Making Work Fun (cure procrastination NOW!)

One day, back when I still sometimes had to help clean around the house, I had to sweep the living room floor. Except I obviously didn’t feel like it. So I was like “I’ll just read a book for a bit, and then get to it.” After reading I thought “I’m feeling hungry. I’ll go buy some bread and eat. Then I’ll immediately get started on sweeping.” … “Ah, I’m feeling full right now. I’ll just pop online and play some bridge, then I’ll get to it.” and so on, and so on…

I stopped myself! I realized I was procrastinating because sweeping the floor was bloody boring! So I thought about how to make it fun for myself. And I came up with a solution – make it more challenging! So I stood on one leg, lifted the other one up while bending my body forward (forming a T-shape) and swept the floor like that, hopping around on one leg! (I also started talking in weird voices and eventually fell over from laughing at myself.)

The point is, we procrastinate about work. But we never procrastinate about fun! (Ah ha! Could this be the cure to all procrastination? Yes, it could!) How often do you say “Ah, I have to watch TV, but I don’t feel like it right now. I’ll go do some accounting first.”? Wait, don’t tell me! I’ll practice my psychic powers. Ugghhnnghhnngh… got it! The answer you’re thinking is… “never”!

(spooky, eh?)

By the way, when I say “work” in this article, I don’t mean what you do for a living. I use a broader definition. Fun is something you enjoy doing. Work is something you have to do. (feel free to quote me )

Why work isn’t fun

Interestingly, since work is something you have to do, and fun is something you enjoy doing, they’re mutually exclusive. You can’t have both. You either “have to” do something, or you enjoy doing it.

Yes, I’m sure you can think of many examples where you enjoy doing things you have to do. Bear with me. When you enjoy things like that, it usually means you found a way to put a unique twist on them. Like me sweeping the floor while being bent over and hopping around on one foot. I didn’t have to sweep the floor like that. That’s what made it fun!

Interestingly, it also works in reverse. The moment you turn something into what you “have to do”, it stops being fun. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present you…

How to turn fun into work!

Do you find yourself having too much fun? Do friends and family despise you because you have fun while everyone’s working? Do you feel excluded when your peers complain about how daft and boring life is?

Don’t worry!

I have just the solution for you! With my new, revolutionary, patented turn-fun-into-work^TM system, you can live the life required of you by society in the 21st century!

I know how you feel! I’ve been there. I used to have fun every day for a better part of my life. I even went through periods of time when I was having fun all the time. But now I’m over it! Thanks to turn-fun-into-work^TM, I haven’t had a single bit of fun in over ten years!

So how do you go about it? Following is a list of techniques you can start using IMMEDIATELY to have less fun in your life:

1. Bribe yourself

Give yourself a reward every time you complete a given task! Let’s say you enjoy drawing. Give yourself a dollar every time you complete a drawing. Or even better. Pay yourself by the minute! You’ll stop caring about the process and instead only draw for the end result (money). You won’t believe how quickly this simple technique turns a fun activity into a tedious boring one!

(Serious side note: This is a huge effect in education. In my article about education, I discuss in detail how giving students grades slowly sucks away any willingness to learn they have. Read that section of the article, it’s very useful to know for life in general as well as education.)

2. Think negatively

Do you find that you just can’t help smiling when you wake up in the morning, the birds are singing and find it’s another beautiful sunny day? I’ve got just the solution for you!

Try this simple exercise. For the whole day, just keep saying “This f*cking sucks!” Like at the store. “Good morning.” “This f*cking sucks!” You won’t believe how fast you’ll stop having fun! (Yeah, that’s right, I said the f-word. And by “the f-word” I obviously mean fun. Don’t make me say it again!)

By the end of the day, you’ll feel like crawling into bed and never getting out again. And the next morning, you’ll slowly crawl out of bed, feeling like you were run over by a truck. You’ll curse the annoying birds and the sun in your eyes, then you’ll slowly walk towards the bathroom mumbling “This f*cking sucks!”

Congratulations! You have just made avoiding fun a whole lot easier for the whole day ahead!

3. Plan it

If there’s one thing that’s inherently evil (read – fun), it’s spontaneity. But don’t you worry! You can easily kill spontaneity… by planning it! You’ll never have spontaneous fun again! You’re safe!

Do you accidentally find yourself having fun when you spontaneously go bowling with friends? I can help you cure that! Simply plan every… minute… detail. Plan what are you going to wear. Plan what you’re going to drink. Plan what you’re going to say. If you get your friends to do the same, you’ll never be in danger of having fun again!

So there you go! Armed with the revolutionary turn-fun-into-work^TM system, you’ll never have fun again! You can finally function in the western society without stirring any waves! And once you succeed in not having any fun, I have a great drink to sell you! It’s called Kool-Aid…

(end of sarcasm)

Making work fun and ending procrastination

So how do you make work fun? Well, first of all avoid the stuff mentioned above. You’ve got enough work already, you don’t need any more.

For example bribing yourself is a common tactic (like letting yourself have a cold beer when you’re finished writing an essay). But it’s disastrously counterproductive. You might get yourself to do the work this one time, but the next time you want to do the same task, you’ll only resist it harder.

Aaron Schwartz wrote a great article about procrastination called How to be more productive. He describes procrastination like an invisible force field surrounding a task. If you push harder, the force field only repels you stronger. That’s why advice like “just do it” or “try harder” is useless. To overcome procrastination, you need to be sneaky – walk around the force field, or dig under it.

It’s also why nagging is so ineffective. The more you remind someone of a task, the stronger the force field becomes.

Below are some of my favorite tactics for overcoming procrastination. You’ll outflank the force field and you’ll be doing the task you want before your brain even realizes it! Zero resistance!

1. Set yourself a different task

The biggest factor in booting up the force field is when someone (including you) sets you a task. Let’s say you need to get a 1000-word report done. You tell yourself you need to do it, you write it down, and you think about it. And the invisible force field only keeps growing stronger.

Stop! You can use this effect to your advantage! Set yourself a different task, for example oiling the squeaky bathroom door (note to self: aaargh!). Write it down. Repeat it to yourself. Tell others you need to get it done. Tell a friend or relative to keep reminding you of it.

Soon oiling the door will become the dominant task you’re procrastinating against. It will probably go something like this. “I need to get the door oiled. Wait, there’s a show on TV I really need to watch. I’ll do it after. (…) The show’s ended. I should get the door oiled. But wait, I’m feeling hungry, let me just get something to eat first. (…) I should get the door done now. But I don’t feel like it. Let me just write up this 1000-word report, and then I’ll do it.”

Bam! Problem solved!

You’ll procrastinate against this new task you set… by doing the task you wanted to get done in the first place. You basically replaced the force field around your 1000-word report with a stronger force field around oiling the bathroom door.

2. Be spontaneous and make it fun

This one’s a bit tricky. The whole point of work is that it’s something you need to get done. You can’t be spontaneous about the whole thing. But you can pick one aspect, make it fun, and go for it!

Like in the example with me swiping the living room floor while hopping around on one foot and talking in weird voices. That’s not something I planned three days in advance. I did it on the spur of the moment.

Or, another time, I was really procrastinating about writing a blog post. I sat around for hours struggling with writer’s block. Then I was like “Ah, whatever, I’ll write the post in iambic pentameter.” (here’s the result) I didn’t actually write the whole post like that, but it got me started.

That’s the great thing about spontaneously starting a task in a random way. You probably won’t finish the whole task like that. But it gets you started, and you can just keep going. You already bypassed the force field.

3. Do it for its own sake

This one doesn’t work every time (the previous two do!). But if it works, it’s really great in the long run. Try finding a way that you can enjoy the process in itself, not just the end result.

Maybe pay attention to the smallest details. Get absorbed in the process. Do it slowly and deliberately, while breathing deeply.

The trouble with work is that you’re usually focused on the end result. This prevents you from enjoying the process. But if you find a way to enjoy the process, you’re going to kill the procrastination right there. You’ll turn the task into fun – something you do for its own sake.

This advice is the exact opposite of bribing yourself. When you bribe yourself, you focus on the end result (e.g. drinking a cold beer as a reward), but you build aversion to the task. Here you actually get to like the task and look forward to it!

4. Sleep on it

This is the last resort, if everything else fails.

When you push yourself to do something, you pit your energy reserves (also called self-control in this context) against the strength of the force field. If you can’t find a way to walk around the force field or make it weaker, you’ll have to make your own energy levels stronger.

Positive life attitude does wonders. Unfortunately it’s not something you can change overnight. What you can do overnight is… sleep! You’ll wake up refreshed with more energy!

Battling the force field head-on drains you though. That’s why I always prefer to sneak around.

So there you go. Next time you’re procrastinating, just start jumping around on one foot, start singing, and remember how badly your bathroom door needs oiling (note to self: aaargh!). Until next time.

plop

Update: I now have a free 7-day e-mail course on Overcoming Procrastination available. It goes into a lot more depth on the different causes of procrastination (and gives you techniques to deal with each of them). And it gives you specific actions each day to get you moving and changing your life for the better! Check it out.