1452: [Part 1] 10 Ways I Deal With My Own Procrastination by James Altucher on Productivity Habits

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[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Optimal Work Daily. 10 Ways I Deal With My Own Procrastination, Part 1 by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's important I address several things first before I really start into the meat of this article.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: First, when I tweet about this post, many people will respond, I'll read it later or some variation of that.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a funny joke. I get it. Second, while I was writing this post, I procrastinated pretty heavily.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_01]: No surprise. And what was even better, I employed almost all of these techniques to get over the procrastination and still be very productive.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, one of the techniques I mentioned is to start in the middle.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's worth mentioning then that the words I am writing now, I am writing after already finishing the article.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So here are the 10 things you should do to make your life more productive via procrastination.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Plan B. Make a list right now of 10 things you can do that will make you feel productive.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: If you ever feel like you are procrastinating, then just go down the list and do the tiniest thing you can do for each item on the list.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, if I'm procrastinating writing on a book, I can take a break and start sending emails to potential podcast guests.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I procrastinated on writing this post, so I even responded to emails from 6 months ago that I procrastinated on responding to then.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you know what? The respondents appreciated it and I kept those business connections alive.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I also read parts of a book to prepare for a podcast next week.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Or it doesn't even have to be something related to business productivity.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I can exercise, for instance. That will probably improve my ability to focus better in the long run.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Play. If you feel procrastination is becoming a habit, then take a step back and change your life.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I've been deeply unhappy in my life, I play games. I play games all day.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Games are actually good for you in general. They make you strive to improve.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They improve various brain functions like spatial reasoning, problem solving, etc.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: They improve your ability to deal with failure since often you will lose,

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and learn from your mistakes if you study what you did wrong in lost games.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_01]: But games can also be escapist.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_01]: When I've been unhappy in relationships or in a job, I play games all day long.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I was afraid to get married in my first marriage. I was scared I was too young.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_01]: 20 minutes before I was supposed to be at my own wedding,

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was at my office and hadn't changed yet. I was playing one-minute chess,

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: where each side takes one minute, and if one player runs out of time before the game is over,

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: then he loses. I was playing against the Swiss chess champion. I was winning.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I figured, I can't stop doing this. I'm winning.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: That was bad. Escapist gaming is no good.

[00:03:09] [SPEAKER_01]: One technique I do now to take a step back is, no drinking, go to sleep around 9pm and

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: wake up at 5am and get out of the house to read or write or walk.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Try to do productive gaming instead of escapist gaming.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: As long as I focus on improvement, it will make me better able to focus on the task at hand.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I try to play in some way. I recommend Charlie Hone's book

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: On Play to see how he used it to decrease his anxiety and become more productive.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Experiment The word of the month for me seems to be

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: experiment. Everywhere I look, I seem to be reminded of the importance of this.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_01]: A great example is Chris Rock. He's a funny guy. He goes on stage, does his act, and everyone laughs,

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_01]: again and again. But that's not how he starts. He goes to the laugh factory in my hometown of

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_01]: New Brunswick, New Jersey and takes some crumpled notes and just starts reading them out loud in his

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_01]: regular voice. If people start to laugh at a joke, he knows he has something that can be developed.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: If people don't laugh, he throws that joke away. He experiments with thousands of jokes before he

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: has an hour of material that a year later he can use on an HBO special. If I'm working on a project

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: that is stagnating and I don't feel like working on it, I try to back up one step and try a different

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_01]: direction. Experiment to see if this excites me more. When I first started a company, we weren't

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: sure the best way to make a lot of money. So we experimented. We made software to see who would

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: buy it, which was nobody. We started a record label. We almost signed one act and then they

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_01]: disappeared. We thought about starting a database for people in the entertainment industry. Then

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_01]: IMDB came along. We thought about making an automatic website developer but it was a lot of

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: work. Think WordPress. We even thought about making a tea company but we knew nothing about distribution.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But it wasn't bad to experiment. Learning about each of these businesses gave me useful information.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, 10 years later the lessons learned from how to start a tea company were useful in

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: making a fund of hedge funds. You send out your tea or money to distributors or other funds and

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_01]: once a month you collect information from everyone and compile the data. Similar risks occur in each

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: business. The ways we explored making money on the internet in 1996 helped in 2009 to figure out what

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_01]: were the best things to invest in with the sharp rise of social media. And even experimenting with

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: a record label enabled us to land the job of doing the websites for many record labels. Loud, Bad Boy,

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Interscope, Jive, etc. When I am less productive with writing now I try to figure out how to

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: experiment with the form a bit more or be creative in some other way. Then I consider it a good day.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: While I was procrastinating on this article I wrote both the first and second draft on a

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_01]: children's book, an experiment I have never done before. Smaller is better. When I am procrastinating

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: on a book I take a step back and stop thinking about the whole book. I just try to outline what

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to accomplish with the exact page I'm working on. The process is 1. Find a smaller task within

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: the bigger task 2. Outline it 3. Set a mini deadline for doing it 4. Drink coffee and 5. Do

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: For instance, I procrastinated for a few days on this very post and then I procrastinated this

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: morning on it. First I did my plan B as described earlier. I responded to some emails, I sent some

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: thank you emails, I commented on posts in various Facebook groups I'm a member of, including the

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Choose Yourself group. Then I got into this post and I felt a bit overwhelmed. Do I really have 10

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: things? Finally I said do one thing so I thought a little harder on all the times I've procrastinated

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: since the only good advice is always autobiography. And I remembered that I always break down big tasks

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: into smaller ones and wrote this part. Smaller is better. BAM! Anxiety. Nothing to say here, it's just

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: important to remember anxiety will never solve tomorrow's problems and will only steal away energy

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: from today. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled 10 ways I deal with my

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: own procrastination by James Altucher of jamesaltucher.com. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: We're all marveled at how quickly kids learn and that sense of wonderment they have while doing it

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[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Visit betterhelp.com work daily today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: work daily. And thank you so much to James for letting us share his content here. James has

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: founded or co-founded over 20 companies and published 20 books. He's also a contributor

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: to the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post and you can

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: hear him interviewing a bunch of talented people on his podcast, The James Altucher Show. And that's

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: going to do it for today. Hope you have a great weekend and thanks so much for being a subscriber

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: to this show. I will of course see you tomorrow where we're going to finish up this post and where

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: your optimal life awaits. Transcribed by https://otter.ai