I’m playing around with a bit of reverse psychology right now. The idea is that I can’t have a backlog of anything anymore. If anything has been hanging around in my backlog for longer than, say, three days, I need to either deal with it or decide that I never will, and

DELETE IT

This is something I have tested over and over again on my clients, and it makes steam come out of their ears. There’s a glinting ember of something in here that really has my attention. Why are we so bad at letting things go even when they drive us crazy?

My case is unusual in that I thought I was dying only a few months ago. I spent days in bed, too ill to sit up, too weak to hold my phone to my head. All I could think about was all the things I’d never said, the things I’d never done, and the stupid remnants of my life that my poor husband would have to sort when I was gone.

It was sad, but it was also embarrassing and annoying. I got really frustrated with myself.

This? This was going to be my dying epiphany? That I should have enjoyed life more and lived in the moment and not procrastinated so much?

Pretty much.

When it was starting to look like I was going to make it (before the next lung infection that challenged that idea), I understood that I had a chance to use this suffering for something. I did two things. I decided to treat myself as Version 2 and act as though I had physically died and started over as a new person. I let go of anything from my “previous life.” I gave myself permission to shrug off any residual feelings about that stuff.

(Confession: I never finished reading The Aeneid in my summer Latin class, even in English, so that happened).

The second thing was that I mulled over what I wanted to do with my new chance, my second bite at the apple. That was that I wanted to get a day job again and then go to grad school.

Spirit acts fast sometimes. The opening for the job that I have now showed up in my husband’s email that same week. Everyone who has heard about my desire to get a fellowship and work on my PhD has been encouraging.

I’m very lucky in this new job. Most of the people in my department are morning people; quite a lot of them clock in at 6:30 AM. We’re on 9/80s so we work long days. I worked it out with my partner that she does mornings and I do afternoons, so I work 8-6, and then we alternate Fridays. The two of us can cover nearly twelve hours a day, five days a week. This has built in at least an hour a day, and a full day every two weeks, when almost nobody is around. I can tie up any loose ends from the day, and then from the week. I’m almost always able to start Monday with a clean slate.

It’s a nice feeling, something I’d like to get used to.

Now that I’m gradually recovering and approaching my baseline energy level, I’m steadily working on things that didn’t get done while I was ill. This is where the reset comes in.

The world shut down quite suddenly, as I’m sure you recall. Probably like most people, I had various things in progress that simply stayed that way, on hold. It’s a bit like those mystery stories where the people leave with half-eaten meals still on the table.

A bag of stuff to take to the donation center, pictures to hang, that sort of thing.

While I made a magical decision on what I thought was my deathbed, it didn’t magically whisk anything away. Everything I had thought about was still in the same condition as it had been in March. The major difference was that my email and DMs had continued to accumulate.

This is where we get to the technicalities of this whole “Do it or dump it” idea.

We start with two rough personality sorts.

There are three main phases of action: initiation, maintenance, and completion. Most people tend to prefer one of these phases and dislike another one.

There are two main moods of clutter: looking forward and looking backward. Some people prefer to anticipate the future and others cling to the past.

Put these together in various combinations and see if they remind you of anyone you know.

Are they stuck in a rut because they can’t get started, or because they don’t want something to end? (Not launching a business vs. not finishing their degree).

Do they have a thousand projects because they like starting something new, but then get bored? Or are they surrounded by heirlooms and unsorted boxes because they can’t let go of the past?

“Do it or dump it” applies to clutter like this. If you haven’t used it in the last year, ask for help and get rid of it. End of story. This applies equally to unfinished craft projects, unread books, clothes that don’t fit, broken stuff that you haven’t fixed yet, workout equipment, untested recipes, and supplies for remodeling or baking or whatever.

I sorted my physical clutter long ago. Now I’m down to digital clutter - mainly email newsletters and [checking] 45 GB of podcast episodes - and pending projects.

Here, “do it or dump it” means deleting anything over a certain age (or size, or from a certain source, or whatever works), or canceling something. I will never finish that illustrated “Bride of Godzilla” story I wanted to do because after I started the sketches, I learned about aggressive copyright protection.

What is it that makes some of us cling to old, outdated stuff for so long, even after we’ve already demonstrated that we aren’t interested enough to engage with it? What are we thinking? Why do we do this to ourselves?

I’ll share my motivations, which may or may not overlap with yours. I get attached to the potential of various future versions of myself - a version of me who can, for some reason, speak several languages while playing ukulele on a unicycle - and I don’t like admitting that some of it will never happen. Also, I have serious FOMO about anything I haven’t read but wanted to. Whenever I think about not having time to read every book in the world, my eyelid starts twitching.

There are people who are quite good at the “do it or dump it” philosophy. For instance, I once worked with a young woman who had an empty email inbox 99% of the time. She said that she found having even a single message sitting in her inbox annoying. My husband is the same way with having a packed closet. When he gets a new shirt, he - I am not making this up - immediately gets rid of an old shirt.

If you know someone like this, or even someone who has a different pattern of attachment than you do, there’s a simple solution. Go to this person and tell them about your predicament. “I can’t stop saving old receipts because I keep thinking I’m going to categorize them in my finance app one day.” The incredulous gaze of this unattached person should be very helpful in giving you the motivation to go ahead and either do it, or dump it.

Or ask them to do it for you. They’ll probably think it’s funny. Then you’ll be free to do whatever you want - as free as, in fact, you already are.

Start Now. Get Perfect Later. This is such an effective book that the title alone is its own philosophy. The cover could be posted on the wall above a lot of desks. While the rest of us are contemplating our personal struggles with productivity, Rob Moore has probably already submitted the outline for his next book.

What differentiates SNGPL from other books on procrastination is that it focuses a great deal on how to become more decisive and how to think strategically. This is a very intriguing take. Procrastination research in the academic world right now is revolving around mood repair and recognizing the emotional roots of resistance. Moore is sharing his approach, what worked for him, and I think it would also be an improvement for many of us fellow procrastinators.

Rethink what you are doing and why you are doing it. Teach yourself to be more confident in your decisions.

I’m with him on this, and I think I have a similar mindset. There is a stripe of person, the natural entrepreneur, who is full of ideas and drive but needs a certain amount of structure in order to get anything done. Not just building systems, but learning what is involved in creating an effective system in the first place, that’s the missing piece.

This book has the ring of truth. Bias toward action is the premise behind the exhortation to Start Now, Get Perfect Later. I can attest to much of this material from experience, which is motivating me to pay close attention and try the rest. Peek into the mind of someone who is doing things a bit differently, and ask yourself, wouldn’t it be better just to start now?

Favorite quotes:

Delaying general admin and jobs with no financial or residual benefit, in favour of the most important or highest-value task, is just plain smart.

Even procrastinating is a step into the unknown, as you don’t know what will happen when you put off a decision.

As you make faster, better and harder decisions, you get better at making faster, better and harder decisions.

Problem solvers rule the world.

I still haven’t done anything so far this January! I’m proud of this because sometimes it’s a difficult commitment to keep. It’s more important to me to work my goals ten months of the year than it is to try to maintain some kind of “””perfect””” “””streak””” starting on Day One. Because January is a basically impossible time of year to do anything, other than maybe sleep more or spend less money.

The one thing I have done is to reframe one habit by thinking of it as something else entirely. That’s where the News Machine comes in.

I have a terrible habit - actually many of them - and I also have a good habit, or at least one that I can invoke from time to time. This is part of my secret of habit change and personal transformation, the discovery that a good habit can be harnessed to flip over a bad one.

It’s called “anchoring.”

Peanut butter and... jelly.

Socks and... shoes.

Floss and... brush your teeth.

Trampolines and... ice cream cones. (Ooh, messy).

There is a reverse of this, as there is of most things, and that is when two bad habits are anchored together, or when a good habit triggers a bad one. If a pattern like this is recognized, then it’s time to brainstorm and figure out how to separate the two things. Like, every time I walk into the craft store I spend $40, or, every time I get a coffee I also get an ooey gooey pastry.

Usually the “bad” habit is the thing that we feel is an intrinsic part of our very personality. I quite literally AM an ooey gooey pastry! On the molecular level! I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who is not that!

This is why I usually refer to them as cute habits. Not “bad.” We weren’t born bad, we were born interesting!

Okay, so, confession: my cute habit is that I’d rather be reading than doing basically anything else. And the bad version of that habit is that the more I read, the more I bookmark, and the longer my “to read” list gets. The reason this is bad is that it interferes with my enjoyment. I start to think of my favorite thing as a must-do. Rather than having 100% fun, I start to feel like I “need” to get “caught up.”

Do you ever feel that way?

Crafty people often start to feel like they “need” to “finish” projects, like they’re “behind” on scrapbooking or “finishing” a quilt. What is supposed to be nothing at all other than a relaxing hobby somehow transmogrifies into a guilt machine. I promised! I owe! It’s late! Those emotions come from anchoring the hobby to something else, like giving gifts, showing affection to friends and family, trying to save money, or earning approval. The pressure also comes from shopping for materials, where the more focus there is on the hobby, the more accumulation of materials, and the more space they take up in the home. We think the only ways to relieve those practical and social pressures are to craft faster, rather than to stop buying supplies and stop trying to create 100% handmade gifts. Get back to making it about relaxation!

That’s turning into an entire separate piece, but I’m not going to claim that I’ll ever write it because I’m trying to reframe my personal concept of procrastination.

Why do I feel like I’m procrastinating on personal projects? Why do I sometimes feel this way even when there’s no deadline, nobody is asking for anything from me, and literally nobody cares but me?

Is this true for you, for anything in your life?

As with a lot of things, it’s easier to just go with it than it is to try to change the emotion. I recognize that I feel “behind” on my reading, and I figure out what I can do with that feeling that will lead directly to a positive action.

In my case, I use it to work out on the elliptical.

There! I said it!

I lied, I cheated! I’ve actually been crushing it this month down in the workout room!

I just didn’t want to admit it while talking about New Year’s Resolutions, because it makes other people feel bad. Like my weird little goals have anything to do with anyone but me...

I’ve found that I seem to read faster when I’m on the elliptical for some reason. It makes the time pass quickly.

I’ve tried other types of habits to keep me working out. I tried running on the treadmill, and it makes me feel like my brain is slowly dying. (Current gym does not have a treadmill). I tried the exercise bike but it makes me sore and I don’t think it gives me any results. I tried watching TV shows on the elliptical, but it makes me feel like every minute is really 18 minutes. The thing I’ve settled on is that I can read through news articles.

Whatever works!

I can’t emphasize this enough. If you think in terms of “supposed to” and “because” and “everyone else” and “not doing it right” and “fail,” you’re stopping yourself before you start. Try thinking in terms of “works for me” and “not sure why, but” and “for some reason.” You like what you like and you’re allowed to like it.

This is why I’m not thinking about my workout as a workout. I’m thinking about it as the News Machine. When I change clothes, I’m thinking about how many articles I’m going to read, and *that* is my personal burn rate. My metric is that I started out with nearly 400 articles in my news queue, and now I’m down to 120. Yay!

After that, there’s my *other* news queue, and then my “read at leisure” email folder, and then my open tabs...

According to my phone, I’m burning 18% more calories per workout after only two weeks. That comes from the feeling that I call “getting the lead out.” Like I threw off some lead weights. If my starting goal had been to “burn calories” or “move faster” I’m sure I would have been discouraged and I would already be feeling like I aimed too high.

Instead, I’m really just excited about finally feeling that elusive satisfaction of being “all caught up.” I can see it, a month or two from now. If I can keep reading this fast, if I can keep getting a spot on the News Machine...

I’ll probably just keep adding more stuff and making my list longer. Because who would I be without a to-do list or a never-ending stack of things to read?

Open loops are distracting. That’s their nature. An ‘open loop’ is the term for unfinished business, according to Getting Things Done. Sometimes that open loop is a task that needs to be done just once, sometimes it’s a persistent problem, and I think sometimes it’s also a philosophical quandary.

This is why we can get resolution on situations even when they will never change.

I work with chronically disorganized people. The two main things they struggle with are making categories and choosing priorities. This is why they always feel like they don’t know where to start. They’ll cheerfully follow orders, as long as someone is standing in the room with them, and they have no problem getting rid of things or cleaning up really distressing messes. As soon as they’re alone, though, they spin out. They no longer know what to do.

Almost everyone gets into a state like this at some level, tolerating a persistent problem, not knowing where to start or what to do next. We can ignore things that would drive someone else crazy, and vice versa.

The most obvious example of this is someone who clearly needs a new prescription for glasses. We see them scrunching up their foreheads, leaning forward and squinting. They don’t realize they’re doing it, even if they’ve worn glasses for decades and had to change prescription several times in their life.

Another classic is the person who comes to work, even though they’re obviously near death’s door with the flu or a bad cold. Go home! Get out of here before you get everyone else sick, you plague rat!

It’s when we’re struggling that we lose perspective on our problems.

We also lose perspective when life is coming at us from all sides. The harder things get, the less focus we have for what would normally be routine issues. The common cold is an example here, as well. We’re feeling low and only a few days later, the laundry is piled up, the fridge is empty, the sink is full of dirty dishes, the trash is overflowing, the nightstand is covered with bottles, and there are mugs and plates scattered everywhere.

We can use this as an analogy. Has anything been going on lately that is comparably disruptive, anything that has messed with our routines the way the common cold does?

When I come in to work with a client, I expect that almost nothing is working well. Their cars are full of clutter, usually including coins and cash on the floorboards. They have at least a three-day backlog of dishes and laundry. Unopened mail is everywhere. Their bathrooms are terrifying. They usually don’t have enough cleaning supplies, such as a total absence of a mop or even a sponge. They have health problems, their vehicles are breaking down, and if they’re employed then they’re often on the naughty list for being late all the time.

These things work like magic in my own life, because I have systems in place, so I barely have to think about them.

It’s an unfair comparison. The fewer problems you have, the easier it is to deal with them. You can tackle one at a time, especially when they only come at you one at a time!

For a chronically disorganized person, everything feels like it’s happening at once because everything is associated with a constant need.

This is one of the widest open loops. We have to have some kind of philosophical reckoning with the necessity of putting a large quantity of energy and focus toward boring drudgery. Every day.

My people tend to subscribe to the idea that: Why should I make my bed, when I’ll just have to do it again the next day?

The same exact thing could be said for eating meals, bathing, or brushing our teeth. We just keep having to do it over and over and over again!

Most of us eat because food tastes good to us, we bathe because it feels good, and we brush our teeth because minty fresh is better than filmy yuckmouth. We understand the connection between these things we do every day and the positive results we feel.

We can’t feel those positive results for things that we do not do on a routine basis.

It feels fantastic to be confident about your finances and your health, to have a solid reputation for being on time, to relax in an attractive home.

Meanwhile it feels dreadful to experience the anxiety of:

Missing important appointments

Paying unnecessary fines and fees

Getting in trouble at work

Rushing and being late all the time

Frantically searching for lost objects, or wasting hours looking for something

Not being able to get something fixed because your landlord might find out how messy your place is

Those of us who aren’t in that deep should take a moment to pause and feel grateful. As annoying as we might find it to do chores when we’d rather be doing something else, it could certainly be worse. Most of us don’t have problems with our executive function. We can make decisions and take action.

We can, but we don’t always want to. We feel that the annoyance of working on something is not worth it, not equal to the feeling of freedom that comes from a closed loop.

The most commonly procrastinated tasks are writing a will, planning for retirement, and dealing with health issues. This is because we aren’t very good at imagining older versions of ourselves or feeling compassion toward Future Self. Instead of thinking decades ahead, though, we can start by thinking a week ahead, or a day ahead.

Instead of asking ourselves, Why should I have to do this? we can ask ourselves, will I feel better tomorrow if I get this out of the way today?

What would it be like if I was confident about my health and my finances? What would it be like if I spent most of my time in a smoothly running home? Would I feel happy and relaxed if I dealt with my most obvious problems, or would I find a way to continue to feel anxious and distracted no matter what I do?

Action is usually easier and faster than we think. It usually takes us less effort to fix our problems than we thought. Once we finally get started, we’re halfway there. We deal with our routines ten minutes at a time, after all. At least when we are taking action, we can allow ourselves a sense of pride and satisfaction that we are doing something for ourselves.

Close a loop today, and find out how it feels.

This book is a gem by one of the all-time greatest motivational speakers and writers, the inimitable Mel Robbins. It’s more than inspirational, though. It provokes insight and emotional breakthroughs that are impossible to forget or ignore. Usually we know what we ought to be doing to move toward our dreams, so the question is, Why aren’t we? Stop Saying You’re Fine helps to answer that.

A key point to the book is that we already have all the information we need. Almost every dream is a dream that someone else has, too, and chances are that millions of people have done it before. That’s what I told myself when I was training for my marathon. If millions of people have done it, then surely I can, and I did, even when I was being passed by various para-athletes such as a blind runner with a seeing eye dog. The instructions are there, the workbooks are there, the teachers and coaches are there. When we finally decide to move forward, we will do it surrounded by resources, information, and support.

The problem is what we call Resistance. It’s the feeling of not wanting to do something, even though you believe you should. Resistance comes up in different forms for everyone. For instance, I feel it most when I have to make a business call. I’ll happily wash someone’s sink full of dishes or fold all the laundry on their couch if only they’ll make calls for me. Once we start recognizing the feeling of Resistance for what it is, it becomes easier to call it out and to catch ourselves acting out boring old patterns.

The solution that Mel Robbins teaches is to figure out a bunch of small steps toward your goal, pick one, and then TAKE ACTION within five seconds. This trains the impulse and strengthens the connection between thought and implementation. If I think, I should call my friend, and I do it, then I’ve done something positive. If instead I let that impulse slip away without calling, I may start to replace my positive feeling with guilt. I’ll then waste the time I could have been chatting with someone I like, and the exact same minutes could go toward reinforcing a negative impression of myself. When I do something within those five seconds, I get two rewards, the satisfaction of doing the thing and the freedom from beating myself up after procrastinating.

Mel Robbins is a coach, and this book comes from years of working with individuals and conducting workshops. This stuff works. I even used it to get this review written. If you have a tendency to procrastinate or you feel stuck on something, please treat yourself to the delightful and transformational experience of reading this book - Stop Saying You’re Fine.

Favorite quotes:

Everything you could ever need to live the life you want is right there at your fingertips.

You are very powerful when you put your mind to it.

The snooze button is the perfect symbol of human resistance, and the emblem of anyone who feels stuck.

If you hear yourself ever saying “It is what it is,” that’s not the powerful you talking.

We are all stuck in some area of our life, pretending it’s not that bad so we can justify doing nothing.

If your mind can kill a great idea by dampening it with emotional turmoil, it will.

In any area of your life that you want to change, adopt this rule. Just do the things that you don’t want to do.

You need to hear this loud and clear: No one is coming. It is up to you.

Recognizing and seizing these moments is like opening a doorway into an alternate universe where your life is not governed by routine.

If there’s a way to avoid doing anything, you’ll do it, even though it won’t make you happy.

You’re actively trying to convince yourself that it’s okay to feel disappointed with yourself on a regular basis.

You will never just wake up with the motivation and fortitude that you’ve been missing for years.

The only choice you have is to force yourself to change whether you feel like it or not.

The only wrong choice is to do nothing.

The Procrastination Equation is a curious artifact, the product of a former extreme procrastinator who became an academic researcher and actually completed and published a book on procrastination. Piers Steel, PhD in your face! Something like 90% of doctoral candidates never complete their thesis, so this is a pretty big deal. If a procrastinator can get a PhD, then maybe anyone can do anything?
I keep reading and reviewing procrastination research books because guess why.
About 95% of people admit to procrastination and about a quarter consider it one of their defining personality traits. I’m in that quarter, although I have worked so hard at it for so long that when I try to cop to it, people will laugh. You?? Yup, me. I want to be in that magical 5% elite group that never puts anything off, never feels guilty or distracted, gets to wear a diamond tiara that spells out IN THE NOW.
While this book includes targeted behavioral suggestions, it revolves around research, including quizzes which are always a great way to be entertained while procrastinating. It’s pretty funny, for instance when Steel includes a footnote as a supposed reference to an astrology factoid.
One of the most interesting ideas I picked up was the link between impulsivity and procrastination. There is probably a strong link here with hoarding and chronic disorganization as well, because my people tend to be big-time guilty procrastinators as well. The impulsive streak tends to make them fun to be around, ready to try out mental exercises and games as we clear. It’s the same trait that makes them want to bring home random bargains and anything shiny, patterned, or brightly colored. It’s also what makes it hard for them to stay on task.
Procrastination Polka is one section of The Procrastination Equation that is particularly telling. Maybe flip to that section first and see if it catches your attention. I felt smug about several items but there were three out of thirteen that applied to me. Ouch.
Procrastination is as old as agriculture, extending at least to the dawn of written history. There’s a term for it in every culture and language. This makes me feel better. Then I learn that procrastinators get lower grades, have less money, are less healthy, and also less happy, and it gets harder to pretend that my cute little personality trait derives from perfectionism. When Steel calculates it as a trillion-dollar problem and points out how little Congress gets done, procrastination starts to look like a bigger deal than just whether I personally keep up on my email.
I enjoyed The Procrastination Equation, and it actually changed my perspective. Viewing my petty to-do list in a broader historical, anthropological, and economic context gave me a new perspective. I’d rather see myself as different type of animal, like a crow maybe, than a typical procrastinating ordinary human. I read this book and then I did the first next thing on my list, which was to review it. 
Now, how about you? What are you going to do next?
Favorite quotes:
By your own standards, if you thought delay was a good idea in the first place, you wouldn’t be procrastinating.
“...the only thing I really ever finish is dessert.”
Those bizarre outfits that languish in your closet were likely purchased toward the end of a shopping trip.

The End of Procrastination: could there really be one? Is there a way to stop a basic tendency of human psychology when it affects literally everyone? (Those who believe they don’t procrastinate should ask themselves about their retirement planning and fitness goals, since those are the most commonly procrastinated tasks). Petr Ludwig explores this desire to avoid all those things we think we should be doing and how we can convince ourselves to get back on track.

Laziness and procrastination, contrary to popular belief, are not the same thing. Laziness, if there is any such thing, means that someone is perfectly happy not to do something and may just have low standards. Procrastination is avoiding something that someone thinks they really should be doing. Start here, if you think you’re a lazy procrastinator, because you can’t actually be both! Pick one, why don’t you.

Personally I’ve been leaning more toward laziness because it’s summer. Also, I’ve found that I get the same amount done whether I stress out or relax. As I’ve gotten better at just jumping on the most obnoxious task of the day and getting it over with, I’ve found that none of the time I spend stressing out is productive. It’s the same with the weary dread of procrastinating, knowing that time is passing and beating yourself up over why you aren’t doing the thing you should do.

The End of Procrastination teaches valuable concepts like self-regulation, hedonic adaptation, and decision paralysis. There is a method for habit tracking that should be attractive for those who like bullet journaling. Perhaps the most valuable concept for me was the idea that you can plan your day with two different paths. If you get stuck on one path, use the other. It seems simple, but sometimes all it takes to break up a stuck energy pattern is to do something different.

This is a research-based book full of great diagrams. It’s fun and easy to read, which of course creates a double bind for the committed. Are we procrastinating more by fully enjoying it or by reading it only partway through?

Now that I’ve read The End of Procrastination, I’m going to sort out a box so I can find my missing thank-you notes. I’ve got a little task I need to do.

Favorite quotes:

Procrastination can be overcome once you improve your motivation, discipline, outcomes, and objectivity.

Don’t procrastinate when it comes to fighting procrastination.

How many times in your life have you tried telling yourself what to do and haven’t obeyed?

How can you avoid the hamsters of failure?