Stage 1 · Lesson 5 of 6

Find your own pattern

Why you procrastinate (it is not laziness)

Everyone procrastinates differently. For one week, each time you notice yourself avoiding something, write a quick line: the task, the time, what you did instead and what you felt just before. Keep it in your phone notes so it takes ten seconds.

At the end of the week, look for repeats. Maybe it is always the same subject, or always after lunch, or always when instructions are vague, or always on YouTube. Maybe it is worse when you are tired or after a fight at home. Your pattern tells you where to aim the tools in the rest of this roadmap.

Common trapreading general productivity advice and copying it, without first finding out what your own procrastination actually looks like.

A question to check yourself and an AI practice session come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with

VideoFree
Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator (Tim Urban, TED2016)
Tim Urban (TED2016)
A funny, honest talk on what goes on inside a procrastinator's head

Practise

Self-Compassion (Dr Kristin Neff)
Free exercises for replacing self-criticism with something that helps you start

Also worth your time

Solving the Procrastination Puzzle (Timothy A. Pychyl)ReadPaid
Tim Pychyl's short, research-based book on why we put things off
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (David D. Burns)Go deeperPaid
The thinking traps behind perfectionism and putting things off, and how to catch them

Struggling right now? If you are in danger or thinking about harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line: Find a helpline (any country), Umang (Pakistan), Tele-MANAS, 14416 (India).