How you can overcome postponing your activities

You know how these things go: you plan to work out tomorrow, but when the time is there, you keep postponing them. You make very good excuses for yourself why you postpone these activities and they are probably true as well. Here are three of my favorites for starting activities here and now, that you can also use!

Golden Behaviors

– Nudges for a Healthy Lifestyle –

Reading time: 5 minutes

When I started playing squash about a decade ago, I thought it was a rather easy sport to master. I had been playing tennis since I was a teenager. Squash seemed much easier than tennis. That seemed to be a big illusion, so I train about 2-4 times a week to improve my game. But how do you keep this up week after week?

What is procrastination?

It always seems that today is not a particularly good day to do exercise. We make many excuses for ourselves: I am tiered today, I have worked particularly hard today, or I have worked hard yesterday, and I have deserved some rest. In the behavioral sciences, this is called procrastination: we postpone activities to tomorrow that we could have completed today.

Research on procrastination

In the past 30 years, a lot of research has been done on our behavior of procrastination. A major misconception about procrastination is that it is harmless and sometimes may even be helpful. Supporters of procrastination (maybe procrastinators themselves?) argue that it does not matter when a task gets done as long as it is eventually finished. Some even say that they work best under pressure. However, research on procrastination by Dianne Tice and William James Roy Baumeister published in Psychological Science back in 1997 shows that not only the quality of the work suffered, but also the well-being of procrastinators. These researchers did an experiment in which had respondents rate their level of procrastination. They then recorded quality of their work (academic performance) and their well-being (stress, and general health) throughout the semester. Initially the procrastinators seemed to be much better off in terms of well-being. These students had lower levels of stress compared to others, probably because they enjoyed various pleasurable activities instead of working on their academic performance. At the end of the semester, however, it turned out that procrastinators earned lower grades than other students and reported higher cumulative amounts of stress and illness. These procrastinators did not only finish their work later, but the quality of their work suffered, as did their own well-being.

Tips on how to overcome procrastination

Researchers have also come up with a range of possible interventions, of which I will name a few. Procrastinators could split up tasks into smaller sub-goals so they can work through a more manageable series of assignments. Also setting personal deadlines improve ability to complete a task. In a 2002 issue of Psychological Science, Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch reported that procrastinators were willing to set meaningful deadlines for themselves. This in turn improved their ability to complete a task. These self-imposed deadlines aren’t as effective as external ones, but they’re better than doing nothing. Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, proposed to reward completing (sub-) goals ahead of time instead of punishing lateness. A last, but rather difficult intervention would be self-forgiveness. A research team, led by Michael Wohl, reported in a 2010 issue of Personality and Individual Differences that students who forgave themselves after procrastinating on the first exam were less likely to delay studying for the second one.

My personal favorites for starting activities here and now: goal setting, alternatives, and planning

Here are my three personal favorites for nudging myself to overcome procrastination. First, set a personal goal of how many times you would like to exercise and keep to it. In my case, my goal is to play squash 3 times a week. At some moments, I have more energy to play than other times. I tell myself it is terribly important to keep up to these 3 times a week. So I have to go play squash no matter what: I can play on 50% of my maximum, I can play 50% of the original planned time, but I have to go. I know by now, that once I start playing, I will go 100% of the way all the time.

Second, you need an alternative if you cannot complete the original exercise for some reason. You have to commit yourself on forehand to an alternate exercise that you will do instead. Preferably, you choose an exercise that is (slightly) less enjoyable than your original exercise. In my case, if I cannot play squash, I will go running. I am not particularly fond of running, but at least I will get the exercise. Because it is less enjoyable, I will try harder to make sure that I can play squash! These alternative exercises do not have to take long; think of 20 pushups (or 50, if that is easy for you).

Third, I plan ahead on which days I want to exercise this week. It helps to plan your exercise on the same day on the same time every week, even if you exercise alone. It seems easier to exercise in non-individual sports such as squash, because otherwise you will let your friend down by not showing up or canceling you event. This is only an illusion, because in non-individual sports the procrastination will take place in the planning of the activity (e.g. “I will definitely send a WhatsApp message tomorrow to play”). So start planning, preferably on the same day and time!

I hope this helps you to improve your health and fitness with just a small nudge. So give it a try and let me know how it works out for you in the comments below. 

Niels Vink (1975) is author of Golden Behaviors and behavioral designer. He uses insights from the behavioral sciences to explain why people often act against their own interests. As a behavioral expert, he explores how you can nudge your behavior for a healthy lifestyle. He has Master degrees in Social Psychology (Leiden University) and Industrial Design Engineering (Delft University of Technology) and holds a PhD in Consumer Behavior.

When you have been inspired to start and maintain your Golden Behaviors, reach out to me.

Source of top image: Cynthia Castro

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