In my opinion, the best way to combat akrasia is to put yourself in situations where the willpower necessary is minimized. Below, I’ve made a list of tricks you can use that allow you to minimize the willpower necessary to start doing schoolwork you’re not motivated to do.
Give yourself artificial time pressure. Make plans to do something fun with friends about an hour from the time you want to start working. This way, your deadline is brought closer in time and you’ll need less willpower to get started. Worst case, if you don’t finish your work before your artificial deadline, you can cancel your plans with your friends: a better alternative than missing the real deadline.
Have your ego work for you. If you have a big ego, this tip is a good one for you. Tell your roommates or family that you’re going to start studying by a certain time. You’ll be pressured to act consistently with your word because now you will face looking like a liar or just lazy.
Drive somewhere far away to do work. Muster the willpower to drive somewhere far away to do work. Once you get there, you’ll feel obligated to start working.
Eat almonds. Almonds give you energy, reduce your appetite and are healthy. Getting started with your work will be easier when your willpower isn’t fighting hunger or sleepiness.
Study with hard-working friends. Many people get this one wrong. They study with people who are easily distracted and always want to play. If your willpower can barely get you working, it won’t help if it’s preoccupied suppressing desires to play. Instead, find friends that work hard in groups. They’ll peer pressure you into focusing on your work.
Make a 5-minute commitment. Force yourself to commit to doing just 5 minutes of work and that’s it. You may not have the willpower to complete the assignment, but maybe enough for 5 minutes. Even though you only commit to 5 minutes, it is better than nothing and plus there is a chance you’ll surpass the 5-minute mark on your own.
Pay the price of procrastination. This one is for those who are chronic procrastinators. Give your trusted friend some amount of money and have him incrementally pay it back to you as you accomplish your goals. For instance, once you finish a page of your essay by a certain time, he’ll give you a quarter of your money back. Being productive will never seem easier.
This sounds like a list of ways to make your life worse, not better, especially if you’re a chronic procrastinator. If you’re a chronic procrastinator, increasing pressure increases procrastination, rather than decreasing it.
These sorts of approaches are much more useful for optimists than pessimists, as optimists won’t treat any failures as personal or devastating, and they won’t experience risk paralysis.
But chronic procrastinators already assign so much personal blame and social shame to even trivial failures, that for them these approaches would be like recommending that alcoholics drink more as a way of getting sober. That is, it’s more of precisely what they already have way too much of.
Pay the price of procrastination. This one is for those who are chronic procrastinators. Give your trusted friend some amount of money and have him incrementally pay it back to you as you accomplish your goals. For instance, once you finish a page of your essay by a certain time, he’ll give you a quarter of your money back. Being productive will never seem easier.
It sounds like a good idea, but it’s never worked very well for me. I’ve tried monetary and other forms of incentives. Sometimes it would work, but over the longer term some part of me began to get more and more desensitized to failing. During some periods, it actually put me into a mode of learned helplessness, and even despair, where “akrasia” can describe nearly every aspect of life.
In general, I find that using negative incentives to motivate distracts me. Instead of taking action, the increasing salience of the possibility and consequences of failure makes it more likely to “hide” or just give up.
Here’s a bit I wrote for my school paper:
In my opinion, the best way to combat akrasia is to put yourself in situations where the willpower necessary is minimized. Below, I’ve made a list of tricks you can use that allow you to minimize the willpower necessary to start doing schoolwork you’re not motivated to do.
Give yourself artificial time pressure. Make plans to do something fun with friends about an hour from the time you want to start working. This way, your deadline is brought closer in time and you’ll need less willpower to get started. Worst case, if you don’t finish your work before your artificial deadline, you can cancel your plans with your friends: a better alternative than missing the real deadline.
Have your ego work for you. If you have a big ego, this tip is a good one for you. Tell your roommates or family that you’re going to start studying by a certain time. You’ll be pressured to act consistently with your word because now you will face looking like a liar or just lazy.
Drive somewhere far away to do work. Muster the willpower to drive somewhere far away to do work. Once you get there, you’ll feel obligated to start working.
Eat almonds. Almonds give you energy, reduce your appetite and are healthy. Getting started with your work will be easier when your willpower isn’t fighting hunger or sleepiness.
Study with hard-working friends. Many people get this one wrong. They study with people who are easily distracted and always want to play. If your willpower can barely get you working, it won’t help if it’s preoccupied suppressing desires to play. Instead, find friends that work hard in groups. They’ll peer pressure you into focusing on your work.
Make a 5-minute commitment. Force yourself to commit to doing just 5 minutes of work and that’s it. You may not have the willpower to complete the assignment, but maybe enough for 5 minutes. Even though you only commit to 5 minutes, it is better than nothing and plus there is a chance you’ll surpass the 5-minute mark on your own.
Pay the price of procrastination. This one is for those who are chronic procrastinators. Give your trusted friend some amount of money and have him incrementally pay it back to you as you accomplish your goals. For instance, once you finish a page of your essay by a certain time, he’ll give you a quarter of your money back. Being productive will never seem easier.
This sounds like a list of ways to make your life worse, not better, especially if you’re a chronic procrastinator. If you’re a chronic procrastinator, increasing pressure increases procrastination, rather than decreasing it.
These sorts of approaches are much more useful for optimists than pessimists, as optimists won’t treat any failures as personal or devastating, and they won’t experience risk paralysis.
But chronic procrastinators already assign so much personal blame and social shame to even trivial failures, that for them these approaches would be like recommending that alcoholics drink more as a way of getting sober. That is, it’s more of precisely what they already have way too much of.
Yea, I think you’re right.
Dealing with chronic procrastinators is a completely different issue.
It sounds like a good idea, but it’s never worked very well for me. I’ve tried monetary and other forms of incentives. Sometimes it would work, but over the longer term some part of me began to get more and more desensitized to failing. During some periods, it actually put me into a mode of learned helplessness, and even despair, where “akrasia” can describe nearly every aspect of life.
In general, I find that using negative incentives to motivate distracts me. Instead of taking action, the increasing salience of the possibility and consequences of failure makes it more likely to “hide” or just give up.