You are such an oxymoron. Emphasis on the moron.
What can waiters, the TV series ‘Lost’ and the novelist Charles Dickens teach us about avoiding procrastination?
One of the simplest methods for beating procrastination in almost any task was inspired by busy waiters.
It’s called the Zeigarnik effect after a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, who noticed an odd thing while sitting in a restaurant in Vienna. The waiters seemed only to remember orders which were in the process of being served. When completed, the orders evaporated from their memory.
Zeigarnik went back to the lab to test out a theory about what was going on. She asked participants to do twenty or so simple little tasks in the lab, like solving puzzles and stringing beads (Zeigarnik, 1927). Except some of the time they were interrupted half way through the task. Afterwards she asked them which activities they remembered doing. People were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been interrupted than those they completed.
What does this have to do with procrastination? (…)
When people manage to start something they’re more inclined to finish it. Procrastination bites worst when we’re faced with a large task that we’re trying to avoid starting. It might be because we don’t know how to start or even where to start.
What the Zeigarnik effect teaches is that one weapon for beating procrastination is starting somewhere…anywhere.
Don’t start with the hardest bit, try something easy first.
