15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management pdfdrive com

Research Says…
People who rarely procrastinate report higher levels of productivity, happiness, and energy.
(Source: The Kruse Group, 2015)
Procrastination Buster #1: Time Travel
This is a big one. The underlying problem we all have is that we are what
psychologists call time-inconsistent.
This means we think we’ll eat salads during the week, so we stock up on
lettuce at the grocery store, but inevitably we end up with slimy rotting lettuce
two weeks later at the bottom of our refrigerator.
Being time-inconsistent also means we add documentaries and indie films to
our Netflix queue because certainly we’ll watch them in the future, and yet they
never move to #1 because we keep choosing Will Ferrell movies.
And it’s why I keep buying new workout equipment and a fancy scale and
healthy food cookbooks, and yet I’m still not seeing my six-pack abs.
Despite what we think we are going to want in the future, we have “present
bias.” When the present actually gets here—and yes, the present is always here
—we choose candy, sitcoms, Facebook, and cat videos. They’re easier and more
fun. And hey, we can always get to that other thing in the afternoon, or on
Monday, or do the resolution again in January, right?
We always underestimate how hard it is to be our best self in the present
moment.
To overcome this time inconsistency, we must do battle with our future self
—the one who, in the present moment, will sabotage us. Our future self is the
enemy of our best self.
I like to think of this battle as time traveling to defeat my future self. Using

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the health example, I start by thinking, how will I sabotage my health goals in
the future? How can I overcome that now?
•
My future self is going to sabotage me by eating junk food in the
kitchen during my breaks. To beat him, my present self is going to
throw out all the junk food and not keep any in the house. I’m also
going to buy baby carrots and hummus to reach for as a replacement.
•
My future self is going to sabotage my workout by saying it’s
too busy of a day to fit it in. My present self will defeat him by time
blocking exercise first thing in the morning, and I will immediately
put workout clothes on as soon as I get out of bed, and I will refuse to
look at email until after I work out.
•
My future self is also going to sabotage my workouts by
thinking I’m actually pretty healthy, I don’t look that bad compared to
most people who go to the mall, and my blood pressure and
cholesterol are fine. My present self is going to tell my girlfriend to
pinch my love handle flab on any day I don’t hit the treadmill…dang,
that will be embarrassing and gross!
One friend of mine goes to extreme measures to battle her five-minute future
self! In pursuit of her health goals, whenever she eats out at a restaurant and they
bring her a side of French fries, she immediately opens the salt shaker and
dumps the entire thing on top of the fries. She has learned not to trust regular old
willpower to not eat the fries. Her five-minutes-in-the-future self is likely to say,
“I’ll just have one.” And we all know how that goes.
How are you going to do battle with your future self?
Procrastination Buster #2: Pain & Pleasure
Ultimately, if we aren’t jumping out of bed in the morning excited to tackle our
project, it’s because our dreams aren’t big enough. They aren’t motivating
enough. And motivation comes down to pain and pleasure. For the tough tasks
you always tend to procrastinate, think about and even visualize the “why”
behind them.