The End of Procrastination! Ali Abdaal on All The Hacks
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Whatever we're struggling with,
00:00:06.160 | whatever we're struggling to get started with,
00:00:07.800 | there's always a little bit of a push of energy
00:00:09.640 | that we need to get started with the thing.
00:00:11.760 | Now, the question is like, how do we get there?
00:00:14.520 | Like once we've got the clarity on the thing,
00:00:16.360 | once we've tried to figure out
00:00:17.420 | what our emotions are getting in the way,
00:00:19.000 | at some points, some stuff is just kind of boring
00:00:21.600 | and you just kind of have to do it.
00:00:22.600 | So like, how do you nudge yourself to just get started?
00:00:25.580 | At this point, you know,
00:00:26.420 | some people would say that motivation is a thing.
00:00:28.040 | And so like, you got to motivate yourself to do it.
00:00:29.720 | You got to like really want it.
00:00:30.880 | You got to want it so much that you can't breathe
00:00:32.600 | or whatever these motivational videos say.
00:00:34.960 | And that's fine.
00:00:36.080 | But like, there's a great book by Jeff Hayden
00:00:37.920 | called "The Motivation Myth,"
00:00:39.520 | which basically argues that like,
00:00:40.800 | motivation is a bit of a myth.
00:00:41.840 | Like, we don't summon up the motivation magically
00:00:44.500 | to do a thing.
00:00:45.520 | We do the thing.
00:00:46.560 | And by seeing a small success,
00:00:48.580 | that then helps us summon the motivation
00:00:51.280 | to continue to do the thing.
00:00:53.160 | And so really, motivation doesn't lead to action.
00:00:55.600 | Action leads to motivation.
00:00:57.280 | And so understanding that I think was a big,
00:00:59.840 | big unlock for me that like, really,
00:01:02.200 | just because I don't feel like doing something
00:01:04.040 | doesn't actually stop me from doing the thing.
00:01:07.000 | And therefore, I can just do it.
00:01:09.620 | And sometimes that works where I just tell myself that like,
00:01:13.120 | I could just get out of bed right now,
00:01:14.860 | even though I don't feel like it.
00:01:16.080 | Oh, that's like the motivation approach.
00:01:19.440 | And you've got like the discipline approach,
00:01:20.760 | the willpower approach, the David Goggins approach of like,
00:01:23.040 | well, if you're not doing it at that point,
00:01:24.620 | you're just soft.
00:01:25.460 | You just got to, you know, use the willpower.
00:01:27.040 | You've got to use grit, determination, discipline
00:01:28.800 | to kind of push through and do the thing.
00:01:30.960 | That's fine as well, that works.
00:01:33.840 | The thing that I personally like to do
00:01:35.200 | is I like to tell myself,
00:01:37.700 | I'm just going to do the thing for two minutes
00:01:39.600 | and then I'm going to stop doing the thing.
00:01:41.280 | So I've got a couple of songs on my Spotify playlist,
00:01:43.260 | which are like two minutes long, like instrumental songs.
00:01:45.360 | I'm just like, if I, yeah,
00:01:47.440 | I'll just like put on one of the songs.
00:01:48.960 | I'll be like, I'm just going to do this thing
00:01:49.960 | until the end of the song.
00:01:51.400 | And usually the song ends, the next one plays on shuffle.
00:01:54.080 | And I don't even realize
00:01:54.920 | that I've just continued doing the thing.
00:01:56.400 | Occasionally I just do it for two minutes
00:01:57.860 | and then I stop and I think, cool, that's fine.
00:01:59.440 | That's not my day.
00:02:00.280 | But I say 90% of the time,
00:02:01.460 | as long as I can just talk myself
00:02:02.720 | into doing it for two minutes,
00:02:04.120 | then I'm unlikely to stop doing it
00:02:07.280 | because once I've gotten to the swing of things,
00:02:08.760 | it's a lot easier to get started.
00:02:10.760 | And I guess my kind of final kind of point on this is,
00:02:13.640 | if all else fails, something that will never fail
00:02:16.580 | is actually putting money on the line.
00:02:19.040 | So I know, you know, my friend Thomas Frank
00:02:20.560 | is this huge YouTuber, two and a half million subscribers.
00:02:23.000 | The way he motivated himself to publish videos
00:02:25.680 | in the early days of his channel,
00:02:26.720 | when no one was watching,
00:02:28.080 | was an app called Beeminder,
00:02:29.940 | which is an automatic thing
00:02:31.200 | where it like connects to your YouTube RSS feed.
00:02:34.760 | And if you don't publish a video every week,
00:02:36.600 | it will take $30 out of your debit card
00:02:38.960 | or out of your bank account,
00:02:39.800 | just completely automatically.
00:02:42.040 | And that was how he made himself accountable.
00:02:44.200 | He's like, well, I've got to publish a video every week,
00:02:45.720 | otherwise I'm losing $30.
00:02:48.100 | Now, depending on who you are,
00:02:49.520 | $30 might not seem like enough money,
00:02:51.460 | but it needs to be enough money to sting.
00:02:53.380 | So one thing that I've actually tried in the past
00:02:54.920 | is giving my housemate 1,000 pounds and saying,
00:02:59.680 | if I don't do this thing,
00:03:00.680 | you get to keep the 1,000 pounds.
00:03:02.320 | And that has just worked magically
00:03:03.880 | for me to do absolutely anything.
00:03:05.520 | I don't like using it all the time.
00:03:06.620 | I'd much rather use all these other nicer methods,
00:03:08.900 | but that is a fail safe.
00:03:10.300 | If I'm ever really struggling to do a thing
00:03:12.000 | that I know I have to do,
00:03:13.240 | like write 1,000 pounds, transfer the money,
00:03:15.080 | and they can always give it back to me
00:03:16.160 | once I've done the thing.
00:03:17.480 | - It probably depends on the circumstance.
00:03:18.920 | I was running today with our daughter in a stroller,
00:03:23.280 | which, by the way, for anyone who doesn't have kids,
00:03:25.680 | once you start running with a child,
00:03:27.200 | you're like, I'm now a horrible runner.
00:03:29.400 | Like I've taken like 10 steps back
00:03:31.520 | because I'm now pushing this stroller
00:03:34.160 | and I just can't run as fast.
00:03:36.280 | I use the Goggins approach, which is like,
00:03:38.040 | am I really gonna tell myself
00:03:39.520 | that I can't just make it to the end of this neighborhood?
00:03:43.000 | Like, I really can't do that.
00:03:45.880 | That works really well,
00:03:46.720 | but I don't think that works as well
00:03:48.360 | when you're like sitting down at your desk
00:03:49.840 | to complete a task.
00:03:52.080 | So having all the tools is probably pretty helpful.