Maybe you call yourself a procrastinator. Maybe you've said it so many times it feels like a fact about you, like your height or your eye color. "I'm just not good at getting things done." "I work better under pressure." "I'll get to it."
And you've tried. You made the list. You made a better list. You bought the planner, set the alarm earlier, broke it into tiny steps, told a friend so they'd hold you to it.
The pile is still there.
Here's the good news. Researchers have been studying people who put things off for decades, and what they found should make you feel a whole lot better about yourself. It also points straight at the fix.
The fake pill that stopped procrastination
In one experiment, psychologists Dianne Tice, Ellen Bratslavsky and Roy Baumeister put students in a bad mood. Next came an intelligence test. Before it, each student got a stretch of free time and a choice: practice for the test, or do something more fun instead.
Here's the twist. Some of the students were given a pill and told it would "freeze" their mood, so nothing they did for a while could change how they felt. The pill was a fake.
The students who believed their mood could still change put off practicing until about the final minute, especially the ones in a bad mood. The students who believed their mood was frozen didn't procrastinate.
That's the whole secret. The only thing the pill changed was whether putting the task off could make them feel better. Once procrastinating couldn't fix the feeling, they stopped procrastinating.
Procrastination is a mood problem
Dr. Fuschia Sirois and Dr. Timothy Pychyl pulled this research together in 2013 and named what it keeps showing. The task gives you a feeling. Dread, boredom, overwhelm, the fear of doing it badly, the "I don't even know where to start." Putting it off makes that feeling go away. Right away. For a little while.
So we put it off. Our brain picks feeling better now over the plan we made for later. Every time.
And the bill comes due. When Tice and Baumeister followed college students through a semester, the procrastinators felt less stress early on. By the end, they had lower grades and more stress and illness than everyone else.
That's why a better calendar doesn't fix it. The feeling is still sitting right there on top of the task. So if you've been calling yourself a procrastinator, here's a kinder and more accurate way to see it: you're a person with a feeling that has figured out one very reliable way to get relief.
Free. The best place to start.
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Join the free summitWhy pushing harder makes it worse
Most motivation and time-management advice treats procrastination as a planning problem or a willpower problem. Get a system. Set a goal. Count down and go. Stop being lazy.
But if the real block is a feeling, pushing harder just adds a second feeling on top of the first one: guilt. Now the task feels bad and you feel bad about yourself for not doing it. The pile gets taller. The feeling gets heavier. The task gets pushed off again.
If you've ever looked at a to-do list and felt your whole body say "no," you've met it. I call it resistance. And it has a voice. It sounds like "I'm too tired." "It's too much." "I'll do it tomorrow." "It has to be perfect." And my personal favorite: "You can't make me."
What we built instead
Years ago I recorded a set of tapping sessions for exactly this. We call the category Motivate Me To, and there are twelve of them: have a productive day, work, exercise, write, clear clutter, get organized, change a habit, eat better, make a decision, start something new, finish something you started, even one for the day you don't feel like tapping.
Every one of them starts with the same question:
How strong is that resistance, on a scale of 0 to 10?
Then we tap on it. Out loud. The honest stuff, the "I don't want to" and the "you can't make me," while the tapping sends the body a steady signal that you're safe. That's the feeling the researchers found, and we go straight at it. Then you rate the resistance again.
And then you go do the thing.
What happened 829,769 times
People have finished the Motivate Me To sessions 829,769 times in our app. Before and after each one, they rated their resistance from 0 to 10. Here's what the numbers show:
- Every one of the twelve cuts resistance by at least 40%. Every single one.
- Motivate Me to Write cuts it by more than half: 7.3 down to 3.5, in about eleven minutes.
- Finish Something I Started, 51%: 7.0 down to 3.5, in about eight minutes.
- Have a Productive Day has been finished 557,409 times, with resistance down 46%, from 6.5 to 3.5. It's free in the app.
- Make a Decision starts the highest of all twelve, at 7.9. Deciding is the hardest thing to get moving on. It still comes down 40%.
Eight to eleven minutes. Resistance cut by 40 to 52%. Across hundreds of thousands of sessions. That's what happens when you work with the feeling. (All figures are self-rated, from our app.)
Then they got up and did the thing
The number dropping is the start. What people wrote to us afterward is the part I love.
"I laughed at the statement "you can't make me" and my whole mood shifted. I am getting on my elliptical now. Thank you!!!"
Martha, Motivate Me to Exercise, 8 to 1
"INCREDIBLE REALIZATION when you suggested it doesn't have to be perfect to be productive. Drop the mic. Boom. Went from 10-2, repeated & down to 0."
Maria, Have a Productive Day
"This has motivated me to clear out under my stairs off to do it right now 😁"
marie, Motivate Me to Clear Clutter
"I had writer's block. Not now! Thanks for the inspiration!"
Marlene, Motivate Me to Write, 6 to 1
"I really do want to exercise, I really do love it. the stories I tell about my own laziness are just that - stories -."
David, Motivate Me to Exercise, 5 to 1
And Judy, who did Finish Something I Started one morning at 6:30 and then took on a job she'd been avoiding for a year:
"…Logged online and submitted 13 bills in five groups and faxed them to be reimbursed. I also cleaned out the file drawer full of old papers… So that big box full of receipts is now empty, and my recycle basket is full… I feel so proud of myself that I accomplished so much and that huge task is now behind me."
Judy, Finish Something I Started
Do it now: one round on the thing you're avoiding
Pick one thing you've been putting off. Notice what happens in your body when you picture starting it. Rate that resistance, 0 to 10. Then tap through the points and say the words out loud, changing them to fit.
Side of Hand (repeat three times): Even though I really don't want to do this, and part of me is digging in its heels, I'm okay, and I'm allowed to feel this.
Eyebrow: I don't want to
Side of Eye: You can't make me
Under Eye: It's too much
Under Nose: And it has to be perfect
Chin: So I keep putting it off
Collarbone: And then I feel bad about putting it off
Under Arm: What if it doesn't have to be perfect
Top of Head: What if I just start, and see how it feels
Take a breath. Rate it again. If the number moved, go do five minutes of the thing, right now, before the feeling comes back. If it's still high, do another round in your own words.
Pick the thing you've been putting off
Have a Productive Day (8 minutes, free): 557,409 times, resistance down 46%.
Work (10 minutes): resistance down 47%.
Exercise (8 minutes): resistance down 45%.
Write (11 minutes): resistance down 52%.
Finish Something I Started (8 minutes): resistance down 51%.
Clear Clutter (9 minutes): resistance down 43%.
Get Organized (8 minutes): resistance down 45%.
Change a Habit (9 minutes): resistance down 45%.
Eat Better (8 minutes): resistance down 44%.
Make a Decision (9 minutes): resistance down 40%.
Start Something New (8 minutes): resistance down 44%.
Motivate Me to Tap (7 minutes): for the day even tapping is on the list. Resistance down 43%.
All figures are app data: all-time completions and average self-rated resistance before and after.
The one most of us put off longest
For a lot of us, the most-avoided thing on the list is money. Opening the statement. Looking at the number. The budget we keep meaning to make. That avoidance usually has a belief underneath it, something we picked up long ago like "money is stressful" or "I'm just bad with money." Our free 103 Beliefs guide lays out 103 of them, each paired with the belief you can grow into instead.
Go
You read all the way down here. That's resistance's favorite trick, by the way: reading about the thing instead of doing the thing. So close this page, press play on one session, and then go do five minutes of whatever you've been putting off. I'd love to hear what you finally got done.
The research
Tice, D. M., Bratslavsky, E., & Baumeister, R. F. (2001). Emotional distress regulation takes precedence over impulse control: If you feel bad, do it! Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 53–67. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.1.53
Tice, D. M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Longitudinal study of procrastination, performance, stress, and health: The costs and benefits of dawdling. Psychological Science, 8(6), 454–458. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00460.x
Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127. doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011
