This article is an excerpt from Atomic Habits.
In the summer of 1830, Victor Hugo was dealing with an impossible closing date. Twelve months in advance, the French writer had promised his writer a brand new book. But in place of writing, he spent that yr pursuing other projects, entertaining guests, and delaying his work. Frustrated, Hugo’s publisher responded via putting a closing date less than six months away. The e book had to be finished by way of February 1831.
Hugo concocted a extraordinary plan to beat his procrastination. He collected all of his clothes and asked an assistant to fasten them away in a big chest. He changed into left with not anything to put on except a massive scarf. Lacking any suitable apparel to go outdoors, he remained in his examine and wrote furiously at some stage in the autumn and iciness of 1830. The Hunchback of Notre Dame turned into published two weeks early on January 14, 1831.
Victor Hugo (The Akrasia Effect)
Victor Hugo as photographed by Etienne Carjat in 1876. By this time, it seems, he had unlocked his clothes and positioned them again on. (Source: National Library of France.)
The Ancient Problem of Akrasia
Human beings had been procrastinating for hundreds of years. Even prolific artists like Victor Hugo aren't resistant to the distractions of day by day existence. The problem is so undying, in truth, that ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle advanced a word to describe this type of behavior: Akrasia.
Akrasia is the country of acting in opposition to your higher judgment. It is while you do one component even though you know you need to do some thing else. Loosely translated, you may say that akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-discipline. Akrasia is what prevents you from following thru on what you got down to do.
Why might Victor Hugo commit to writing a e-book and then put it off for over a 12 months? Why will we make plans, set closing dates, and commit to desires, however then fail to follow via on them?
Why We Make Plans, But Don't Take Action
One explanation for why akrasia guidelines our lives and procrastination pulls us in has to do with a behavioral economics time period referred to as “time inconsistency.” Time inconsistency refers back to the tendency of the human brain to cost instant rewards more noticeably than destiny rewards.
When you're making plans for your self — like setting a purpose to lose weight or write a e-book or learn a language — you are sincerely making plans for your future self. You are envisioning what you need your life to be like within the future and when you think about the future it is straightforward to your mind to see the price in taking actions with long-time period advantages.
When the time comes to determine, but, you're not making a desire to your destiny self. Now you're inside the moment and your brain is thinking about the existing self. And researchers have located that the prevailing self surely likes instant gratification, now not long-time period payoff. This is one motive why you may go to mattress feeling motivated to make a change on your lifestyles, but when you awaken you locate your self falling into antique patterns. Your mind values long-time period advantages whilst they may be within the destiny, however it values on the spot gratification in terms of the present second.
This is one purpose why the ability to put off gratification is the sort of extraordinary predictor of fulfillment in existence. Understanding the way to withstand the pull of instantaneous gratification—at the least occasionally, if now not constantly—will let you bridge the gap among wherein you're and in which you need to be.
The Framework You Need to Beat Procrastination
Here are three approaches to conquer akrasia, beat procrastination, and observe via on what you got down to do.
Strategy 1: Design your future actions.
When Victor Hugo locked his clothes away so he may want to recognition on writing, he became creating what psychologists talk to as a “commitment tool.” A commitment tool is a preference you're making within the gift that controls your actions in the destiny. It is a manner to lock in destiny behavior, bind you to excellent behavior, and limit you from awful ones.
There are many approaches to create a commitment tool. You can reduce overeating by way of shopping food in individual applications in preference to in bulk length. You can voluntarily ask to be brought to the banned listing at casinos and online poker websites to prevent future gambling sprees. I’ve even heard of athletes who've to “make weight” for a opposition selecting to leave their wallets at home at some point of the week earlier than weigh-in in order that they gained’t be tempted to buy fast food.
The occasions range, however the message is the identical: commitment gadgets permit you to layout your future movements. Find ways to automate your behavior ahead instead of counting on strength of mind within the moment. Be the architect of your future moves, no longer the victim of them.
Strategy 2: Reduce the friction of beginning.
The guilt and frustration of procrastinating is normally worse than the pain of doing the paintings. In the phrases of Eliezer Yudkowsky, “On a moment-to-moment foundation, being in the center of doing the paintings is usually much less painful than being within the middle of procrastinating.”
So why will we still procrastinate? Because it is not being in the work this is difficult, it's beginning the paintings. The friction that forestalls us from taking movement is typically focused round beginning the behavior. Once you start, it's often much less painful to do the paintings. This is why it is often extra essential to construct the addiction of having began when you're starting a brand new behavior than it's far to fear approximately whether or not or now not you are a success at the brand new habit.
You must continuously lessen the scale of your conduct. Put all your attempt and power into building a ritual and make it as clean as feasible to get started. Don't worry approximately the outcomes until you've got mastered the art of displaying up.
Strategy 3: Utilize implementation intentions.
An implementation aim is when you nation your goal to implement a particular conduct at a particular time within the future. For example, “I will exercise for at least 30 minutes on [DATE] in [PLACE] at [TIME].”
There are loads of a hit studies showing how implementation intentions undoubtedly effect the whole thing from exercising habits to flu shots. In the flu shot look at, researchers looked at a set of 3,272 employees at a Midwestern corporation and discovered that personnel who wrote down the precise date and time they planned to get their flu shot were considerably much more likely to observe thru weeks later.
It seems simple to say that scheduling things in advance of time can make a difference, but as I even have covered previously, implementation intentions could make you 2x to 3x more likely to perform an movement in the destiny.
Fighting Akrasia
Our brains choose on the spot rewards to lengthy-term payoffs. It's truly a effect of ways our minds paintings. Given this tendency, we frequently need to resort to silly strategies to get matters finished—like Victor Hugo locking up all of his clothes so he should write a book. But I trust it's miles worth it to spend time constructing these commitment devices in case your dreams are vital to you.
Aristotle coined the term enkrateia as the antonym of akrasia. While akrasia refers to our tendency to fall victim to procrastination, enkrateia approach to be “in power over oneself.” Designing your destiny movements, lowering the friction of beginning precise behaviors, and using implementation intentions are easy steps that you could take to make it less difficult to stay a lifestyles of enkrateia in place of one of akrasia.
Very good