1453: [Part 2] 10 Ways I Deal With My Own Procrastination by James Altucher on Career Success

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[00:00:32] Ten ways I deal with my own procrastination,

[00:00:35] Part 2 by James Altature of Jamesaltature.com.

[00:00:40] Surprise myself!

[00:00:42] When I was talking to Derek Sivers on my podcast,

[00:00:44] he mentioned a trick that he does for TED Talks.

[00:00:47] Always surprise.

[00:00:49] I love that. Always surprise.

[00:00:51] The thing with procrastination is often I'm bored with what I'm doing.

[00:00:55] If something's not interesting to me, I have a hard time finishing it.

[00:00:58] So I try to surprise myself.

[00:01:00] If it's a writing project, I try to think of the most outrageous thing that has happened to me recently and put it down on the page.

[00:01:06] And when I put it down on the page,

[00:01:08] I try to start with a word that is a surprise to me.

[00:01:11] Like I might start a post,

[00:01:12] but then I forgot to tell you about the time the police picked me up

[00:01:15] and forced me to stay at a motel at the edge of town.

[00:01:18] If you can surprise yourself,

[00:01:20] it's a guarantee everyone else will be surprised.

[00:01:23] Hopefully in a good way.

[00:01:24] The butt, for God and police all bring in the elements I need.

[00:01:28] Now I have to unwind them to tell a story which posed poems the procrastination.

[00:01:34] Start in the middle.

[00:01:36] Starting a new project is often the hardest part,

[00:01:38] so start in the middle,

[00:01:39] so you don't have to worry about the official start.

[00:01:42] This reminds me of a Neil Gaiman graphic novel, Black Orchid.

[00:01:46] There's a superhero, the black orchid,

[00:01:47] and that stars in the comic book.

[00:01:49] But right in the first few pages,

[00:01:51] she's shot and killed.

[00:01:53] And that's it. She doesn't come back.

[00:01:54] What a genius thing to kill the hero in the beginning.

[00:01:58] To create a pseudo climax right in the first few pages,

[00:02:01] it's almost like he started at the end.

[00:02:03] I started this post with the list.

[00:02:05] Then I will go back and write the beginning.

[00:02:07] And by the way, the last line I wrote in this post was this one.

[00:02:12] End in the middle.

[00:02:13] Ernest Hemingway would anticipate his own procrastination when writing.

[00:02:17] He would sometimes end a writing session while in the middle of a sentence or paragraph.

[00:02:20] Then he would be more excited and be more aware of starting up again when he came back.

[00:02:26] For instance, if you are a programmer and write in the middle of an if statement before putting in the then part.

[00:02:32] I just did the plan B technique again for the past 10 minutes.

[00:02:36] Scheduled a lunch responded to one email and posted a few comments in the choose yourself Facebook group.

[00:02:42] Readifying the project.

[00:02:44] This is similar to the breaking it down into smaller chunks,

[00:02:47] except actually changed the project so it's smaller.

[00:02:51] When I was building the website StockPicker which I eventually sold for significant money to the street.com,

[00:02:57] I launched with only a few features.

[00:02:59] I had planned for many more but it feels good to launch and I wanted that good feeling.

[00:03:04] The same thing can happen now with other types of projects.

[00:03:06] For instance, books.

[00:03:08] The definition of a book used to be mandated by the big publishers and big bookstores.

[00:03:12] Usually 200 to 250 pages and 60,000 to 70,000 words.

[00:03:18] Now this is out the window.

[00:03:19] Amazon and the rise of self publishing has thrown out the definition of what a book is.

[00:03:23] I was just looking in the entrepreneurship category where my 270 page book choose yourself is number two.

[00:03:29] I swed it over that book for years.

[00:03:32] Number one in the category is a 24 page book probably written in a week.

[00:03:36] More power to him. He had a solid idea. He wrote it up. He published it and now it's number one in the category.

[00:03:41] A person can do that every month and write 12 books in a year and make a living that way.

[00:03:47] Another time I was moving into a house side, but the last one I will ever buy and which is long since been sold.

[00:03:53] The construction workers wanted six more months to work on it.

[00:03:55] I said no and moved right in. They felt so awkward with me right there that they finished up in a week.

[00:04:01] Was it completely finished? No.

[00:04:03] But then bit by bit I was able to hire people to finish what was needed.

[00:04:07] Launch first, then finish.

[00:04:09] By the way, plan B again. I just made two idealists.

[00:04:13] Ten things that I want to see virtual reality do and ten TV shows and movies that have choose yourself characters in them.

[00:04:21] Read.

[00:04:22] If I'm making a list like this or writing a post or planning a project,

[00:04:26] I often get inspiration in the middle by reading.

[00:04:29] I'll go back and forth between inspirational books informative or well written.

[00:04:33] One of them will inspire me back to what I'm doing.

[00:04:35] I can never underestimate the ability to absorb someone else's life by reading about it.

[00:04:40] I'm a vampire sucking out their knowledge and making my brain more powerful.

[00:04:44] This morning, in between the beginning of this post and right now,

[00:04:48] I read from the stranger by Kamu and better smarter faster by Charles Duig,

[00:04:53] coming soon on the podcast.

[00:04:55] Give up.

[00:04:56] Not every project is meant to be finished.

[00:04:59] The reason you might be procrastinating is because your body and mind might know that the project is simply no good,

[00:05:05] but they have neglected to tell you that yet.

[00:05:08] One time I started a company built a site and raised $500,000 for it.

[00:05:12] I've written about it before so I won't go into the details of the company,

[00:05:16] but it was a bad idea.

[00:05:17] I woke up the day after raising the money and I was shaking,

[00:05:20] I literally didn't want to get out of bed and start to work on the site.

[00:05:24] All I kept thinking was, this is a bad idea and a year from now I'm going to have to explain where all the money went to all of the investors.

[00:05:31] So I ate the cost I had already put into building the website,

[00:05:35] I wired back all of the money and shut down the business.

[00:05:38] There's a cognitive bias called the Sunken Cost Fowl to see that applies to procrastination.

[00:05:43] When we put time or money into something, our brains feel like, okay, that's it.

[00:05:47] Now I have to finish this, but it's just not true.

[00:05:49] We don't have to finish anything.

[00:05:51] Often it's good to take a step back and wait a long time, like months or years,

[00:05:56] or simply give up.

[00:05:57] This is why it's good to have other projects on the burner as well.

[00:06:01] Always make sure that no one project will kill you if you procrastinate on it

[00:06:05] or take a several month break from it, or even don't finish it at all.

[00:06:09] In fact, it's always good to have about five projects, no more and no less,

[00:06:13] going on at the same time.

[00:06:15] This gives you constant fuel as you go back and forth.

[00:06:18] You won't create your way into a hole with just one project

[00:06:21] and you won't feel overwhelmed with too many.

[00:06:23] Giving up is often the most productive and efficient thing we can do in our lives

[00:06:28] to move on to the things that are more rewarding in the short amount of time we spend

[00:06:32] in this crack of light between two infinite darknesses.

[00:06:36] I procrastinated a lot on this post.

[00:06:38] I procrastinate on everything, on all 18 of my books, on all 20 of the businesses I've started.

[00:06:44] In fact, this post is the result of procrastination.

[00:06:47] I'm actually working on a post FAQ on quitting your job,

[00:06:51] but I am procrastinating on that post by writing this post, this was my plan B.

[00:06:56] Sometimes I procrastinate calling people back and then I end up feeling guilty

[00:07:00] and never calling them back.

[00:07:01] And there are things I am mid procrastination on right now that I might never finish.

[00:07:06] Who cares?

[00:07:07] When I die those projects will remain unfinished forever.

[00:07:10] But when I die, my kids and loved ones will be crying for other reasons.

[00:07:14] Or not.

[00:07:19] You just listen to part two of the post titled Ten Ways Ideal with the Post.

[00:07:23] My own procrastination by James Altature of James Altature.com.

[00:07:28] This show is sponsored by Better Help.

[00:07:30] We're all marveled at how quickly kids learn and that sense of Wonderman they have well doing it.

[00:07:36] But as adults, sometimes we lose that curiosity.

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[00:08:30] And thanks again to James that he's always got a unique take on things.

[00:08:33] And I'm going to keep this ending short for you on this Sunday episode,

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