Procrastination and distractions: Piers Steel on your workspace

On The Art of Manliness (episode 444, 2018), psychologist Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation, told host Brett McKay that one of the easiest fixes for procrastination has little to do with the task. Your goal may be fine, he said. The problem may be that you are trying to reach it in a place full of temptation.

His advice in that conversation was to start by asking what you actually do when you procrastinate. Is it something on your phone, on your computer, the TV? Then deal with those temptations first. He described people setting their phone to grayscale so the apps lose their color and pull, and urged listeners who game to keep a separate device, or at least a separate place, for play. When work and play happen in the same spot, he said, the cues get mixed, and the moment you hit a dip you are doing something else.

Why the room matters

Steel's point matches how the research describes procrastination. A boring or hard task competes with whatever offers a quicker reward, and the quicker reward usually wins in the moment. A review of how study settings encourage delay names temptations and distractions among the conditions that make procrastination more likely, next to long deadlines and lots of freedom in how to work (Svartdal et al., 2020).

There is also trial evidence for moving the temptation instead of fighting it. In two field studies described in a 2018 review, high school and college students were taught to remove temptations from sight rather than resist them directly. Compared with students told to use willpower, or given no strategy, they reported better study and better progress on their goals the following week. The authors note the limits: the results were self-reported and short term (Duckworth, Milkman & Laibson, 2018).

Steel also suggested switching off the sounds and badges that pull you to email, a job he said takes about 30 seconds. Our article on turning off notifications covers that step in more detail.

You don't need a new laptop

Steel's second device is one way to separate work and play. A cheaper version is a place: one chair, corner or table that is only for the task, and a different one for breaks. The aim is the same. When you sit there, the easy option is not within reach.

How this fits the Stop procrastinating program

In the 1h Protocol to Stop Procrastinating, learners whose answers show the Pulled pattern (something easier keeps winning) start by putting that pull out of reach, and the program asks what the pull is and where it can go before the next start. Later chapters plan what to do if the pull comes back mid-start, such as putting the phone back out of reach and giving the task two more minutes. The first chapter is free.

Source: The Art of Manliness, podcast 444: How to use the procrastination equation to start getting things done (2018) Research: Svartdal et al. (2020) · Duckworth, Milkman & Laibson (2018)