You're Not Lazy: How To Beat Procrastination

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 0:00 We have these social norms around productivity right now, right?

Ali Abdaal 0:03 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 0:03 Do more in less time. Like, how many books are there out there that tell you, like, you know, how many more things you can squeeze into a day and how to be uber productive? And so we have an unspoken cultural norm that if you're a productive person, you're a good person. If you're not a productive person, you're a bad person.

Ali Abdaal 0:18 This episode is all about procrastination, and I'm joined by Professor Fuschia Sirois, who is a world-leading expert on the field of procrastination. We talk about all things related to procrastination, why we struggle with it, what the consequences of procrastination are, and what is the underlying emotional core of procrastination.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 0:36 By definition, there is no such thing as good procrastination. Procrastination can never be a good thing, 'cause there's always harmful consequences attached to it. We don't procrastinate because we have no sense of time. We don't procrastinate 'cause we're lazy. It's going to the source and saying, "What is the reason you're procrastinating?" We don't procrastinate on things that are fun.

Ali Abdaal 0:54 Even though I've done loads of research and have written three of my book chapters about procrastination, just having that discussion with Professor Fuschia was really interesting, and I'm actually gonna go back through the edits of my book and add in a few bits just to kind of update it based on this conversation that we've just had.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08 You know, the feeling of being a bad person 'cause you're not productive, that's what happens when you procrastinate. I feel ashamed that I'm procrastinating, and so it makes it difficult to reach out and talk to people and say, "I don't really know what to do here. Can you lay this task out for me?" Especially if you've already started procrastinating. But that is the best thing to do.

Ali Abdaal 1:25 Oh, by the way, if you have a couple of minutes, I would love it if you could possibly fill in a little survey. We are surveying the audience, people who watch or listen to this podcast, and trying to figure out what are the things you vibe with, what are the things you don't, who are the sorts of guests that you'd like to see more of, and what sort of topics should we continue covering on the Deep Dive podcast. So if you've got a couple of minutes, it would mean a lot. There's a link in the video description or in the show notes. Would love it if you could help us out and help us make the podcast better for you guys. So yeah, check it out.

Ali Abdaal 1:48 Professor Fuschia, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:50 Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Ali Abdaal 1:52 So you are an expert in the field of procrastination. Um, and so I wonder if we can start by defining what is procrastination? Uh, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 2:00 Yes, absolutely. I think that's a really great starting point because oftentimes people think they are procrastinating, and they're not. They're just actually engaging in one of your kind of garden variety forms of delay. Um, and so procrastination is a form of delay, but it's a very specific type of delay. So it's a, a delay that is unnecessary, so it's not like some family emergency came up, and you put that task aside that you have to get done, done. Um, it's also voluntary, so it's not that somebody told you to stop working on that and work on something else. Um, and it always involves intention, an intended task that's usually important to where you said, "I'm going to do this." And you might even have a timeline set with that intention. And so we engage in, um, in that type of delay, either starting the task, or maybe we start, and then we don't complete it. And we do that despite knowing that there's gonna be negative consequences either for ourself or for others. And so that... I know it sounds sort of very long-winded, but it's, that's what makes procrastination a different type of delay rather than just putting something aside for, for good reasons or because you were told to, um, and, you know, for a task that really isn't that important in the first place.

Ali Abdaal 3:13 Hmm. Got it. Um, one thing that I think, I think it's in, uh, Tim Pychyl's book, Solving the Procrastination Puzzle, the, uh, the, the idea that there is no such thing as a good amount of procrastination.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 3:25 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 3:25 I wonder if you, if you agree with that idea.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 3:27 Yeah. Well, so I think, so by the definition I just said, that you engage in unnecessary voluntary delay of an intended task despite knowing there'll be harmful consequences for yourself or others. So if we, um, you know, are taking that definition on board, by definition there is no such thing as good procrastination. Procrastination can never be a good thing, 'cause there's always harmful consequences attached to it.

Ali Abdaal 3:50 Hmm. And what are some of these harmful consequences?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 3:52 [lips smack] So these range. I mean, the things that we think about, you know, uh, most commonly we think, oh, it's gonna affect productivity. And, and yes, it does. It affects productivity. It affects performance. So numerous studies have been conducted with students, um, over the past few decades, and what we find is that despite the students saying, "Oh, I do my best work under pressure," [laughs] um, they actually perform more poorly when they procrastinate. Um, so grades are lower, academic cheating and misconduct is associated with procrastination in students. Um, so those are the sort of things that we tend to think about typically, the productivity and academic performance sort of consequences. But what my research has been looking at over the past two-plus decades is actually the health and wellbeing consequences of procrastination, which is not something we tend to think about.

Ali Abdaal 4:38 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 4:38 We tend to think of procrastination as a productivity or performance issue, not something that actually is gonna impact our, our wellbeing and even our physical health.

Ali Abdaal 4:46 Yeah. So what are the, the health and well- like how does procrastination-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 4:48 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 4:49 Uh, I can, I can imagine it in the sense of, you know, I intended to go, to go to the gym yesterday, and then 8:00 PM roll, rolled up, and it was in my calendar, and I was like, "Ah, you know, I'm feeling a bit low energy today. I've got a bit of a pain in my hand. Like, let me just-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 5:01 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 5:01 ... I'll just go out for dinner and have a more relaxing evening." Does that, is that one of the health consequences? Or-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 5:07 Yeah, that certainly, that certainly is one of the health-related, um, consequences of procrastinating. So we can procrastinate on our health-related tasks like exercising or starting a, a diet or adhering to a diet, um, or even seeking medical help. Um, but that's not, it's not limited to that.

Ali Abdaal 5:23 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 5:23 And I think this is where it gets really interesting, too, is that, you know, first of all, you understand when we procrastinate, we don't like that we procrastinate. It's not something we go, "Oh, I'm so happy I just procrastinated," right? We feel bad about it.

Ali Abdaal 5:36 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 5:36 And we actually feel stressed because when we procrastinate, we know that time is ticking, and if we had already a short period of time to finish a task, especially if it's one where there's a, a really clear deadline involved, um, that stress level is gonna go up even more so.

Ali Abdaal 5:50 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 5:50 And so there's a high degree of stress. And so on the mental health side, what we see is higher levels of anxiety and depression associated with procrastination, especially chronic procrastination. Um, and if there's higher levels of stress, we know that stress does not do good things for the body, right? [laughs] Um, it can in the short run suppress your immune system, and my research has found that even in young, healthy students, people, uh, students who chronically procrastinate tend to experience a higher number of acute, um, health-related issues such as flus and colds that are related to stress, um, insomnia, um, aches and pains, muscle tension, strains, so on and so forth. Um, so there's a higher degree of illness, stress- Poor health behaviors, poor medical care seeking. All of these combined then can become, um, you know, cumulatively can add up to a, a recipe for poor health.

Ali Abdaal 6:44 Hmm. So on the, on the point of, you know, you mentioned depression, anxiety, stress. Do we have any evidence as to what direction the causality is?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 6:55 Now, that's a really good question, and I think, you know, I, I think these are dynamic and reciprocal and mutually reinforcing pathways. They have to be. Um, you know, part of that has to do with sort of the causes of procrastination, which are involved in, in mood, um, and, and sort of especially negative mood, which I'll, I'll get into shortly. But, um, you can imagine though that if you're, if you are procrastinating on a regular basis, you're not gonna feel good about yourself. You're gonna get more anxious. Your levels of stress and anxiety go up because you're worried about the consequences of handing in that report late, you know, of not meeting the deadline for the job application of your dream job. You know, I mean, these sorts of things, not having that conversation with a loved one that might make a huge difference to your relationship-

Ali Abdaal 7:41 Mm-hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 7:41 ... and, and the consequences of, of not telling them some truth maybe they need to hear. So all of these things sort of weigh on us in the background, and that can contribute to the anxiety and, and potentially also the depression. But when you're in an anxious and depressed state, it actually makes you more vulnerable for procrastination as well, too.

Ali Abdaal 7:58 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 7:59 So you've got, I think, these bidirectional pathways.

Ali Abdaal 8:02 Damn, so it becomes a sort of vicious cycle.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 8:04 Yes, very much so.

Ali Abdaal 8:06 And do we see any, uh... So, so we, we, we mentioned the effects of stress in particular on, like, the negative physical effects of stress.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 8:14 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 8:15 Do we see any negative physical ef- effects of, like, linked with procrastination that are not mediated by stress? I don't know if that makes sense.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 8:23 Yeah, no, I know what you're sa-

Ali Abdaal 8:24 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 8:24 ... uh, yeah. So in terms of the physical health pathway, so this is something I've looked at, actually. I've tried to see, so which are the pathways? So what we know is that any type of behavioral tendency, right? So if we think about, you know, not just a, a single procrastination instance, which can create some stress, right? But if we look at the cumulative effect, which is where most of the evidence has, has focused on to understand these health effects, um, you know, over time, that stress is gonna add up. But over time, so can the poor health behaviors, and both of those will work with each other. When we're feeling more stress, we also tend to not engage in more health behaviors.

Ali Abdaal 8:59 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 8:59 And when we don't engage in the health-promoting behaviors, it actually increases our reactivity to stress. Um, another pathway in there that I didn't mention is sleep, too. So people who procrastinate, I think I touched on it with the students, they tend to have higher insomnia, but there's numerous studies that now have shown that procrastination, especially chronic procrastination, is linked to poor sleep.

Ali Abdaal 9:19 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 9:19 Sleep and stress get into a vicious cycle very easily, too, so the evidence shows a, a bidirectional relationship there. And you can imagine with sleep and feeling too tired, as you, in your example there [laughs] , "I'm feeling too tired to go to the gym," right? So you didn't, maybe didn't have a good night's sleep, so that gets put off, too. Um, but some of my research has tried to see which of those pathways is the most potent one in understanding the links, um, to stress, and we, we recently, um, published a study, this is with, uh, Tim Pychyl, looking at, um, students and their stress and health behaviors and, and illness over time, um, over three time points across the academic year. And even though we did find that procrastination was linked to poor health behaviors and poor health and higher stress at each time point, um, when our statistician, um, Chris, went in and looked, you know, in a sort of mo- really interesting model to see, let's test all bou- backwards and forwards models and see-

Ali Abdaal 10:16 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 10:16 ... which is the best pathways here, right? And the best, the strongest pathway for explaining that link was stress.

Ali Abdaal 10:21 Hmm. That makes sense.

Ali Abdaal 10:23 So if someone... So for, for someone listening to or watching this right now, what are some questions that they can ask themselves to see, like, "Is procrastination really a problem in my life?" Are there... I'm, I'm imagining there are so- there's some sort of procrastination inventory that psychologists-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 10:37 Yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 10:38 ... would use. But, like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 10:38 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 10:39 ... what, what are some questions that, that people might find helpful to answer for themselves?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 10:43 Yeah, so you're right. So we do have these, uh, self-report inventories, um, and, and typically these are... I mean, there's ones that can measure momentary procrastination, like in an academic setting, for example. Um, but there's also ones that get at, as I was saying, a behavioral tendency, which is more like a personality trait. So we can look at pro- procrastination or chronic procrastination or procrastination as a personality trait by getting people to, uh, you know, answer these questions. So, you know, things like, um, you know, I'm, I'm always, um, saying, uh, uh, putting off things and, and saying, "I'll do it tomorrow." So, you know, these, these types of questions as opposed to we also have the opposite, which is, "Oh, when I get, um, a task, I try and take care of it as soon as possible."

Ali Abdaal 11:22 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 11:22 Right? So if you don't agree with that statement-

Ali Abdaal 11:24 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 11:24 ... and you say, "No, not too often," then that might also put you at a higher score in terms of, um, assessing your procrastination or chronic procrastination level, shall we say.

Ali Abdaal 11:34 Got it.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 11:35 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 11:35 And so is there, uh, presumably there's a correlation between chronic procrastination and lack of conscientiousness as the personality trait?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 11:42 Yes, yes. So it, so this, um, procrastination sort of as a, a chronic personality style, if you like, or behavioral tendency, has been, um, linked in and looked at in relation to these big five personality factors, and the two that it was most strongly related to was conscientiousness negatively, um, but also neuroticism positively.

Ali Abdaal 12:03 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:04 Um, but it's interesting, though. It's not conscientiousness as a whole. So it, you know, there's, there was some initially some debate. Well, is it just low conscientiousness?

Ali Abdaal 12:13 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:13 You know, someone's just careless and they don't plan things.

Ali Abdaal 12:15 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:15 Actually, it is just, um, one component of, um, conscientiousness that tends to be most strongly related to, um, procrastination negatively, of course, again, and this is, has to do with the planning component.

Ali Abdaal 12:27 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:28 Right? But so some of the other, the discipline and all that, it's not actually, um, s- that strongly correlated. The most strong, strongest component of conscientiousness is the one that has to do with forward thinking and planning.

Ali Abdaal 12:39 Ah, okay. So people who are not very good at forward thinking and planning or tend not to do it so much also tend to be procrastinators.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:45 They tend to be more prone to procrastination-

Ali Abdaal 12:47 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:47 ... and there's some good reasons for that, too.

Ali Abdaal 12:50 Which are? [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:52 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 12:52 While we're here.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:53 So yeah.

Ali Abdaal 12:53 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:53 So there's suspense, right? [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 12:55 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 12:56 Um, so I mean, this is where, you know, Tim and I about, uh, a decade or so ago, you know, looked at the existing research, and we s- we formulated this new view of, of procrastination as, as being what we call based on sort of a- an issue of temporal mood regulation. In other words, a prioritization of short-term mood regulation over long-term goals.

Ali Abdaal 13:15 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 13:15 And the idea here is that when you have a task that's unpleasant or difficult or maybe there's not anything inherently difficult about that task, but something about that task triggers within you self-doubt, perfectionism, um, negative feelings, you know, basically you're, you're in the same negative state as if that was a horrible task. It may not actually be a horrible task. It's just your interaction with that task that makes it feel horrible to you. So that aversiveness of the task, whatever its source in that relationship with you and the task, is what prompts people to procrastinate. And so we see procrastination, what we suggest is procrastination then is a form of avoidant coping, right? So if you don't have kind of that internal good mood management skills-

Ali Abdaal 14:04 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 14:04 ... right, and you're ... No one likes to feel unpleasant, right?

Ali Abdaal 14:07 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 14:07 We don't like anxiety and stress. We wanna, we wanna do something right away, which is why we develop, you know, em- emotion regulation skills. But if you don't have a good repertoire of those skills or you don't, you're not, you know, you- maybe that, that intensity of that emotion, um, related to that task is too high, you might default to procrastination as a way of managing that emo- that, um, those emotions.

Ali Abdaal 14:28 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 14:28 So that, where the prioritization comes in. You now, what's priority is the goal of managing your mood, not achieving that task.

Ali Abdaal 14:36 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 14:36 So you're not thinking about that task anymore.

Ali Abdaal 14:38 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 14:38 You're thinking about right now, "I don't wanna feel this way. I don't like this, the frustration and the self-doubt and everything else that's coming out." So you take that task, you put it aside. You might even engage in something more pleasurable, and now you've got immediate mood re- you know, relief. You've just managed your mood, right? And that is the essence of procrastination. But in doing so, you're not thinking down the road. You're not thinking about the consequences. You're only thinking about right now. You're prioritizing the goal of managing your immediate mood over the goal of achieving your long-term goal.

Ali Abdaal 15:10 Hmm. Is that a ... I mean, is, is that always a problem, do you reckon?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:17 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 15:17 Or, [laughs] or is there, like, a threshold beyond which it- you'd be like, "Okay, I've got a, I've got a problem here"?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:24 Well, okay, so I think, I think when we're talking about intensity of things. So if something's really-

Ali Abdaal 15:30 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:30 ... just like, "I don't know what to do," yeah, if you put it aside. But if in that time putting it aside you're then trying to find ways to approach that task so it's less of an issue for you-

Ali Abdaal 15:40 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:40 ... then that's different.

Ali Abdaal 15:41 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:41 That might be problem-solving. That might be initially procrastination.

Ali Abdaal 15:45 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:46 Um, a- and this is where, you know, again we could start splitting hairs here a little bit.

Ali Abdaal 15:50 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:50 So if you, if you're actually go, "I, I can't deal with that right now because I'm just too stressed by it"-

Ali Abdaal 15:55 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 15:55 ... "I'm putting it aside. Gonna take a breath. How can I manage that?" So now if you go into-

Ali Abdaal 16:00 Ah, okay

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:00 ... problem-solving mode, see that's different.

Ali Abdaal 16:02 Yep.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:03 Right? But that's not usually what happens when we [laughs] do that. We usually are just so much, you know, reinforced from the, the, the positive relief we have of not having to deal with that task.

Ali Abdaal 16:14 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:14 Because we put it aside, that we often go on and do other things and, and kind of just forget about it and, or we go, "Hey, future me is gonna take care of it. Future me is gonna have all the self-discipline in the world. Future me is gonna know how to manage that stress that I can't manage right now," right? Future me becomes a superhero-

Ali Abdaal 16:32 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:32 ... at least in our minds.

Ali Abdaal 16:33 Yep.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:33 Right? And that's future me tomorrow, next week, next month, whatever the timeline we put it off to. The problem is all we're doing when we do that is we make future me our beast of burden, because future me now has to deal with all those unfinished tasks, rushing deadlines, and all the other stress. So everything just gets amped up.

Ali Abdaal 16:54 Hmm. It's quite a, quite a stressful place to be when that happens.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 16:59 Yes. Yeah, well, this is why we see s- such high levels of stress-

Ali Abdaal 17:02 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:02 ... um, in people who chronically procrastinate.

Ali Abdaal 17:05 Do we have a sense of what proportion of people struggle with this?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:10 So, um, it's a great question. I think it's different in different populations, and there's also cultural differences as well too.

Ali Abdaal 17:16 Okay, great.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:16 Um, so in the student population it's been estimated that at least occasionally 80 to 95% of students-

Ali Abdaal 17:23 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:23 ... procrastinate, so [laughs] quite frequent. Um, but 50% do so chronically. That-

Ali Abdaal 17:29 Oh, wow. That's a lot

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:30 ... that is a lot.

Ali Abdaal 17:31 My goodness. [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:32 Yeah. That's quite a bit. Yeah. Um, and that's, that's our best guess and, and estimates. And I think one of the reasons it's studied so much in students too is that, you know, i- in an academic, um, setting we have clear, you know, guidelines as to when something should be done.

Ali Abdaal 17:45 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:46 It's harder to track procrastination when there isn't a clear deadline or it's an internally set deadline. But that doesn't mean the procrastination isn't happening.

Ali Abdaal 17:53 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 17:54 So this is why when you look at adult populations, it can range anywhere from 15 to 25%, um, again, depending on where, where the study was conducted. Um, and then you

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 18:05 see cultural differences as well too, um, where some, um, cultures are more forgiving and kind of tolerant of procrastination and other cultures are not. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 18:18 What sort of cultures are in each, in each, in, in each camp?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 18:21 So, um, you know, we've done some international, um, research conferences, which is great 'cause we get to see these different perspectives on, on, uh, on procrastination. These are conferences that are just on procrastination. And I always tell people, "Oh, we have them every other year because, you know, we just can't get round to it every year," but that's not the truth. It takes two years [laughs] to be able to get enough evidence to make things new at each, uh, in each conference. Um- So, um, some of our colleagues from South America and Peru, basically procrastination is very much like, "Ah, you know, that's okay. Mañana, right?" Like, [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 18:54 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 18:54 It's not, uh... It, it's more acceptable, and, and you see it across all levels. So, um, it-- so there's more tolerance for, for it there. And then you see other cultures, um, and specifically ones where there actually is a lot of research going on, on procrastination, um, where you can tell that the tolerance is less. And I didn't, I didn't recognize this until we-- one of the procrastination conferences a couple years back.

Ali Abdaal 19:19 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 19:20 Um, and, um, there were some posters the students had out, and there were some German colleagues that had a poster out, and they were talking about this, um, what they called it? Procrastination ambulance. That was a direct, the direct translation. It was kind of like this emergency on-wheels clinic for students who were distressed by their procrastination. And so they, you know, they had sort of a regimen for them to go through, and they had some evidence to suggest that this regimen that they, that they s- you know, had the students engage with helped decrease their procrastination levels. And I was, remember, with a colleague of mine, and we were looking at the mean levels of procrastination at the beginning and at the end, and indeed, they had gone down. But the start levels, in terms of mean levels on this, this common procrastination scale, the-

Ali Abdaal 20:03 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 20:03 ... Lay's General Procrastination Scale, the mean level that students were so distressed about in Germany was well below the North American and the UK means [laughs] for, for chronic procrastination. Suggesting that there's probably less of a tolerance in places like Germany and that, where punctuality and sort of, um, you know, sort of sticking to deadlines is, is a little bit more valued.

Ali Abdaal 20:25 Hmm. That's interesting. Any, uh... Have you, have you seen any research around sort of like, uh, South Asian countries, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, that sort of thing?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 20:35 There was some, there was some colleagues, um, at I think the most recent conference that were presenting, um, evidence. Um, you know, it certainly is an issue there, too.

Ali Abdaal 20:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 20:43 In, in terms of comparing, um, mean levels, I don't think that's been done yet.

Ali Abdaal 20:48 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 20:48 But that, that is, I think, an es- interesting area to look at.

Ali Abdaal 20:51 Okay. That's interesting. Yeah, 'cause I, I... One, one thing that's ... Or one thing that comes to m- my mind, I don't know, I don't know how, like, reasonable this is, but sort of, uh, propensity to stick to deadlines and, like, keep to time.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:05 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 21:05 Like, you know, in-- I'm from Pakistan, and it's like if you get invited to a wedding and it says 3:00 PM, everyone's gonna be there by like half past 5:00.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:12 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 21:12 And the food will be served... The, it'll say the food's being served at 4:00, but it'll be served at 7:00, and it's just an accepted part of the culture.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:18 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 21:18 And yet I went to, like, one of my English friend's weddings for the first time a couple years ago, and I just had no idea that 12 o'clock meant, like, the bride's literally arriving at tw-... "Oh, oh my goodness. W- wow, I'm the last person here."

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:29 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 21:29 I, I, I, you know, I [laughs] , you know, I rocked up at, uh, quarter past thinking that, like, e- ev- everyone's gonna be an hour and a half late.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 21:35 And I wonder if there's some- something there around kind of tolerance of pro- pr- of procrastination.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:40 Um, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:41 I mean it, I mean, it could be similarly. I think... So one of the things is, you know, we do sort of look at, on the surface anyways, of procrastination of as, as a time management issue. Which by the way, I will say flat out it is not.

Ali Abdaal 21:51 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 21:52 Okay? So the evidence on time management strategies for, for managing procrastination, the evidence is equivocal at best, and certainly not long-lasting. Because it's... You know, we look at somebody who's procrastinating, they're not getting their, their tasks done on time.

Ali Abdaal 22:05 Sure.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 22:06 Right? So obviously they can't manage their time properly, right? Like, so these are the sorts of su- superficial conclusions that we can come to when we see someone who's procrastinating. So in terms of deadlines and not meeting them, that, I think, you know, there's some similar issues, but it's not necessarily the same, right? So people who procrastinate aren't necessarily not punctual.

Ali Abdaal 22:26 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 22:27 Right?

Ali Abdaal 22:27 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 22:27 It's a slightly different issue there. It, it is time, both, both, you know, non-punctuality, for example, and procrastination have an element of sort of temporal thinking involved in them. Um, but it is, it is sort of a different, slightly different kettle of fish.

Ali Abdaal 22:40 Hmm. That makes sense. Um, so surely time management is, like, the first, the first step, right? But, so, so, okay.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 22:52 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 22:52 So, so, so for example, let's say I'm procrastinating. Like, let's... I, I don't know. Let's use the gym as an example. If I d- Like, l- like for me, the first step w- if I wanna get something done is, like, I'll put it on the calendar. And if it's on the calendar, then I know it's on the calendar. And then if I'm procrastinating from it while it's on the calendar, then I'll, I'll take, I'll think, "Okay, what's going on emotionally here?" But until it's on the calendar, it's, it could just be that I just haven't made the time for it. Do you think that's a, a reasonable strategy? Or, like, what am I, what am I missing here?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:20 Okay. So I mean, I mean, there's different approaches. And, and I guess my perspective is that, you know, if you take that time management and some of these other approaches, you know, um, you know, self-control, these types of things-

Ali Abdaal 23:32 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:32 ... they're all, they're all approaching the problem from up here at the superficial level.

Ali Abdaal 23:35 Okay.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:36 Right? They're not actually addressing why, right? So we don't procrastinate because we have no sense of time.

Ali Abdaal 23:44 Right.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:44 Okay? We don't procrastinate, um, because we're lazy-

Ali Abdaal 23:48 Okay

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:48 ... for example.

Ali Abdaal 23:48 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 23:49 Okay? I mean, one has nothing to do with the other. People who procrastinate get very busy with all kinds of other things that they shouldn't be doing rather than the thing they should be doing, which is kind of clear evidence there I think of, of not being related to, to laziness. Um, but I mean, it's, it's going to the source and saying, "What is the reason you're procrastinating?" We don't procrastinate on things that are fun.

Ali Abdaal 24:07 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:08 Right?

Ali Abdaal 24:08 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:09 Right?

Ali Abdaal 24:09 We don't procrastinate the stuff that feels good, generally.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:11 That's right.

Ali Abdaal 24:11 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:11 We procrastinate on stuff that feels bad.

Ali Abdaal 24:13 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:13 Stuff where the mood involved, we're having difficulty, we're struggling with it, you know, difficult task-related emotions.

Ali Abdaal 24:20 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:21 And so the first step then, if you want to be effective, is to actually look at those tasks, those emotions.

Ali Abdaal 24:28 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:28 Why? You know, you could probe and say, "Okay, first, I think first is what are you feeling?" Right? Um, and is it something about the task? Which then maybe you can rearrange or reframe the task to make it less unpleasant.

Ali Abdaal 24:42 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 24:43 Right? Or how you look at the task to make it less unpleasant. Or is it something about you, right? Is it something that's bringing up old feelings from the past, um, that are uncomfortable? Is it bringing up insecurities? Is it bringing up self-doubt? Is it bringing up, you know, perfectionistic tendencies-

Ali Abdaal 25:02 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 25:02 ... and fear of failure and all these other things, right?

Ali Abdaal 25:04 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 25:05 And so that's the place to start, because once you start becoming aware of those, then you can start to manage those feelings and, and use the strategies that are appropriate for managing the different feel- uh, different emotions involved too. Time management is a Band-Aid solution.

Ali Abdaal 25:19 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 25:20 It's not going to actually solve your problem. Um, and if it's something, a deeper issue, then you're gonna continue to procrastinate any time you encounter that task.

Ali Abdaal 25:29 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 25:29 No matter how much... You know, you could actually get c- tied up in writing to-do lists and spending all this time blocking off your calendar instead of doing the thing that you're supposed to do.

Ali Abdaal 25:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 25:37 Fooling yourself into thinking that you're actually managing it, when in fact you're not.

Ali Abdaal 25:42 This episode is very kindly brought to you by Huel. I've been a paying customer of Huel since my fifth year of medical school, since 2017. Actually, since before I started my YouTube channel. And I first started using Huel because my life was pretty hectic. I was juggling lots of different things, like medical school and exams, and trying to sort out publication points for my future, like, doctor job applications. And alongside, I was running a business, I was building an app, and I was trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. And so Huel actually came in really handy for that. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a meal in a shake that contains all of the ingredients that are essential to thrive. It's got a perfect balance of protein and carbs and fats and vitamins and minerals. And these days, the Huel Black Edition is my absolute favorite. It comes in nine flavors. Salted caramel is my personal favorite. 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Ali Abdaal 29:17 be fair to say that all of these emotions link to fear in some way? Or is that too much of an oversimplification?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 29:25 No, I mean, I think... I mean, fear is often involved. That's a very strong emotion. Um, sometimes, you know, I think it, they, they trigger our, our different fears. But, you know, I mean, this gets more into sort of a philosophical [laughs] sort of area-

Ali Abdaal 29:39 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 29:39 ... in terms of we're talking about what's at the root of all emotions and negative emotions, right? Sometimes it's sadness, right? Um, and you know, that might be a different type of emotional experience, right? Um, and so you d- you just don't... You, and you might experience that as a, a demotivation. "I'm just not motivated to do this," because it, it triggers a deeper sadness in you.

Ali Abdaal 29:59 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:00 Maybe something where you're like, "Why am I doing this at all?" Or, "What's the purpose of my life?" Or you know, like, so that's not fear based-

Ali Abdaal 30:05 That's right

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:06 ... per se.

Ali Abdaal 30:06 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:06 Right?

Ali Abdaal 30:07 Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:07 So I, I think it can be a full range.

Ali Abdaal 30:10 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:10 And often it's a complex range. And, and, and some of the research that, um, um, one of my former PhD students did also suggests that it can sometimes be mixed. Sometimes we can be both excited about a task and kind of like, "Oh, I can't wait to do this and really prove myself," and at the same time fearful or anxious or nervous about that task.

Ali Abdaal 30:30 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:30 Um, and depending on how we manage that balance, you know, and, and I think one of the things that some of the research has shown, that people who are prone to procrastination are more sensitive to those negative emotions. Um, areas of the brain, the amygdala, which is sort of the threat detection center, right? Um, those are- that area of the brain is qualitatively different-

Ali Abdaal 30:49 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 30:50 ... in people who are prone to procrastination versus those that are not, suggesting, again, a sensitivity to negative stimuli. Um, and neg- that includes the negative emotions that they have, um, around a task.

Ali Abdaal 31:02 Yeah, I definitely wanna talk more about this emotion stuff. Um, is, to what extent is, uh, uncertainty or a lack of clarity about the goal or the task, to what extent is that, does that come into it? 'Cause that strikes me as d- as slightly different to the emotion stuff.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:18 No. Actually, it's, it's, it's linked right into it.

Ali Abdaal 31:20 Oh, is it? Okay.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:20 Yeah, yeah. Good one. I'm, I was gonna get to that.

Ali Abdaal 31:22 That's-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:22 Thank you. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 31:23 [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:24 No, yeah. So I mean, so think about it, right? If you have a task-

Ali Abdaal 31:27 Mm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:28 ... that's not well-structured or it's uncertain, what do you feel?

Ali Abdaal 31:32 Um, un- uncertainty, uh, anxiety-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:37 Stress

Ali Abdaal 31:37 ... like, yeah. Like, oh, I'm not really sure what they want. Um, um, I'm not really sure. Uh, uh, it's a big mountain. It's like study chemistry. What is study chem- Like, ah, it's, the-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:44 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 31:44 ... textbook's too big. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:46 It's emotions.

Ali Abdaal 31:46 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:48 It's not just thoughts, right?

Ali Abdaal 31:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 31:49 So we can think about things in a way that trigger the emotions, right? It's not necessarily that the emotions are coming first, but the way we think about a task or even the way a task is, is laid out to us. So going back to where I said, "Okay, you know, what's the first thing to do?" Well, probe the emotions. What do you feel? I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by this task because it's so big and it's so uncertain. There's so many moving parts, and I have no idea if I'm making progress or where to begin. So that then would identify that something about that task is not clear enough-

Ali Abdaal 32:18 Yep

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 32:19 ... right, to allow you to engage with it in a way that doesn't evoke these, these feelings of uncertainty and stress and anxiety and self-doubt and everything.

Ali Abdaal 32:26 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 32:27 Right? And so then, okay, right, let's get some clarity. Ask somebody, "What do I need to do? Can you lay this out? Can you give me sort of a little bit more, you know, detail?" And this happens often with tasks that are, that are new to us, that we've not done before. We have no clue. We can relate to them to things we've done before, but then again, there's always that, that sort of gnawing uncertainty that, is this really what I should be doing, [laughs] right?

Ali Abdaal 32:46 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 32:47 Um, and so getting clarity around the task, getting structure around the task, that brings down all those emotions. And even though it might be the first time doing it, yeah, okay, there's a little bit of uncertainty, but I can manage that little bit of uncertainty versus that large amount of uncertainty because I don't have a clue at all. So that's a really good place to start.

Ali Abdaal 33:04 Yeah. So what sort of things can people do to, like if, if let's say someone listening to this is about to embark on a thing and they're like, they recognize, oh, uncertainty is involved here-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:14 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 33:14 ... what are some ways to sprinkle in more clarity into the task?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:18 So I, I think first of all, getting information, talking to other people.

Ali Abdaal 33:21 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:22 Um, and this is often a tough one, especially if someone's prone to procrastination and has found themself procrastinating because of task uncertainty-

Ali Abdaal 33:29 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:29 ... um, because there's a lot of shame around procrastination and a lot of guilt around procrastination. So even though we might have that immediate mood relief, though we know the task is still sitting there and we realize that, you know, we feel bad that we should be doing it. But the, I think the other thing too that I hadn't spoken about is that, you know, we have, we have these social norms around productivity right now, right?

Ali Abdaal 33:51 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:51 Right? Do more in less time.

Ali Abdaal 33:53 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:53 Like, how many books are there out there that tell you like, you know, how many thing, more things you can squeeze into a day and how to be uber productive-

Ali Abdaal 33:59 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 33:59 ... and, you know, all, all these, this, this type of culture now that really values productivity. And so we have an unspoken cultural norm that if you're a productive person, you're a good person.

Ali Abdaal 34:10 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 34:11 If you're not a productive person, you're a bad person. And those norms that, that, what we call, um, you know, the feeling of being a bad person 'cause you're not productive, that's what happens when you procrastinate. They're triggered. You know, "Okay, I'm going against what society expects of me."

Ali Abdaal 34:27 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 34:27 Right? I feel ashamed that I'm procrastinating. And so it makes it difficult to reach out and talk to people and say, "I don't really know what to do here. Can you lay this task out for me?" Especially if you've already started procrastinating.

Ali Abdaal 34:37 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 34:38 But that is the best thing to do, and I think this is where, um, you know, when we're talking about procrastination and, and sort of managing it a little bit too and, and where to start with things is we also, we need to be aware that being hard on people when they procrastinate or anything that induces that guilt or that shame is only gonna make people, make it worse and make people-

Ali Abdaal 34:59 Mm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 34:59 ... procrastinate more. So we need to have an open culture where people can come and ask questions without feeling judged.

Ali Abdaal 35:06 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 35:06 You know? And without feeling that that's, "No, you shouldn't. You should just know what you're doing even though you've never done this before," right? [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 35:12 Yeah. Absolutely.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 35:13 Yeah. So I think, yeah, reaching out and asking for help first off, or you know, right when the task is put in front of you, make sure you've got that clarity. Talk to the person. Um, this is actually I think one of the reasons why there was not that many studies that went on, but there was a couple of studies that looked at procrastination levels during the pandemic.

Ali Abdaal 35:29 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 35:30 And there was a bit of a spike. And one of the reasons I suspect, there was, there's other reasons, um, um, related to sort of background stress levels, but I think one of the reasons too in, in work environment is that everyone was remote, right? So if you're in an office and you've got this task and you're like, "I don't know what to do-"

Ali Abdaal 35:48 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 35:48 ... right, you just walk over and you talk to somebody.

Ali Abdaal 35:51 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 35:51 "Hey, I, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. It's the first time I've had to write this sort of report. Am I structuring it the right way?" Where you get advice on the spot. What happens when everybody's remote? You can't just jump in on a Zoom thing and, you know, ask them.

Ali Abdaal 36:03 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 36:03 You could try and email them, but it's a lot harder to get that-

Ali Abdaal 36:05 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 36:05 ... instant advice. And so a lot of people were left with doing things and feeling a lot of uncertainty on top of all the uncertainty of living during a really dangerous time, you know, in terms of people's, um, you know, security with, um, their health and their wellbeing and their, their economic security and a variety of other things, social connections being cut off. So, um, yeah. Anyways, I've gone off on a tangent there. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 36:30 Mm. No, that's so interesting. I think, yeah, just actually getting clarity on, on what the task is, what the goal is. I find it useful to understand like the why behind the goal-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 36:39 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 36:39 ... 'cause often like a manager or someone will give us a task, and they'll have a lot of context in their mind, but without the context, it's easy to go down the wrong route or think-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 36:47 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 36:47 ... "I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this," and yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 36:49 Yeah. Yeah. So that, yeah, so that's a really, really important, um, starting place is to make sure you've got, you've got some clarity, you know exactly or have at least enough of an idea and you, and you've got the information you need too.

Ali Abdaal 37:01 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:02 Right? So you might, hey, might say, "Oh, this is the structure of the steps," but if you don't have all the information to help you complete those steps-

Ali Abdaal 37:07 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:08 ... you're gonna get to that spot where you go, "Ugh-" I'm not sure what I'm doing now anymore. [chuckles]

Ali Abdaal 37:11 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:12 Right? You know, so you can have clarity at the beginning, and then making sure you've got the resources and the information available to you so that if you reach a point where there's a less amount of clarity about what you're doing, you can actually have those resources to, to help guide you.

Ali Abdaal 37:25 Nice. Yeah. Um, I mean, for, for, for context, like this might be, might be interesting for you to hear. Um, so I'm writing one of these, uh, productivity books-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:34 Oh

Ali Abdaal 37:34 ... which I finished yesterday. Uh-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:35 Wow. Congratulations

Ali Abdaal 37:36 ... hand, handed over to the ... Thank you. Handed, handed to the copy editor. Uh, the title is Feel-Good Productivity, and the middle three chapters are about procrastination. And, um, prompted by, um, my reading of some of Tim's work, which I suspect is also some of your work, just sort of really leaning into this emotional side of procrastination.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:53 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 37:54 And so the first chapter in the procrastination section is about uncertainty-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:58 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 37:58 ... and so the solution is clarity.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 37:59 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 38:00 The second chapter, we're still not entirely sure what to call it. Initially, it was called ... It wa- it was about anxiety, or it was, it wa- uh, we're really trying to get at, like, the emotional side. And then so we, we, was ... I think at, at one point we called the chapter Fear. At some time we c-we ... At, at some point we called it Negative Emotion. And so we're still trying to figure out the naming of that middle chapter. But then the final chapter in the procrastination section is, um, about overcoming inertia and just getting started, like taking-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:24 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 38:24 ... that next action step, just doing the thing for five minutes.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:26 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 38:26 Because once you've gotten started with something, it's generally easier to continue going. But it's that middle, middle bit that's like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:32 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 38:32 ... trying to address all of the emotions, but, like, in a pithy-sounding chapter title. Does anything come to mind while we're here? [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:38 Yeah. I mean, just-

Ali Abdaal 38:38 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:39 ... yeah, diff- difficult, difficult emotions. I mean-

Ali Abdaal 38:42 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:42 ... I mean, yeah, so then that's what they are. They're difficult.

Ali Abdaal 38:44 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:45 We struggle with them, right? Um, yeah, but I mean, I would ... I mean, that sounds great. I would argue, though-

Ali Abdaal 38:49 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:49 ... even though you've put s- um, you know, uncertainty, that's still emotion-based.

Ali Abdaal 38:54 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:54 Right?

Ali Abdaal 38:54 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:54 Um, and even at the end, just, you know, I know that's Tim's favorite thing, just, just go.

Ali Abdaal 38:58 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 38:58 Like, you know, motivation follows action-

Ali Abdaal 39:00 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:00 ... not the other way around. Um, but, um, what that does is it short-circuits-

Ali Abdaal 39:06 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:06 ... all the thoughts that can stir up, right?

Ali Abdaal 39:09 Ah, yes. Nice.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:09 The, the negative emotions. Um, and so you're still addressing the emotions when you do that-

Ali Abdaal 39:14 That is a good point. Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:14 ... because you don't give your chance, your, your, yourself a chance to basically start going, "Well, what if I don't get it right, and what happens if it's not perfect," and, "Oh, I'm never gonna do this." And so, and, and those types of ruminative or procrastinatory, you know, types of, of thoughts, they dial up the negative emotions-

Ali Abdaal 39:32 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:32 ... that are just gonna push you further away from that task. So it d- they are still tapping into that same underground.

Ali Abdaal 39:37 Emotional.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:37 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 39:38 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:38 And so that's why I, you know-

Ali Abdaal 39:39 Emotional core. Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:39 ... both Tim and I say, like, that is, that ... For me, that's ground zero.

Ali Abdaal 39:42 Nice.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:43 Everything about procrastination, ground zero is difficult emotions that we struggle with.

Ali Abdaal 39:48 Interesting. Okay.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 39:49 For different reasons. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 39:50 Uh, so

Ali Abdaal 39:51 in, in my introduction to part two, which is the procrastination chapter, uh, the, the procrastination three chapters, um, I have a ... I'm just gonna, if, if it's all right with you, I'll just, like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:01 Yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 40:01 ... run you through my method, and you can tell me what you agree with and what you potentially disagree with, 'cause we still have, like, a month to make the final changes.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:06 Oh, okay. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 40:07 So, um, the way that I've, I'm, I'm trying to introduce this is that we all, we all have these things that we, that we, that we struggle to do, and society tells us that the solution is, like, a bunch of different options. So option number one is motivation. That says, "You know, if, if you wanted it enough, you would do it."

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:24 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:24 Just like, if you wante- if you wanted that thing more than you wanted to breathe, then you'll ... you'd find a way to make it happen. Where there's a will, there's a way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:30 Yeah. No pain, no gain, right?

Ali Abdaal 40:32 Yeah, all of that. Um, and then the ... But the, the issue with motivation is that it waxes and wanes. Sometimes I feel very motivated to go to the gym, other times I don't. And so if I'm pegging my going to the gym on motivation, it's not particularly sustainable.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:45 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 40:46 So then some people would say, "Well, the problem is that you're relying on motivation. Instead of relying on motivation, rely on discipline, and willpower-"

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:54 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 40:54 "... and grit, and persistence, and-"

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 40:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:56 "... all of those things," and you'll get, like, Navy SEALs being like, "Discipline equals freedom." Like, you know, you just gotta, mm. And it's a very sort of warmongering almost, like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 41:07 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 41:08 ... battle language around discipline.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 41:10 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 41:11 Um, but then what I'm kind of trying to propose or slash explain in these three chapters is there, there's, there's a third method, and, you know, we- we're kind of calling it the unblock method. It's like figure, figure out what are the blockers that are blocking you from doing the task-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 41:28 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 41:28 ... and then just address the blockers. And then, a, at least you'll know what it is, and b, you won't have to rely on motivation or discipline. Maybe there's a little bit of discipline to take that, that in- that, that next action step, but it's discipline in small doses rather than the entire strategy.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 41:43 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 41:43 And so we're saying that the three blockers are uncertainty, anxiety, and inertia, and if you address them one at a time, fundamentally you're addressing the underlying, hopefully, the thing that's blocking you. How does, how does that land for you? Like ...

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 41:56 Yeah, I mean, I think that, that sounds all right. I, again, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm very, [chuckles] very situated in sort of the ... Uh, and 'cause I've, I've looked at all the, the research-

Ali Abdaal 42:05 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:05 ... and even the brain imaging research, and it all supports, you know, this, this view, which is that it's emotions first underneath. So what's blocking you? Yeah, but so that's true. So you can move roadblocks.

Ali Abdaal 42:16 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:16 But how did that block go- get there in the first place, right?

Ali Abdaal 42:20 Hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:21 Right?

Ali Abdaal 42:21 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:21 So what brought that block into being?

Ali Abdaal 42:23 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:24 It was-

Ali Abdaal 42:24 The negative emotions

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:25 ... it was j- the emotions and, and something about the task, something about yourself, and I see it's a, it's an, it's an interaction between you and the task.

Ali Abdaal 42:32 Ooh, nice.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:33 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 42:33 Nice.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:34 So it's that, that interaction between you and the task that gives rise to these negative emotions that then creates blockages, right? So, you know, um, you can start telling yourself that, "Oh, it's not the perfect time, and I will- I gotta be more motivated," and that's where sort of the, the inertia kind of kicks in. But that we, we s- keep ourselves stuck in that inertia through the thoughts that keep stirring up these negative emotions. Um, anxiety and fear is there, but there can be other types of emotions too.

Ali Abdaal 42:59 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 42:59 And certainly that hits closer, um, you know, to the core. What was your f- the first one again was?

Ali Abdaal 43:04 Uh, uncertainty.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:05 The uncertainty.

Ali Abdaal 43:05 Oh, that's just getting clarity over it all.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:06 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 43:07 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:07 But that's, that ... So that's more about the, the, the aspects of the task.

Ali Abdaal 43:10 Yes. Quite.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:11 Right?

Ali Abdaal 43:11 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:12 Um, so something about the task that's eliciting emotions. The second one is more about-

Ali Abdaal 43:16 About yourself

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:17 ... something within yourself.

Ali Abdaal 43:18 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:18 That's coming up

Ali Abdaal 43:20 Yeah. Nice

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:20 And then the last one is more of a, okay, so stop doing things that keep stirring up these emotions and just get on with it, right? So you've got to just short-circuit that pathway

Ali Abdaal 43:30 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:31 Um, and, and engage the positive emotions. And that's what that last strategy does, is you're engaging the positive emotions. Um, you know, and we've done some research to, to show that actually it's not just high levels of negative emotions or difficult emotions that drive procrastination. It's also low levels of positive emotions

Ali Abdaal 43:50 Hmm. Nice

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 43:51 Right? So if you... You know, we had a study where we had, um, students who had to study over a 48-hour period, and we had adults who were trying to, trying to make, um, you know, healthy changes in their life over a six-month period

Ali Abdaal 44:02 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 44:03 In both instances, what we found, so, A, people who were prone to procrastinate were less likely to achieve their goals. Big surprise there. Um, but they also not just felt more frustrated and found their, their, their, you know, their goal, um, less pleasant, um, but they found it less enjoyable

Ali Abdaal 44:23 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 44:23 So it was lower levels of positive emotions. And those positive emotions, that, that link between seeing this isn't, doesn't make me happy enough, right, was amplified if in the presence of temptations, especially-

Ali Abdaal 44:35 Ooh

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 44:35 ... social temptations

Ali Abdaal 44:36 Okay. Nice

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 44:37 Yeah. So if there was something... And you can see it's, it's a relative thing. Here's this task I have to do, which I rate really low in terms of how pleasant and how fun and enjoyable it's gonna be. Here's this other thing that looks really super enjoyable, and it's gonna look even more enjoyable relative to this task. So relative to that, your task starts looking less and less pleasant, and then you're gonna be like, "I'm not feeling good about this task, and it doesn't look like it's gonna bring me any joy. So I'm gonna go do the thing that's gonna bring me joy," right? And of course they procrastinate

Ali Abdaal 45:04 Hmm. One, um, o- one thing I've, I've often heard in this context is, "Well, some of us just have to do things that we don't like. Like, I don't like paying my taxes. I don't like paying the bills. But I've just got to do it." Like

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 45:18 Mm-hmm

Ali Abdaal 45:19 How does that fit into your model?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 45:21 Yeah, and I mean, I mean, this is the thing. I mean, most of us will go out and for certain tasks, we, we have to do it. And we just do. But in, in those instances, I would say there's a couple of things going on. Um, you've realized that you can manage those feelings. You have confidence in your ability to manage those feelings, perhaps 'cause you have a good repertoire of emotion regulation skills

Ali Abdaal 45:42 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 45:43 Right? You're able to find some humor in it

Ali Abdaal 45:45 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 45:45 Right? Um, you're able to reframe it in a way, um, that's not just unpleasant, but that actually is meaningful, you know. And I, one of my, my former PhD students, she did a really nice experiment to show quite clearly that when you ask people to frame a task that they were at risk for procrastinating in a more meaningful way-

Ali Abdaal 46:02 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 46:03 ... compared to someone who was just told to write something about the task, and she followed up with them, I think it was, like, 36 to 48 hours later. They procrastinated on average two hours less just from writing out, "This task is important," um, you know, "valuable to me because..." "This task is important for my connecting to others, people because..." "This task is important for my personal growth because..."

Ali Abdaal 46:24 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 46:25 Simple things. Just finding that meaningfulness, um, was enough to actually reduce that, that tendency to procrastinate. Some people just have a good, you know, um, range of s- of skills or good and are well-practiced at, at managing those difficult emotions. They might, might engage in this sort of meaning-making, for example. Um, or they might, you know, find other ways to, um, look at the task in a different way so that it feels less stressful to them. Um, but I think the other thing we need to consider, and this is something that I've just, um, you know, recently written a paper about, um, and I think it sort of again comes on the heels of, of the pandemic and some of that research showing that people procrastinate more, is that sometimes, though, if we, you know, if we think about procrastination as a coping method for dealing with these difficult task-related emotions-

Ali Abdaal 47:14 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 47:14 ... right? Um, what happens when, you know, you're in a situation where you've got a whole bunch of other things to cope with?

Ali Abdaal 47:23 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 47:24 Like a pandemic-

Ali Abdaal 47:25 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 47:25 ... and the health of yourself and your family, and your financial well-being, and job insecurity, and uncertainty of when this thing's gonna end, and all this sort of thing. So that's gonna eat up all your coping resources, or most of them

Ali Abdaal 47:38 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 47:38 And now you've got this nasty report that you've never written before. You're not... Uncertainty. You don't know what you're doing. You can't go over and ask somebody at the desk because you're working remotely. And what are you gonna do? Well, quick and easy, dirty method. It works. You're gonna procrastinate

Ali Abdaal 47:52 Yep

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 47:53 Right? You've just managed your mood, and you've saved, you know, you know, basically protected those coping resources, those limited coping resources you have to deal with all the other big background stuff

Ali Abdaal 48:01 Yep

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 48:02 Um, and that's, I think the other thing we have to think about too. Sometimes we may find ourselves procrastinating because there's a lot of background stress going on in our lives. Um, and it just becomes a c- a convenient way, although albeit not a great way-

Ali Abdaal 48:15 Mm-hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 48:15 ... of, of dealing with things. Um, and, you know, from that perspective, I think that's where we need to be compassionate, you know, both to ourselves and, and others when we see them struggling with procrastination. Maybe there's something else going on in the background of their life. It's not, you know, strict discipline, do this, and just get on with it. There's-

Ali Abdaal 48:32 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 48:32 You know, it, it's... So many people do this, and there's a reason we do it, and [laughs] it's instantly rewarding. Um, it's convenient, especially in circumstances where there is a lot of background stress. And I think-

Ali Abdaal 48:44 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 48:44 ... we have to kind of get out of seeing it as a character flaw and instead see it as just simply part of being human.

Ali Abdaal 48:50 What, if any, is the role of discipline in this?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 48:53 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 48:53 Like, what is discipline, like, from a psychology professor's perspective, and what's the role in getting things done?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:00 Yeah. I mean, so I think this, and we, we often kind of conflate discipline with, um, self-control or willpower even. And these are-

Ali Abdaal 49:09 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:09 ... these are, you know, willpower now we're getting into the, the realm of philosophy, right? And [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 49:13 Oh, yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:14 You know, what, what is willpower? Where does, what is the will?

Ali Abdaal 49:17 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:17 What does, where does this power of the come from that allows us to sort of move forward on things? And, um- I think, you know, with discipline, one way of looking at discipline is that, you know, you set up habits for yourself and you stick to those habits. So it, it has to do with sort of adhering to a set of guidelines, um, more generally speaking. Um, willpower is slightly different because it, it, I... You know, and, and this is something that is hotly contested. I-

Ali Abdaal 49:44 Mm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:44 ... I remember one evening I sat with a colleague of mine and, and he was like, "How come there's no studies on willpower?" I was like, "Well, how do we even define it in the first place? How are we gonna measure this thing?" It's just this, this, this sort of entity that-

Ali Abdaal 49:56 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 49:56 ... we understand is existing as somehow you should just do it and bring yourself forward.

Ali Abdaal 50:01 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 50:01 Um, and I think a- again, discipline, all this, I... You know, from a psychological perspective, it's probably the closest construct having to do with self-control, being able to self, which includes being able to self-regulate.

Ali Abdaal 50:12 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 50:13 Which includes being able to self-regulate your emotions. [laughs] Right? So it's not just emotions, but thoughts and behaviors, et cetera. Um, but again, I would say that that is another layer on top of it, right? So we can talk about ground zero for procrastination as being some difficulty in managing emotions.

Ali Abdaal 50:32 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 50:32 Right? And all of us, like you said, we all encounter tasks that are difficult. Well, some people have... They bring... They might either have less, is it less, um, higher tolerance for those negative emotions, perhaps combined with greater practice and capacity to then just say, "Yeah, this is uncomfortable, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna push myself through it."

Ali Abdaal 50:55 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 50:55 That's where the self-control comes in.

Ali Abdaal 50:57 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 50:57 Right? Um, so it's, it's an asset. It's a resource you can draw upon when you're struggling with those emotions. Um, and I, I always try to make that clear because you often see, well, people with poor self-control procrastinate. Well, yes, of course, because they're not, they're, they're, they're not easily just giving up on, you know, um, managing those emotions. They're struggling and working through. They're keeping that, that, that focus.

Ali Abdaal 51:18 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:18 And they're also s- you know, the same areas of the brain that has to do with self-control are also in the prefrontal cortex and that also are involved in, um, s- similar regions anyways to being able to think ahead and thinking about the consequences of our actions. We often think of the opposite of self-control as being impulsivity.

Ali Abdaal 51:35 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:36 Right? So we can't control. We just follow our impulses wherever they go. Impulse shopping, impulse eating, you know, um, not the [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 51:43 No, no.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:44 I'm sorry. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 51:45 I'm munching away. Impulse eating. After that, I saw the grapes.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:47 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 51:48 I haven't had a grape in a while.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:49 There you go. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 51:50 Yeah, there we go. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:51 Um, but you know, so, so we think of that as being undisciplined, right?

Ali Abdaal 51:57 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 51:57 Or poor self-control. Um, and you know, there, there's, there's some, um, you know, some research that suggests that, you know, all procrastination is just impulsivity. Well, it's like impul- being impulsive doesn't cause you to procrastinate because if that was true, you'd procrastinate on even things that were fun.

Ali Abdaal 52:13 Yeah. True.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 52:13 Right? So what pr- impulsivity does, it layers over. You've got this task that's difficult. You're struggling with the emotions. You don't know how to manage them. Instead of staying focused on how could I manage these emotions-

Ali Abdaal 52:24 Mm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 52:24 ... if you're more impulsive, you're gonna be more easily distracted by things within the environment-

Ali Abdaal 52:29 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 52:29 ... that will offer you a quick emotional fix.

Ali Abdaal 52:32 Got it.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 52:33 Right? And that's where the impulsivity comes in. So it facilitates, um, just as digital distractions and so many other things in the environment do. It facilitates procrastination, but does not cause it per se.

Ali Abdaal 52:45 An i- an image that's coming to my mind is that it's... If, if emotions are ground zero for pr- for procrastination, it's almost like the emotions are sort of the, the, the hump we have to get over to get started with a task.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 52:58 That's right.

Ali Abdaal 52:59 And for some people, their level of discipline is, or their l- or their level of self-control is higher than that hump. And so they can be like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:05 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 53:05 ... "You know what? The hump's there, but, like, I'm sufficiently self-controlled-y to get over the hump." But for other people, the self-control level is below where the hump is.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:13 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 53:13 And so the only option there is to then actually try and reduce the size of the hump by addressing the emotions and getting-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:19 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 53:20 ... developing the skills of emotional regulation.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:22 Yeah, that's a cool way to, to visualize it, I think. You know, I mean, and, and that's just it. If you've got that greater degree of, of self-control, you can sit with those emotions and work through them and struggle through them because you're, you're not gonna be wanting to just avoid.

Ali Abdaal 53:37 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:38 Right? Self-control h- helps reduce the tendency to avoid things. Um-

Ali Abdaal 53:43 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:43 ... and including that, those negative emotional, um, experiences and, and, and focuses you in on, okay, what do I need to do to manage these emotions, right? So it also helps you kind of say, "Here's the problem I need to solve."

Ali Abdaal 53:55 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 53:56 Right? And it's still a problem. Doesn't make the problem go away. And, and again, it could be as simple as, oh, I've just got to look at this task this way and find a meaningful thing of it. Oh, if I rearrange this task this way, it's actually not that stressful overall. Um, the other thing [laughs] that, that can happen though too, and this is like sort of going back to the, the ground zero with emotions, and I think it's a really good example of it, is often we procrastinate not because of the emotions we're experiencing right now with that task.

Ali Abdaal 54:24 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:24 They might actually be fairly manageable.

Ali Abdaal 54:26 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:26 But because of the emotions that we imagine that we're going to experience once we start engaging with the task. So-

Ali Abdaal 54:35 Ah, okay. Yep.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:36 You know?

Ali Abdaal 54:37 Yes.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:37 Have you ever been in that situation before where you've had something, you're like-

Ali Abdaal 54:39 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:39 ... "I, I don't, I don't know what this is. I've not done it before."

Ali Abdaal 54:42 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:43 "Oh, boy, this is gonna be really hard. This is gonna be really stressful. I, I think when I start doing this, I'm just gonna get so frustrated I'm just gonna wanna give it up. Uh, I'm not even gonna start it." Right?

Ali Abdaal 54:51 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 54:52 Um, so that is actually, that's an interesting phenomena, you know, emotionally because now what we're doing is we're sort of time traveling. [laughs] Right? And we're doing some emotional time traveling as well. Um, and we're picturing ourselves in the future with this task and trying to, you know, um, sort of, um, s- s- simulate what our emotional experiences are going to be. Big problem with that, right? Um, that, by the way, is that, that particular phenomena is called effective forecasting, and the problem with that is that numerous science- scientific studies have shown that as human beings, we're terrible at actually being able to predict Um, accurately our emotional states.

Ali Abdaal 55:32 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:32 We tend to, um, see those emotional states as being way more intense than what they're gonna be-

Ali Abdaal 55:37 Mm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:37 ... and lasting way lo- longer than what they're gonna be, too.

Ali Abdaal 55:39 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:40 Um, and so that becomes a bit of an issue as well. That's what I call making emotional mountains out of molehills, right?

Ali Abdaal 55:45 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:45 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 55:46 Like, it's usually not that bad once you get started, but it's easy to convince yourself it's gonna be really bad.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's ... But what we're, what we're doing is we're experiencing those emotions. We're time traveling ahead-

Ali Abdaal 55:54 Yep

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 55:54 ... and thinking that those emotional states are gonna be really difficult and, and they never really are, mostly because we forget about something that, I really love the label of this, we forget about our emotional immune system.

Ali Abdaal 56:06 Oh.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 56:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 56:07 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 56:07 So which is this idea that, um, when we're in a difficult situation, we naturally bring to bear a number of internal and external s- um, coping resources. So we might bring our sense of humor in to deal with it. We might know, you know, you know, call a friend kind of thing.

Ali Abdaal 56:22 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 56:22 Um, and those coping resources, which is part of our sort of emotional, um, immune response if you like, help bring down the intensity and the duration of those emotional experiences that we might have when we're struggling with a task.

Ali Abdaal 56:35 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 56:35 But we forget about our emotional immune system because we don't have the context. We're sort of seeing a sliver of time with this task, and we forget about all the contextual elements around it that are gonna be there to actually support us and make it actually not any- anywhere h- near half as bad as what we're imagining it to be.

Ali Abdaal 56:51 Hmm. Nice. Um, I'd love to move on to talking about the, uh, things that we can do if we're struggling with procrastination.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 56:58 Oh, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 56:58 But one question before we go there. Um, is there any evidence that we struggle more with procrastination later in the day?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:06 Um...

Ali Abdaal 57:07 I guess I'm thinking of, like, the whole ego depletion thing and, like-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:10 Oh, yeah [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 57:10 ... the controversy around that. Like, if you've just had a, if you just had a high glucose meal, you're less likely to da, da, da. Like, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:16 Yeah, the whole fatigue thing. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 57:18 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:18 So there's still a lot of controversy around that, that ego depletion and whether it is actually a thing, and, and, and I don't ... I think, I think, um, that's not something I would ... I personally, you know, as a, yeah, s- psychological scientist would say is, is a thing that-

Ali Abdaal 57:33 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:33 ... actually comes into play. I think fatigue, um, can certainly make it easier, right?

Ali Abdaal 57:39 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:39 So if you think about if you've got something to struggle with, these emotions-

Ali Abdaal 57:42 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:42 ... and you're tired, right, to cope-

Ali Abdaal 57:45 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:45 ... you're gonna put it aside.

Ali Abdaal 57:46 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:47 Right? But I don't think we can assume that everyone feels more tired later in the day.

Ali Abdaal 57:52 Hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:53 Right? Because there has been some work done on morningness and evening, eveningness.

Ali Abdaal 57:57 Yep.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 57:57 Um, and some people are more tired earlier in the day and more alive later in the day, um, different diurnal rhythms on that. So I think it has more to do with an individual, you know, diurnal rhythms of, of when you, you know, feel more energized than that. If you are more depleted than that, it's gonna be easier to put something aside. But are you actually, when you're doing that, I would ask, are you actually procrastinating, or are you just making a wise choice that, "You know what? I'm too tired to do a good job on this right now"?

Ali Abdaal 58:23 Hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 58:23 Um, "And so I'm gonna put it aside, but first thing tomorrow morning I'm gonna get up and do it," and you get up the next morning and you do it. That's actually not procrastinating.

Ali Abdaal 58:31 Yeah. No, that's just good time management, I guess. [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 58:33 Well, yeah. Well, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 58:34 Oh, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 58:34 Just it just, it's just a-

Ali Abdaal 58:35 Managing your energy

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 58:36 ... pri- prioritization-

Ali Abdaal 58:37 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 58:37 ... of your goals and your energy levels and everything, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 58:40 This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Now, this is very exciting because we have been a paying customer of Shopify for the last several years. We use Shopify to handle the website and also the back end of Essentially, which is our kind of stationery line, and we're also using Shopify as the front end and the back end for a new tech brand that we're now building out. And if you haven't heard of it, Shopify is an incredible platform that lets you basically sell anything online and also in person. It's an e-commerce platform that powers businesses of all sizes, from really tiny businesses all the way to multi-billion dollar enterprises. And even though Shopify is really well set up to power businesses at enormous scale, they've also got a bunch of features that are really helpful for complete beginners or people new to starting a business. For example, they've got the business name generator, which is a free tool that you can use to figure out a name for your business. They've got their starter plan, which is a very cheap and easy way to actually start selling things online. And they've got a bunch of free online courses on their Shopify Learn platform, and those courses give you access to the collective knowledge and experience of loads of successful entrepreneurs from all around the world. So if that sounds up your street, then head over to shopify.com/deepdive, which is also in the video description and the show notes, and that will let you sign up to a totally free trial that will let you see if you vibe with Shopify as much as we do. So thank you so much, Shopify, for sponsoring this episode.

Ali Abdaal 59:45 There's that whole theory around, um, eat that frog, you know?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 59:48 Oh, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 59:48 If you're struggling with something, just do it first thing in the morning-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 59:50 Mark

Ali Abdaal 59:50 ... and then you'll have it out of the way. What-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 59:52 The whole Mark Twain thing, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 59:54 Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's fairly old school, but it's ... Yeah, what's, what are your thoughts on that theory?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 59:59 Um, I ... You know, works for some, doesn't work for others, right?

Ali Abdaal 1:00:02 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:02 Because if you're someone who is prone to procrastination and, you know, your emotion regulation skills are more precarious or more taxed or less developed, um, or you're less confident about them, taking on the big thing, it could be just the thing that triggers you to go, "No way."

Ali Abdaal 1:00:18 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:19 "I can't do this. It's just too much."

Ali Abdaal 1:00:20 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:20 You can't, you can't manage those feelings, and you may need just to step into things-

Ali Abdaal 1:00:24 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:24 ... with smaller things first to build the confidence, right? Um, and, and build that, that, that sense that, yeah, I am actually doing things, which is why, you know, taking a large task, building it into small bits, you know, that they always say, "Well, that works 'cause it builds your confidence." It does that, but more importantly what it does is it takes away the stress.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:44 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:44 Right? Large tasks that are overwhelming seem stressful.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:47 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:00:47 Breaking it into small bits takes it down to a less stressful, manageable, um, bite. And so for some people, that strategy works. I would say that others can go in and do the hard thing first. You know, that's, that, that's kind of like not sitting and letting those thoughts sort of drum up all those emotions, and-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:03 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:01:03 ... those people probably have higher levels of self-control as well. So they're probably less prone to be-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:08 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:01:08 ... procrastinating in the first place anyway, so. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:01:10 Nice. Makes sense. So, um, what are some of the most effective strategies that you've come across for overcoming procrastination?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:01:17 Um, so there's a couple of different approaches. Um, I think if it's something to do with the task, as we talked about, getting clarity on tasks that are uncertain. If the task is too big and, and isn't structured well- Give it some structure, break the task down into small pieces so all these things can kinda bring down and quiesce those, you know, potentially high negative em- or difficult emotions that might prompt you to procrastinate. Um, I think there's other dynamics that go on too, especially once we start procrastinating, that are really good to kind of be aware of and, and to [laughs] and in, in terms of when you're trying to manage the, uh, procrastination. And, and so, you know, how you see the task, obviously the meaningfulness we just spoke about, that's a really effective strategy.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:01 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:02:02 Um, that, that can certainly help. [lips smack] But I think when you're dealing with the task is more, especially with the emotions and you're really struggling with those emotions, um, an important thing is to actually, um, you know, um, not be so hard on yourself.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:19 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:02:19 Like, don't do anything that's gonna generate more negative emotions or throw more layers of negative difficult emotions onto something-

Ali Abdaal 1:02:26 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:02:26 ... that you're already procrastinating because you've got difficult emotions any- in there in the first place, right? Um, so couple, uh, key strategies and, and again, it depends on whether you've already procrastinated or if you're b- you're struggling with the task, right? So if you're, if you're struggling with the task, um, I would say that self-compassion is an effective strategy.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:45 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:02:45 [lips smack] And that's basically recognizing that, you know, um, s- to struggle with things is part of a learning process, it's part of being human, not getting it right on the first time, you know, and that's often people we st- they start things and then they realize, "Oh, it's not going the way I planned," [laughs] right?

Ali Abdaal 1:03:03 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:03 Um, and then that's when they can abandon it because they've-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:06 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:06 ... made a mistake and the perfectionism kicks in and everything. That's when you need to be self-compassionate. Um, and so self-compassion kicks in when we're struggling with our own personal failings-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:16 Yep

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:16 ... shortcomings, difficults, thoughts about ourselves and the task, et cetera. And, and basically it's just being kind rather than critical, rather than saying, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I get this right?"

Ali Abdaal 1:03:26 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:26 You know? [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:03:26 Yeah, sure.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:27 Right? Um, and recognizing that this is something everybody does. Uh, you know, people are, tend to be critical, but also all- they all struggle, and that's just part of being human. And then not getting over-identified with those negative emotions.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:40 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:41 Right? Be- keeping them in a mindful balanced state so that you're not sort of overcome and just sort of sucked into that vortex of negative emotions which, you know, can be really, really difficult to get out of.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:51 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:03:51 Um, and the thing with, um, you know, the self-compassionate response there too is it, it, it's not... People have a hard time with it because they think it's like giving a free pass for procrastinating.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:03 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:04:04 Um, they think it means self-indulgence or, you know, all... There's been studies looking at this, the, the, the difficulties that people have and why they think, you know, self-compassion is not a great thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:13 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:04:13 Actually, what the science says is that it will motivate you, right? People who don't waste time, you know, just whipping up more of those negative emotions and instead say, "Yeah, I procra- you know, I'm struggling with this task and I'm at risk for procrastinating. But you know what? I'm not gonna get caught up in that."

Ali Abdaal 1:04:28 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:04:28 "I'm just gonna focus on what I need to do and kinda keep, um, going ahead and being kind." And changing that internal dialogue, right? Like, things we say to ourselves when we're-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:37 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:04:37 ... you're str- You'd never say that to a friend. Like, would you go, "Oh, what's wrong with you? Why can't you get this done?" You wouldn't say that to a good friend or someone-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:44 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:04:44 ... you cared about. But we so easily say that to ourselves, right? And that really just does- doesn't help anybody [laughs] and doesn't help ourselves. It makes it more likely we're gonna, um, continue to procrastinate. And, you know, same thing applies if, if you have started to procrastinate, right? Being self-compassionate to your procrastination. You're not the first person to procrastinate, nor will you be the last. There's nothing particularly special about your procrastination, so get over it, you know? Just cut the drama, right? [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:05:11 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:05:11 And just kinda get on with things, right? Figure out what you need to do, right? Um, but self-forgiveness has also been shown, um, in at least a couple of studies, um, to be effective. Um, so, you know, it was one study where, you know, s- they asked students about, uh, students who had procrastinated studying for an exam, and they asked them to the extent to which they forgave themselves. They followed up with them a couple weeks later. Um, and those who forgave themselves procrastinated less.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:35 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:05:36 And the reason they procrastinate less is their level of negative emotions went down around the task.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:42 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:05:43 Right? So those are-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:44 Yeah. Comes back down to the emotions.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:05:45 It comes back, it all comes back to its ground zero. Tell you.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:48 Emotions are ground zero.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:05:49 It is ground zero.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:49 I need to make sure I've got that line in the book. [both laugh] Um, what are your thoughts on, uh, easy versus challenging goals as it relates to procrastination?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:00 So I mean, this, this, this is where it kinda gets tricky though too, and I think this, tr- for me, I always think about that, um, I mean, there's a couple different thing, ways, and, and not may- and maybe I'm not completely understanding the question, but, um, you know, we can always take a goal that's challenging and reframe it in a way that's less challenging-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:21 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:21 ... to make it easier. And I think that's-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:23 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:23 ... that's part of, you know, the mental work that we can do before we start.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:25 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:26 That's part of the, the preparatory, um, um, stuff before we-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:29 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:29 ... we engage with that task. Um, I also think though [laughs] that easy tasks, um, tend to be the ones we use to procrastinate on the more challenging tasks, right? [laughs] So if we've got a bunch of little things we have to do, right? And we know there's this big pressing task, and it really does need to be done, and it's gonna take some time, and it's gonna take some challenge, but we decide not to engage with that-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:53 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:06:53 ... instead do all these little things. Well, what are we doing? Right? Well, we're procrastinating the big task, which was the important one, and we're doing all these little things, and we're feeling like, "Hey, look, see? I'm not lazy. I'm productive," right?

Ali Abdaal 1:07:04 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:04 We're countering those social norms that we're afraid, we're so afraid that we're gonna be transgressing by procrastinating.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:09 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:09 Right? And now going, "Oh, look, see? I'm a productive person. Look at all the stuff I'm doing."

Ali Abdaal 1:07:13 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:13 Yeah, but what you're doing really isn't important, right?

Ali Abdaal 1:07:16 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:16 Um, and so we can fool ourselves into thinking that. And we're also getting a sense of confidence. We're getting a little bit of a mood boost.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:22 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:22 So it's, like, a very, a kind of... I find that a, a very particularly tricky, um, way to, uh... well, it's not tr- it's, it's a clever way to, to [laughs] deal with procrastination, but it's a tricky thing to break out of because you're getting some other types of rewards that are not so apparent-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:38 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:38 ... for the procrastination. And, and you can Go on fooling yourself that you're being really super productive and that you're not procrastinating-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:44 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:07:44 ... and being in complete denial of the fact that, yeah, but there's this thing over here that you're supposed to be doing and you're not really doing it.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:51 Yeah. Absolutely. Um, have you, have you come across anything around input goals versus outcome goals? By which I mean, like, uh, the outcome of, uh, hit, uh, X revenue for my business, which is somewhat outside of my control because it's, like, based on other people giving me money, versus I will make 50 sales calls a day. I'll focus on the thing that's within my control rather than focusing on the outcome that's outside of my control.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:17 Yeah, so I think that, that, that aligns with some of the research that's been done on, on whether the goals are autonomous or not.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:23 Hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:24 Right? So if, if a goal is, feels more controlled, that somebody else is pulling the strings-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:29 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:29 ... um, that tends to be the type of goal that we will procrastinate on.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:33 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:34 Right? It lacks meaning.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:35 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:36 Right? And, and so there's a, a number of different reasons for that, and we don't have that, that sense of meaning or accomplishment, and that's, you know... A- and, and it can also be if someone else is controlling that goal, there can be fear of disappointing them or fear-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:47 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:47 ... you know? So it, it elicits all those emotions. Whereas when it's something we have a sense of control, we take ownership over that goal.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:55 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:08:55 Right? It ha- now becomes immediately meaningful. Um, and the one thing I didn't say about the meaning-making before, so yeah, sure, you know, finding meaning in the goals works, but one of the reasons that, that, um, Sisi found it worked in her study was it actually reduced those challenging negative emotions.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:11 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:12 So it reduces negative emotions, and I think the other reason it works too is it doesn't... Now, it doesn't make them all go away. I wanna make that really clear. So finding meaning isn't gonna make you feel like, oh, there's no negative feelings I have-

Ali Abdaal 1:09:22 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:22 ... about this task. No, those negative feelings are still gonna be there.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:25 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:26 But now they have context. Now, if I struggle with this emotion, it's important. It's meaningful. It's part of this bigger picture-

Ali Abdaal 1:09:34 Hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:34 ... of these larger goals that I want to accomplish. And so somehow when we have the context for those negative emotions as being part of a bigger picture, it's okay to work through them. We're less likely-

Ali Abdaal 1:09:45 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:45 ... to wanna disengage from them because now there's a purpose to them.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:50 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:50 It's, I think it's when we have negative emotions that don't have a purpose, it's just like, "I don't wanna feel this. Put it aside."

Ali Abdaal 1:09:55 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:09:55 But now, oh, that negative emotion has a purpose. It's telling me I'm learning. It's telling me I'm becoming stronger. It's telling me I'm becoming better at what I'm doing. Then we're more inclined to want to engage with that and find a way to work through it rather than put it aside and procrastinate.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:11 Fantastic. Um, is there any evidence that, uh, that our environment has a role when it comes to combating procrastination?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:10:19 Yes. Um, and I think here, this is what I was saying earlier about sort of distractions and things that facilitate procrastination, right? Um, and so, you know, you hear a lot of talk about digital distractions-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:29 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:10:29 ... and environments that aren't, you know, properly set up to work in productivity. They can be distracting. Um, the reason that, you know, or what I call, I call these procrastinogenic environments. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:10:41 [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:10:41 You know? Kinda like the obesogenic environment-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:43 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:10:43 ... right? With all the fast food. The procrastinogenic environment is one where there's tons of, you know, digital distractions and technology and all kinds of things that are gonna pull your focus away from the task that you have to work on. Um, and because... A- or offer a pleasurable alternative, because what those types of environments do, first of all, again, you've got a difficult task, so it's, you know, emotions is ground zero there. But when... Now, whether you continue to focus on grappling through those difficult emotions-

Ali Abdaal 1:11:13 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:11:13 ... and maybe finding some meaning or something else, or put it aside to do something more fun, is gonna be driven more by the environment. Because what happens with these cues in the environment, these social cues, social media, your phone dinging, whatever, gotta check the latest message, you know? [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:11:27 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:11:27 Right? Um, and what that does is it offers, um, it, it focuses you on the goal of managing your emotions, right? Um, and so right, I can feel better by going to check my social media. I can feel better, you know, if you're working from home and you like baking, and you're working in the kitchen. "Oh, why not go bake some cookies?"

Ali Abdaal 1:11:49 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:11:49 You know? I mean, so all of these things in the environment, they, they prime our short-term goals-

Ali Abdaal 1:11:56 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:11:56 ... of mood management rather than priming the long-term goal. So if you wanna set up an environment that's gonna be less procrastinogenic, you've gotta remove all these other things that would be pleasurable and would facilitate you disengaging from that task-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:10 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:12:10 ... or avoiding the task to find some immediate mood, and maybe help find meaning. So putting meaningful symbols of that task that you're working on.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:17 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:12:17 It's a big report or a book. Put things around you. Surround yourself with things that, that, that trigger that meaning, that make you think and contemplate the meaningfulness to yourself and to other people. Like why it is that you're doing this thing, and that's gonna help you sort of drive through without, you know. And again, reducing those, those distractions that are gonna pull you off task and, and, and make you say, "Oh, no, my goal is to feel good right now." No, no, your goal is to get this thing done. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:12:40 Yeah. Yeah, one of the w- one of the, um, unreasonably effective techniques that my brother used when he was doing his... He was applying to study maths at Oxford, and there's a lot of practice papers he had to do. So he just changed his, like, computer wallpaper to be a photo of Oxford. And, like, every time he turned his computer on, he'd be like, "Right. Let's go." [laughs]

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:12:59 That's right. That's right.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:59 Like, that made it more mean- I guess made it, made it more meaningful.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:01 That's meaningful, yeah. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:03 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:03 Yeah, he was evoking the meaning of, of that larger task, and that... So that's what you, what you wanna do.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:08 Um, is there any role in positive self-talk or a- affirmations, which are often used as, like, a way of combating negative emotions to deal with procrastination?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:19 I guess it depends on how they're targeted.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:21 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:21 Um, you know, and, and that's not something that's really been studied much-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:25 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:26 ... um, per se. Um, I mean, I would speculate here, just say, you know, it depends on what they're dealing with. You know?

Ali Abdaal 1:13:33 Sure.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:33 So are those affirmations... If you're just layering over some positivity on top some negativity, well, then you, you know, you... It doesn't, it's not gonna certainly gonna do anything 'cause you're not addressing.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:43 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:44 Um, so if it's, if something that is Specifically targeting those negative emotions that you have. So maybe it's, you know, around fear, fear of failure or, you know, getting it perfect or displeasing somebody. If, if it's some sort of positive thought-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:59 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:13:59 ... that's, that, that tackles that specifically, that might be useful. Okay, but again, there's not been any studies that have necessarily looked at that. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:14:07 Nice. That's useful to know. Um, I think that covers all of our bases. Um, any, any other sort of cures or treatments for procrastination or mitigating strategies that we've not yet covered that come to mind?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:20 Um, I mean, we didn't, we didn't get into the whole future self part of things, so to-

Ali Abdaal 1:14:24 Oh, the whole, like, superhero thing kind of dimension.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:26 Yeah. I mean, there has been some strategies to suggest if you... People prone to procrastination tend to have a weaker relationship with their future self.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:36 Weaker as in?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:37 Um, they don't feel that close to them. They feel like they're a stranger, which is why it's easy to put them on a pedestal and think they're a superhero.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:42 Ah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:42 'Cause it's, it's no longer like them anymore, right?

Ali Abdaal 1:14:44 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:44 Um, and most of us have difficulty, especially for our future selves, of connecting with them.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:49 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:14:49 Some people are very good at doing that, though. The people prone to procrastination, because their focus is so much on the now, have some difficulty with that. And, and it's a... I mean, I didn't get into that dynamic, but think about it. If you're stressed about a task, if you're feeling negative emotions around a task, right, you're activating sort of, you know, the sympathetic nervous system, the stress response, the amygdala, threat detection. Everything is focusing your attention to the now.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:13 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:13 It's not focusing it to the future. You need to be in a positive state-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:18 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:18 ... to be able to think abstractly and think about the future.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:20 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:20 Um, and so it's a very vicious circle there, and this is why we see the people prone to procrastination. And, and this has actually been shown in fMRI studies.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:27 Mm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:27 Scans of the brain show that people who chronically procrastinate have deficits in two areas of the brain, one having to do with future-oriented thinking, the other having to do with emotion regulation.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:37 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:38 Right? And it's 'cause it's a dance between the two of them, right? You're more stressed, you're thinking about the now, which means you're not thinking about the future.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:45 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:45 You're not thinking about the future, then, you know... Yeah, kind of-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:47 So it comes down to the emotion thing.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:15:49 Um, I guess, um, uh, the broaden-and-build theory.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:52 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:52 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:53 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Fredrickson. So that's engaging positive emotions. Meaning-making does that.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:57 Oh, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:15:58 Right?

Ali Abdaal 1:15:59 Yeah. That's, that broaden-and-build is, like, the core piece, piece of evidence that's, like, backing up my whole thesis for this book.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:05 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:05 So, yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:05 Well, well, 'cause, but, but to, to... So what that does is you're engaging the parasympathetic nervous system-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:10 Mm-hmm

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:10 ... which helps quiesce-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:11 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:11 ... the sympathetic nervous system, which has us, you know, running around stressed and just focusing on, you know, rushing and, yeah, just trying to [laughs] deal with immediate threats. Um, and yeah, there's a few things that you, you need to do to be able to engage that system. Breathing, right?

Ali Abdaal 1:16:27 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:28 Yeah. And one thing I didn't talk about is mindfulness, actually.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:30 Hmm.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:31 Um, we did, um, publish with some Iranian colleagues, uh, a paper this year where we showed for student procrastinators, um, an eight-week course of, uh, mindfulness training actually significantly reduced their procrastination. Because mindfulness is a way of managing emotions, right?

Ali Abdaal 1:16:47 Yeah.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:16:47 Yeah. So, um, and then people... Earlier, I, I... We did a study showing that people who chronically procrastinate tend to not engage in mindfulness-based practices and tend to score lower on these self-report measures of mindfulness. So that, and that's very much highly related to the self-compassion again. But anything where, that manages emotions-

Ali Abdaal 1:17:07 Yeah

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:17:07 ... um, is going to be effective there.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:09 Fantastic.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:17:10 But yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:11 Brilliant. I think that's a great place to end this. Uh, Professor Fuschia, thank you so much. Um, if someone has gotten to the end of this conversation and they're like, "Ah, you know, I really want to find out more," can you recommend any resources, yours or anyone else's, that would be a good kind of starting point or next place to go to after this conversation to help people struggling with procrastination?

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:17:27 Yeah. So, um, I put together, um, last year a self-help book on procrastination that, um, goes into a lot more detail on some of the things I touched upon today. Um, it's, uh, basically quite simply called, um, Procrastination: What It Is, Why It's a Problem, and What You Can Do About It, and it's published by, um, APA Publishers', uh, LifeTools, uh, imprint. Um, and each chapter I've got exercises that you can go through to sort of test yourself on some of the concepts and actually start to sort of probe some of the emotions and start trying to put some of the techniques I've talked about into practice.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:59 Okay, brilliant, and we'll put links to that and also your website and everything-

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:18:03 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:18:03 ... down in the video description and in the show notes so people can feel free to have a browse around if they, if they would like.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:18:08 Yeah. Sounds great.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:08 All right. Thank you so much for coming on.

Dr. Fuschia Sirois 1:18:09 No, thank you for having me.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:11 All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Uh, do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.