Chapter 7 Why Getting Started Isn't the Whole Solution
[I need to be prepared to deal with distractions, obstacles, and setbacks. ]
Hans has really been taking his"stop procrastinating"goal to heart. Today, rather than put of work on his report as he typically has, he just got started. He was surprised at how good he felt. He even felt optimistic about the results. Then, about forty-five minutes into his work, the phone rang. Bruce, a friend that Hans sees daily, was calling with an invitation to play squash. Bruce's expected partner cancelled at the last minute, so Bruce was hoping Hans would fill in even though they had played the day befor. Although Hans intended to work through the afternoon, to make up for time he's already lost, he felt like things were under control now, so he told Bruce he would meet him at 12: 30 at the gym.
Issue
In the scenario above, Hans'goal was his report, and he made the key first step of getting started. In fact, the night before, Hans had made an implementation intention to begin his work right after he finished breakfast, and he did. He made his predecision with:"If breakfast is done, then I will immediately go to my desk and start working on the third section of my report."Note that he had a concrete task for his action with the"third section"of the report, a section that he felt would be an easy place to begin, even though it was not the beginning of the report itself.
He felt very good about finally doing this. At the very least, there is usually a sense of relief when we get to an avoided task. Unfortunately, these good feelings can be a little bit of a trap for us. They can make us feel overly optimistic, and some of our biases in planning and thinking may begin to emerge. In fact, Hans felt his mind begin to wander, and typical thoughts emerged when he was even a little bit stuck in his progress. At one point when he hit a tough spot in the writing, he caught himself thinking, "Ah, that's enough for today. I'll feel more like doing this part tomorrow."In fact, he was somewhat relieved when Bruce called. It seemed a perfect excuse to stop. Certainly, exercise is important in life, too, he thought.
What this means in terms of more successful goal pursuit is that we have to recognize other points at which we typically abandon our goal pursuit. We have to be prepared to address each of these as they arise; otherwise we will fall back into habitual ways of responding. If you tend to procrastinate more often than you like, then your habitual response will be to find some way to avoid the task at hand.
Procrastination is not just a failure to get started. We can face a variety of problems and needlessly delay action at many stages of goal pursuit. Our feelings may still threaten to derail us. Distractions abound, and it is easy to replace one intention with another, even if just for a minute. And in all of this we can find ways to justify this to ourselves.
In the scenario above, the squash invitation can be seen as an unnecessary disruption given how regularly Hans sees his friend, as well as Hans'intention to work today. Perhaps a more common example for those of us working at our computers is becoming distracted and putting off the task at hand by checking email or surfing the Web. I know from my own research that Internet technologies in particular are potent distracters, as"it will only take a minute to check my email, "and then hours later you find you are still of task. I discuss this in more detail in Chapter 10.
What this means is that we cannot simply depend on our goal intentions, no matter how deeply committed we might be, to keep our volitional actions on track. We have to be prepared to deal with changes in our mood related to setbacks and disappointments. We have to be prepared to deal with distractions. We have to be prepared to overcome obstacles.
Given the ongoing challenges to our goal pursuit, we would benefit from implementation intentions related to the potential distractions and obstacles ahead. We can make predecisions to help us here, too.
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE
There are two main approaches to predecisions regarding potential distractions. The first involves reducing the number of distractions before we begin to work. The second approach takes us back to implementation intentions to help us decide ahead of time what we will do when distractions, obstacles, or setbacks arise. I outline each of these below.
Minimizing Distractions
Diferent things distract each of us. Some people cannot work with a radio on in the background or in a noisy room. Others, more extroverted personalities, need that background noise. This means that we have to think about what our typical distractions are.
In a world dominated by computer-related tasks and jobs, certainly some of these distractions are other activities on the computer such as games, social-networking tools, Web searches, or even just email. I discuss these potent distractions under Internet procrastination in the final chapter. For now, I would just add them to our list of potential distractions or obstacles.
The key to this strategy of minimizing distractions is to be proactive. Before you begin to work, make sure that you have removed these potential distractions. This might include: shutting your door, shutting of the ringer on the phone, shutting off your cell phone (text messaging is a chronic distraction for many people) , shutting down social-networking tools (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, whatever you use) , and removing potentially distracting things from your work space (e. g., magazines, newspapers.) .
If you reread the paragraph above, you will note that"shutting"was a key verb. You are shutting yourself away from distractions to help maintain your attention and focus on your intended task. This is your predecision to help you work.
Of course, you cannot anticipate every distraction, obstacle, or setback in your work. For example, Hans did not expect Bruce to call with the invitation to play squash. You will need another strategy to deal with distractions, as they arise. That is the purpose of implementation intentions.
Implementation Intentions
Implementation intentions can work to shield our intentions from competing possibilities as they can take the form of"if……then"statements that anticipate distractions. In fact, experimental research by Peter Gollwitzer and his colleagues have shown that participants who formed temptation-inhibiting implementation intentions outperformed the groups who did not. Importantly, this effect was independent of the participants'motivation to achieve the goal and to ignore distractions.
Implementation intentions have effects over and above our motivation to succeed. This is important. Commitment and motivation alone will not always get us through.
It is time to think about your main procrastinated task(s) again. In the table that follows (or as a thought experiment) , list the kind of distractions and obstacles that have resulted in further procrastination even when you have actually been working on the task. For each of these, note whether you can remove it prior to task engagement, and/or add an implementation intention as your predecision about how you will act when these arise in the future.
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