The RACE is On

I put a load in the washing machine. It would take 55 minutes to wash the wash. Wow – 55 minutes I am free to do something else. In the olden days – we would get a tub. Fill it with water. Soak the clothes, scrub on the washing board and rinse. Barukh Hashe-m, now all that is done for you. Just throw some dirty clothes in the machine – put in detergent, press the start button and voila – your clothes are clean.

So I thought – let me see if I can get some important things done before the clothes are done. Who would win – me or the washing machine. I forgot who won. But it was a way to motivate me to get something done. You can do the same thing with the water kettle – are you faster than water boiling time?

Yes – that is a little task motivator. But really – to solve a problem we have to get to the root cause. Racing your washing machine is solving the symptom.

SOLVING The ROOT PROBLEM

I think a person has to learn to stop cold turkey. You’re in the middle of reading a book. Your best friend rings you, You answer the phone. You stopped reading cold turkey to answer the phone. So now you can stop cold turkey for other things as well. Like smoking, binging, drinking. If you can stop for one thing, you probably could for something else.

So we can stop cold turkey from procrastinating as well.

How?

Let’s ask a simple question. What is the root cause of procrastination? I thought it is laziness. Well that’s not so accurate – because if you are lazy – you wouldn’t be doing something else. Procrastination apparently is related to distraction. We distract ourselves with other things when we are supposed to do something of priority.

Apparently – we have an aversion to doing the task at hand – so we do something more “fun” or more in our “comfort zone.” Why – because either we lack the self-confidence, or lack the desire or lack the happiness to do the task at hand. Those are the root causes.

So – what’s the solution. Put on a big smile – even if it is fake until you get those negative thoughts out of your mind. Then jump right into the task you are supposed to do. (see the previous Post on Be Positive and Remove Negativity)