Procrastination is an ancient survival strategy.
When resources are scarce, all that matters is survival in the now. As our ancestors trekked through forests, when they saw an apple, they wouldn’t stop to think of the number of calories it contained, whether or not they should leave some room for dinner, or what it would do to their blood sugar levels, they’d just eat it because they wouldn’t know when they’d next get a chance to eat.
We’re not long-term beings, we’re short-term beings. Procrastination is the prioritisation of our short-term impulses (those pleasures we approach and pains we avoid in the now) over our long-term dreams.
Prioritising short-term impulses over long-term dreams makes a lot of sense when we are constantly living in scarcity mode. We didn’t have fridges full of snacks, or supermarkets within walking distance, or the phone number of our favourite take-out. We had to focus on taking care of our survival needs because otherwise we’d die.
After the agricultural revolution, things changed a bit. We had more food than we needed. We could store food, feed more mouths and thus utilise more people to create even more food. This took us out of survival mode, and left us with a big chunk of cognitive energy to spare.
So then we could apply that cognitive energy to other pursuits. We focused it on art, drug fuelled orgies and war.
And here we are today. Whilst there are an unfortunate few whose survival needs are still not met, most people on this planet that are breathing at the time of writing this don’t have to worry about survival anymore. Instead, they are worried about paying off the mortgage, affording their child’s University fees and planning where they’ll go for their summer holidays.
This means we spend a significant amount of our thinking time thinking about the future. Things we should do.
SHOULD is the source of procrastination.
Should do’s are those things that would be great if we did do them, but require a bit of sacrifice in the now.
Yesterday afternoon, I should really have tidied up the house because otherwise my wife would shout at me. But instead, I chose to play video games.
It was a simple calculation…My son was napping at the time, I knew once his nap was over I wouldn’t get a chance to play video games again that day. No pleasure!
So in that moment, I could play video games (pleasure) or tidy the house (pain). But if I played video games and didn’t tidy the house then my wife would shout at me (pain).
My wife WOULD shout at me, but she WASN’T shouting at me in THAT moment. So, to my short-term, scarcity thinking mind, that wasn’t even a factor to consider. It was a simple choice of play video games or tidy the house. Naturally, I chose video games.
In the end, my wife did shout at me. It was 5 minutes of pain. But hey, that turned out better than 30 minutes of the pain of tidying the house minus 30 minutes of the pleasure of playing video games.
A lot of people that know me say they think of me as very disciplined, and I guess I am. They would probably ask, if I procrastinate on simple things like tidying the house so that I can play video games, then how on Earth do I manage to summon up the will to sacrifice half my weekend to write this book?!
Well, it’s also simple maths.
My wife teaches Chinese calligraphy class on a Sunday, which means we have about a dozen children running riot around our apartment, on top of our own two little boys and my wife’s parents! Basically, staying at home = pain. Oh so much pain. I have to get out of the house.
So I choose to come to the coffee shop to write this book. But why do I choose to do that instead of going to the arcade or watching a movie? Well, I enjoy writing. I get a great deal of pleasure out of sitting here, having caffeine coursing through my veins, listening to music and writing.
Furthermore, I actually feel a lot of pressure to finish this book. I’ve made a habit of telling pretty much everyone I meet over the last 6 months that I will finish the first draft of this book by the end of the year. I’m publishing each section I write on a weekly basis, and sharing with my email list. I’m posting on LinkedIn about how I’m getting closer and closer to my goal. I’ve basically given myself a lot of pressure. So much pressure, that the thought of not hitting that goal actually pains me in the now.
So the alternative options to writing this book are basically pain. Plus, I enjoy writing this. So it has become a simple choice of don’t write and experience pain, or do write and experience pleasure.
I don’t believe discipline is the art of doing hard things. I believe discipline is the art of MAKING HARD THINGS EASY TO DO.
And that brings me to the final principle of persuasion.
Simplicity
Sometimes people don’t do what we want them to do because they believe doing so would involve more pain than they are willing to accept.
My wife used this principle to great effect on me last week.
We were wandering around a shopping mall thinking of what to get for lunch. This is always a massive hassle. I am British and have a Western stomach, my wife is Chinese and has a Chinese stomach. Having lived in China for over a decade, I’ve tried a LOT of Chinese food and I’m now tired of it. Some of it’s good, but if you gave me a choice, I’d generally take Western food.
We have this unconscious habit of taking it in turns to choose food. This time I thought I’d let her choose because last time we had Western food.
She proposed one restaurant, and I had to say “No”. I just don’t like that restaurant, and I really felt like something a lot lighter at the time.
We wandered around for a further 10 minutes. I was now extremely hungry. So she took me to another restaurant and showed me the menu. Even though it wasn’t as bad as the first restaurant, normally I’d say “No” to this one as well, but I was so hungry I thought it looked good enough and said “OK whatever, let’s just eat”.
Then, my wife said “Well this is quite similar to the restaurant I said earlier, and it’s just opposite this one, so how about we just go there?”.
I agreed, and we ate at the restaurant I had originally said “No” to!
As we sat there eating the food that I normally wouldn’t touch, I wondered how on earth my wife had managed to get me in there!
She had put to perfect use the principle of simplicity.
All she did was leverage a change in perception.
At first, I could wait. Whilst I could still tolerate the option of waiting, the alternative option of eating at her preferred restaurant was more pain than I could tolerate.
Then two things happened.
First, 10 minutes passed and I got more hungry. The option of waiting was now more painful than the option of eating anything in the now.
Secondly, she got me to agree to another restaurant that was easier for me to tolerate, and a step closer to her preferred restaurant. Having agreed to that restaurant, the leap from that to her preferred restaurant was within my range of tolerance.
She leveraged my change in perception, so that eating at her restaurant became the simplest option out of all options available.
Continuing is Easier than Starting
My wife took me on a journey from hunger, to one less preferred restaurant, to another restaurant I’d normally never eat at.
It was much easier for her to persuade me to eat at that restaurant after I’d already agreed to eat at a restaurant that wasn’t so different from that.
This is because it’s easier to take a small step than it is to take a giant leap. People don’t do giant leaps.
This principle applies to taking any action.
One of the biggest causes for procrastination is that doing something is a giant leap.
For example, part of my workout routine recently has involved doing 9 sets of 5 pull ups. I’m still not great at pull ups, so this tends to be pretty painful. But I discovered that the first pull up is a lot harder than the following 4 combined.
So whenever I do it, I say to myself I’m just going to do one pull up, and if I don’t want to do anymore after that then I can stop. But after doing the first pull up, I pretty much always discover that continuing to complete the next 4 pull ups is a lot easier than just stopping there.
The key to applying this principle is to make the first step as easy to do as possible.
Social media takes full advantage of this. They want people using their platforms. But to get on to their platforms in the first place, they have to set up an account, create their profile, add contacts and so on. That’s actually a lot of effort.
So what they do instead is focus on one step at a time. First, click here to sign up. Now, enter your email address. Now, click the link in the email. Now enter your name. Now describe a bit about yourself, oh, and here are a few suggestions. Or if you prefer, you can skip this step and come back to it later…
They’ve broken a lot of work down into multiple steps, and made each of those steps as simple as possible. This way users aren’t looking at one page with multiple, tedious and time consuming actions to complete. They’re focusing on just one simple thing at a time. Once they complete this one simple thing, now they’re brought to the next simple thing.
It works the same with the clients I work with as well. The first time a client works with me, especially if they don’t know me, it’s harder to get agreement for lengthy leadership development projects. So instead, I propose we start with a simple one off workshop, sometimes even a 90 minute lunch and learn session. That’s cheaper, and far less risky than an on going project, and therefore easier to accept. Then, once they’ve had that, it’s much easier to start talking about more advanced projects.
Remove Friction
I host all my websites through siteground.com. I have previously used other hosting platforms, but the one thing in particular that made me choose Site Ground above all others is their customer service.
You see, when it comes to IT things, especially internet hosting, I am clueless. I have no idea what I’m doing. And when it comes to hosting websites, installing wordpress, setting up email accounts and so on, I generally encounter all sorts of tiny stumbling blocks that can easily set me off on a journey of procrastination.
But with Site Ground, whenever I have a problem, I open up a chat window with one of their customer service agents and they solve my problem INSTANTLY. It’s like magic.
For me, working with Site Ground, I experience ZERO friction. Every problem I encounter, they solve for me, at no extra cost.
User experience is extremely important in this age. Users of websites, apps and services are used to a frictionless experience. Out of any two websites, apps or services that provide exactly the same function, the one that is frictionless will win. As soon as people encounter stumbling blocks, they have to learn how to overcome those stumbling blocks. Learning involves energy. When it comes to a choice of investing energy (pain), or watching cat videos (pleasure), the cat videos win.
Perhaps there is a trend in this modern age towards frictionless experiences. Attention spans are probably the worst they’ve ever been in the history of our species. We went from watching scheduled TV shows and movies at the cinema, to 10 minute cat videos on YouTube, to 15 second video clips on TikTok.
People already have their lives filled with distractions. Multiple pleasures that will take preference over any pain you introduce to them. Remove friction at all costs.
This is also the source of the number one complaint I hear from senior leaders about their staff at companies all around the world: “Their presentations give me a headache!”.
People present a mess of data and facts and tables and charts to poor senior leaders who are already suffering from all manner of cognitive leaks thanks to the nature of their work. As they look at these presentations, they have to interpret them.
They have to look at that table of numbers and interpret the patterns in them. They have to look at that long list of bullet points, and interpret the patterns in them. They have to look at that slide packed full of clip art, text and tiny charts, and interpret the patterns in them.
Interpreting requires energy. If you want to persuade people to take a specific course of action, then make sure they don’t have to expend energy trying to interpret what you want them to do in the first place. Just get straight to the point and let them know what you want them to do and why. They’re probably so used to atrocious presentations that they’ll find your simplicity a breath of fresh air!
Make it Simple
The principle of simplicity is about causing someone to believe that what you want them to do involves hardly any effort or cost, or better yet, involves more pleasure than pain.
If you want to use simplicity to persuade people to do something then:
- Wait until the that thing becomes the easiest or best option for them
- Make the first step they take as easy as you possibly can, and then make it a bit more easy!
- Remove friction AT ALL COSTS
