then all I want to do is take a nap.
Yet despite the pain of creativity I do recognize that there are moments of pure pleasure, otherwise there wouldn’t be any gratification in the act of creating. There is of course the satisfaction and pride upon completing a piece of work and the confidence boost of having gotten stuff done. But there are other enjoyable elements in the process itself; I love the sound and feel of my fingers tapping away on the keyboard (perhaps why I type so aggressively); I love the mental and physical rush when my brain expounds a thought and milliseconds later words magically appear on the screen, on paper, in existence. I often enjoy the challenge of creating logic, meaning and structure, reaching the point where you’re oh-so-close to releasing the sparks of insight and mental exertion.
Then there are those rare fleeting moments when productivity and creativity just pours out completely effortlessly. When the words just keep on coming, keep on flowing, when all the numbers make sense, when all the dots line up, when one thing leads to another with such beautiful grace and simplicity. At times like this you almost have no control, it’s as if a hidden energy source is channeling its way through you and you are merely a vessel.
But sometimes I have to close my eyes and actually look into my mind to see and hear my thoughts. Sometimes I need complete silence to really hear my thoughts, to make sense of all the neurons firing, trying to form complete sentences, remember what it is I’m trying to say and finally guide my fingers as they stomp away on my keyboard, rapidly attempting to spew out all the nonsensical phrases in my brain and to make sense of it all.
Only problem is that I detest silence. I would rather be in the midst of blaring car horns than sit in silence. Silence is the evil queen; sound is my prince charming. Or at least that’s what I always thought.
Turns out that it’s not silence I hate, but the parade of internal chatter and the negative feelings that cause so much distress. Have you ever tried to listen to your internal voices when you put off a difficult task? What you hear probably isn’t that pretty and probably doesn’t make for the most harmonious work environment. So I thought it would be a smart idea to figure out why I can’t seem to get this article done. To get behind the automatic chatter I can’t seem to get away from, to try to figure out what I’m doing or thinking that’s preventing me from tapping into that volcano of creative energy that enables me to get this article done. And then, having figured all of that out, to try to stop doing/ thinking what I’m doing/thinking to not get this article done, in order for me to finally be able to get this article done. I promise that all made sense.
Like the ever-curious student, I’ve been holding many scientific experiments with myself over the past twelve hours. I see how I feel trying to work with the TV on vs. the TV off.
Maybe things will go faster, smoother trying to record every thought I have on my phone rather the straining to put the words down on paper. Do naps allow me to think clearer? Is drinking tea or coffee more conducive? I’ve tried variations of self-talk: ‘Do not judge the words’, ‘Just put it all down’, ‘Just do it’, ‘Just get started!’
In the midst of the obvious failures of my experiments I’ve discovered one saving grace about my ailment; I am most certainly not alone in facing difficulties getting stuff done, and the fact is that we all, at some point or other procrastinate. But though associated with laziness, disorganization and a lack of will power, procrastination has more to do with a universal weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.
Our procrastinating mind comes from a very primitive place; think of it as your monkey or lizard brain. It seeks pleasure, it has severe difficulties self-regulating, it cannot distinguish between wants and needs, it cannot stand discomfort or frustration; it simply wants to ‘give in to feel good’. Here are some interesting findings from various studies performed to demystify why we procrastinate:
Fact number 1:
When faced with the choice between instant and delayed gratification, many of us will crumble to the power of our impulses and choose the pleasure of now, even if the later reward is far greater. It’s like holding a piece of chocolate in front of a child and telling them they can eat one now or eat two pieces if they choose to wait a little.
Which is exactly what researchers at Stanford University did in the 1960s and 1970s. They offered children a treat telling them that they could eat the treat right away if they couldn’t resist it, or if they could wait a few minutes they would be able to get two treats. At the end of the study, a third of the children couldn’t resist the temptation. Following these children into adulthood, the researchers observed that those who were unable to resist temptation at a young age were found to have more behavioral problems, trouble maintaining friendships, difficulty paying attention, and scored significantly lower on high school standardized tests than their more-patient peers. They labeled this as an inability to self-regulate and this was found to have lasting effects on health, happiness, and success in the participants.
Yet this isn’t confined to kids. For example, when giving adults a choice of what movie to watch now or later – a lauded Oscar-winning movie or a silly comedic film – the lighthearted fare almost always won out as being chosen first. Why? The serious films were thought to require more concentration and effort to watch, and thus were put off until a later date. Even when we’re doing something we enjoy, we often put off less desirable things (even if they might be great) for what will give us instant gratification.
Fact number 2:
In addition to being terrible at choosing between now or later, we’re really, really bad at predicting our future mental states. We have a tendency towards timeinconsistent preferences – so called present bias – meaning that we’re unable to grasp that what we want will change over time, and what we may want now isn’t the same thing we’ll want later.
Don’t believe or even understand me? How many times have you bought broccoli and bananas only to throw them out later when you found them rotting in your kitchen? If I were to offer you Ksh500 now or Ksh1000 tomorrow, you would likely choose the money tomorrow. How about Ksh500 now or Ksh1000 in a year? Statistically speaking, you’re more likely to take the Ksh500 now. Which makes sense, after all who knows what could happen in a year, which seems a lot more uncertain than tomorrow does, right? Now what if I offered you Ksh500 in five years or Ksh1000 in six years? Note that nothing has changed, other than adding a delay, but now it feels just as natural to wait for the Ksh1000. After all, you already have to wait five years, right? The tendency to sharply reduce the importance of the future in our decision-making is known as hyperbolic discounting. Consequences which occur at a later time, good or bad, tend to have a lot less bearing on our choices the more distantly they fall in the future. It seems thoroughly illogical to prefer smaller payoffs now over larger payoffs later, especially when it requires sacrifices in the present (though note that whether discounting future gains is logically correct or not depends greatly on circumstances).
However, people will “discount” in order to get the payoff sooner at a higher rate, but at a relatively low rate over long horizons.
But our human survival instinct has evolved to appreciate that one cannot enjoy a conserved resource tomorrow if one doesn’t survive today. Your brain evolved in a world where you probably wouldn’t live to meet your grandchildren, let alone be faced with retirement or heart disease.
And so the monkey part of your brain wants to eat as much chocolate as possible, spend as much money as is available and drink as much wine as is pleasurable. Old you, if there even is one, can deal with those things later. And naturally old you will be more patient, more organized, more restrained; more like the you you should be now. If the now you doesn’t want to do something now, then of course the future you will want to do it. In the words of David McRaney, author of the brilliant book ‘You Are Not So Smart’ and the blog www. youarenotsosmart.com: “In the struggle between should versus want, some people have figured out something crucial – want [or the lack there of] never goes away.”
Ok, so now that I know that now me doesn’t feel like getting this article done, yet future me is likely not to feel like getting this article done, but I don’t have control over future-me right now, and this article really needs to be done, so something’s got to give.
Fine…because I don’t want future me to feel the way now me feels, and because I really have no idea how future me is going to feel, I’m going to go ahead and just get this article done. And hurrah, here it is!