#4: People Procrastinate for 218 Minutes Every Day. That's 55 Days Every Year.

The Key to Solving the Procrastination Problem? Understanding the Procrastination Formula.

University Affairs found that more than 95% of us suffer from procrastination in one way or another. So it is fair to say that it's a fairly widespread problem. Luckily, for anyone, and everyone struggling with this modern-day nasty, there’s hope...

A bright spark called Piers Steel, a Professor at the University of Calgary (Yes, the place of Eddie the Eagle fame-ish) spent 10 years creating a formula for procrastination. Interestingly, his formula, called ‘The Temporal Motivation Theory’ calculates dilly-dallying. Now it’s a bit like Einstein’s E=MC2 but not as famous, though it has more practical applications for us mere mortals.

Procrastination = Utility = E x V / (Gamma) x D

More simply put, the procrastination formula is as follows:

In essence, this means that your ability to get a task done is divided into 2 broad parts:

• Self-confidence: How good you think you are at doing the task.
• Task Value: How much worth the task adds to your life/work.

Then they are multiplied together.

Now there are these two other broad parts:

• Task Urgency: How quickly the task needs to get done.
• Surrounding Distractions: How much stuff around you will shift your focus from the task to anything else.

Likewise, they are multiplied together.

Lastly, the above 2 broad parts are divided against each other.

A Real World Explanation – Procrastination Formula

To make that a bit more tangible, here's an example. I have a presentation to write for a meeting with a Tesco buyer in 2 weeks. This is my task. I am nervous because it’s a big pitch, so my self-confidence is ok, and the value of the task is huge.

So, I am motivated to do it. Yet, the urgency is not there because it is not for another two weeks and I have my emails buzzing every few minutes. I’ll procrastinate.

So I changed the example to ‘I have a presentation to write for a meeting with a Tesco buyer tomorrow’. Now all the above are the same, yet the immediacy factor has changed. So, I get it done. This is obvious. If it’s immediate I get it done. But the challenge is how to get it done when it is not immediate. That’s where we need to look at the other 3 factors of the procrastination formula; Self-confidence, Task Value and Surrounding Distractions.

Self-confidence comes with experience and there’s little you can change here. Task value is what it is. Similarly, not much can change here either. It’s in door number 3 that we can really make the difference – Surrounding distractions.

Let's Reduce Those Distractions

Now, because procrastination is something of a buzzword, there are thousands of tips on reducing distractions floating around the internet. But, all you really need to complete a task like in our real life example, is three things:

1. Set Outlook to offline.
2. Turn off your phone.
3. Set a timer for 25 minutes.

Even if that task takes you longer than those 25 minutes, you will have got that snowball rolling or made a hole in the Swiss cheese as Alan Lakein would say. Try those 3 things together and it will keep that procrastination monster at bay for longer and longer each time.

Incorporate Procrastination Prevention Into Your Daily Routine

The Be Your Eagle Daily Planner promises that you will be able to effectively Assess, Prioritise, and Focus, to increase your productivity. This is achieved through the interweaving of 3 productivity power habits, one of which is Eat That Frog, the time management holy grail of procrastination prevention.

Keep Poking the Cheese

Head over to the MBM website for further procrastination tools:

• Sticky Learning Lunch
• Perils of Procrastination Blog Article
• Time Management Coaching Cards

Share For a Win-Win

Please click the share button so that your network can start their procrastination prevention today. And, as an incentive to share, we're giving away a free coaching card deck to the first 5 people who share this week's newsletter. Simply share and email gss@makingbusinessmatter.co.uk to claim your freebie. So, get sharing!

Subscribe For More

Subscribe to the World's Stickiest Newsletter by clicking the 'subscribe' button at the top of this newsletter for more topical discussions and practical techniques to improve your soft skills.