Tim Noyce Advies

At one of my speaking engagements in a school I asked a few of them what was “on their minds too much” and was told by a student that he wanted to catch up with one of his subjects. So I asked him what he would do to achieve that and he said, “weeeel I suppose I’d have to start by reading the standard book”. But of course that is a sustained effort that stymies lots of adults, let alone 11-year olds. So I told him how to trick himself into doing it….

“Treat yourself like a dog”, I said. Because the part of you that is resisting this is not a smart part. You can fool it into engaging with a task if you make the task small and unthreatening and you can fool it into keeping going with the task by giving it a treat. The steps are:

1. Make (and keep) a promise to yourself that you will read the book, clear the cupboard or whatever it is for only five minutes and that you will reward yourself afterwards
2. Do the thing for the five minutes (set a kitchen timer if need be to check the time)
3. Give yourself a nice reward (the “bone”)

Rinse and repeat. You will find it progressively easier to get going on the task and can gradually increase the time you spend on it. Never, ever cheat yourself out of the reward, but do keep it short. There is no point in rewarding yourself for five minutes of ironing with two hours of online-gaming.

You may find that after five minutes you are on a roll and really want to continue. You can do that as long as you are having a good time and not forcing yourself. If you do decide to stop after five minutes then that is a good result: you kept a deal with yourself.

The trouble with most tasks we procrastinate is that they carry whatever negative connotation they already had with successive layers of guilt and fear added on. We are often also afraid that if we start something then we will have to continue until we are really, really miserable. The five minute promise breaks through the guilt and reassures the inner doggie that there is an end to the effort and a bone to be earned afterwards.