How I Overcame My Procrastination Addiction

Summary

The video discusses the detrimental impact of procrastination and shares personal strategies to overcome it. The speaker, once a chronic procrastinator, transformed by using failures as motivation, boosting self-confidence, and focusing on critical tasks. Drawing inspiration from successful figures, they emphasize the importance of mindset and systematic approaches. The video highlights how procrastination can severely affect mental and physical health and offers additional resources to help viewers tackle procrastination effectively.

Takeaways

• 😟 Procrastination is a common issue, with 95% of people admitting to it.
• 📝 Procrastination often leads to last-minute efforts and stress, as seen with assignments and deadlines.
• 👨‍🎓 The speaker struggled with procrastination throughout his school years, leading to poor grades and missed opportunities.
• 🚀 Failures can be used as motivation to overcome procrastination, as the speaker did after being rejected by multiple universities.
• 📈 Improving self-confidence and self-esteem is crucial in combating procrastination.
• 💡 Surrounding oneself with inspirational figures and their content can boost self-belief and motivation.
• ⏰ Prioritizing tasks and following the 'law of forced efficiency' helps manage time and focus on important tasks.
• 📅 Using a weekly schedule with a few critical tasks each day is more effective than an overwhelming daily to-do list.
• 🍔 Procrastination, like unhealthy eating habits, can have long-term negative effects on mental and physical health.
• 📊 A significant majority of students (76%) identify procrastination as their biggest obstacle, highlighting its widespread impact.

Q & A

What is considered the single biggest threat to living an extraordinary life according to the transcript?

Procrastination is considered the single biggest threat to living an extraordinary life.

What percentage of people admit to procrastinating according to the author of 'The Procrastination Equation'?

About 95% of people admit to procrastinating, as stated by Piers Steel, the author of 'The Procrastination Equation'.

What was the speaker's personal struggle with procrastination?

The speaker struggled with procrastination throughout their life, starting from a young age and continuing until they were about 20 years old, which affected their focus and academic performance.

What event in the speaker's life served as a turning point to overcome procrastination?

The turning point for the speaker was the rejection from four out of five universities they applied to, which led to a deep sense of disappointment and depression.

What is the first strategy the speaker suggests to overcome procrastination?

The first strategy is to use your failures as rocket fuel, turning setbacks into motivation to take action and avoid future disappointment.

How does the speaker define the relationship between self-confidence and procrastination?

The speaker suggests that the lower one's self-confidence, the lower their motivation is likely to be, making them more prone to procrastination.

What actions did the speaker take to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem?

The speaker surrounded themselves with greatness by reading books, listening to interviews, and watching documentaries of successful people to gradually increase their self-belief.

What is the 'Law of Forced Efficiency' as mentioned in the script?

The 'Law of Forced Efficiency' states that there is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.

How does the speaker's weekly schedule differ from a traditional daily to-do list?

Instead of a long daily to-do list, the speaker uses a weekly schedule focusing on the most important tasks, which can range from one to four tasks a day.

What are the potential negative effects of chronic procrastination on mental and physical health?

Chronic procrastination can lead to chronic stress, psychological distress, low life satisfaction, symptoms of depression and anxiety, poor health behaviors, chronic illness, and even hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

What additional resources did the speaker create to help others overcome procrastination?

The speaker created two videos titled 'How I Beat Procrastination - The Easy Way' and 'Stop Wasting Time on YouTube' to provide more strategies and address the issue of procrastination.

Outlines

00:00

😔 Overcoming Procrastination: A Personal Journey

The speaker shares their personal struggle with procrastination, which they describe as the most significant barrier to an extraordinary life. They discuss the prevalence of procrastination, with 95% of people admitting to it, and recount their own experiences with it from a young age until the age of 20. The speaker then explains how a pivotal moment of university rejection led to a realization and a commitment to change. They highlight the importance of using failures as motivation and discuss the role of self-confidence and self-esteem in combating procrastination, referencing the work of author Pierce Steele. The speaker's strategy involved surrounding themselves with inspirational figures to boost their self-belief, which in turn helped them to overcome procrastination and achieve better results in both academics and personal projects.

05:01

💪 Implementing Strategies to Boost Productivity and Self-Confidence

In this paragraph, the speaker delves into the strategies they implemented to overcome procrastination. They emphasize the importance of taking action, which led to the creation of a YouTube channel aimed at helping others in similar situations. The speaker also discusses the concept of the 'Law of Forced Efficiency,' advocating for focusing on the most important tasks rather than trying to do everything. They suggest a weekly schedule with a limited number of critical tasks to maintain productivity without becoming overwhelmed. The speaker further illustrates the destructive nature of chronic procrastination with an analogy to unhealthy eating habits, like eating junk food regularly, which can lead to severe health issues. They conclude by addressing the audience directly, acknowledging the common struggle with procrastination and offering additional resources in the form of videos to assist in overcoming this challenge.

Keywords

💡Procrastination

Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing tasks. It is presented as a major obstacle to achieving an extraordinary life. The script discusses personal experiences and the widespread nature of procrastination, emphasizing how it can hinder academic and personal success.

💡Motivation

Motivation is the drive to accomplish tasks or goals. The video highlights how a lack of motivation can lead to procrastination, and conversely, how overcoming procrastination can significantly boost motivation. Examples include the speaker's increased motivation after overcoming procrastination and improving their grades.

💡Self-confidence

Self-confidence is the belief in one's abilities to succeed. The script explains how low self-confidence can lead to procrastination by reducing one's motivation to attempt challenging tasks. The speaker improved their self-confidence by surrounding themselves with successful role models, which helped reduce procrastination.

💡Failure

Failure refers to not achieving desired results. The speaker uses their own experiences of academic rejection as a source of motivation to overcome procrastination. This concept is central to the video’s message of using setbacks as fuel to drive personal growth and success.

💡Strategies

Strategies are systematic plans of action to achieve a goal. The speaker describes various strategies they implemented to overcome procrastination, such as using failures as motivation, boosting self-confidence, and following a weekly schedule of critical tasks.

💡Law of Forced Efficiency

The Law of Forced Efficiency states that there is always enough time to do the most important tasks, even if there isn’t enough time to do everything. This principle is used to prioritize critical tasks, helping to reduce procrastination by focusing on what truly matters each day.

💡Productivity

Productivity is the efficiency with which tasks and goals are accomplished. The video discusses how procrastination negatively impacts productivity and how implementing specific strategies can enhance productivity by ensuring important tasks are completed timely.

💡Role Models

Role models are individuals who inspire others through their achievements and behavior. The speaker used the success stories of people like Warren Buffett and Michael Jordan to boost their self-confidence and reduce procrastination by emulating these role models' positive habits and attitudes.

💡Chronic Procrastination

Chronic procrastination is a habitual and persistent delay in completing tasks. The script outlines the severe consequences of chronic procrastination, including stress, depression, and reduced life satisfaction, emphasizing the need to address and overcome this behavior to lead a fulfilling life.

💡Self-fulfilling Prophecy

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief that leads to its own fulfillment. The video explains how poor self-perception can lead to procrastination, which then results in failure, reinforcing the initial negative belief. Overcoming this cycle involves improving self-belief and taking proactive steps.

Highlights

Procrastination is identified as a major barrier to living an extraordinary life.

According to Pierce Steele, 95% of people admit to procrastinating.

The speaker shares a personal journey of being a chronic procrastinator until age 20.

Implementing daily strategies for a year helped the speaker overcome procrastination.

Using failures as motivation is highlighted as a powerful way to combat procrastination.

A major setback in university applications fueled the speaker's determination to avoid disappointment.

Boosting self-confidence and self-esteem is crucial in overcoming procrastination.

The speaker surrounded themselves with inspiring figures like Warren Buffett and Michael Jordan.

Gradually increasing self-belief led to improved grades, better health, and successful ventures.

The law of forced efficiency: there’s always enough time to do the most important thing.

A weekly schedule with a few critical tasks each day is more effective than a long daily to-do list.

Overwhelm from too many tasks can lead to increased procrastination.

Procrastination, like junk food, can have significant negative impacts if it becomes habitual.

Chronic procrastination is linked to mental and physical health issues such as stress, depression, and heart disease.

A community poll revealed that 76% of students view procrastination as their biggest obstacle.

Transcripts

procrastination the single biggest

threat to living an extraordinary life

the action of delaying or postponing

something in fact according to pierce

steele author of the procrastination

equation about 95 of people admit to

procrastinating and i reckon the other

five percent are lying you see it's

something that virtually all of us

suffer from when you know you have to

write an assignment but you turn on

netflix instead and you repeatedly keep

putting it off until the night before

it's due and it's only then with the

deadline looming the next day you muster

up just enough motivation to start

writing and this was pretty much my

entire life from as young as i can

remember up until i was about 20 years

old i was the world's worst

procrastinator every time i needed to

sit down to study there was just a

hundred other things that i'd rather be

doing and if i got so far as to sit down

at my desk and open up my textbooks i

usually just couldn't focus for any more

than 15 minutes at a time however about

seven years ago i finally overcame my

procrastination problem i implemented a

handful of strategies that

systematically every single day for

about a year chipped away at my

procrastination and i went from getting

degraded at school to getting a grade

simply because i taught myself how to

strategically overcome procrastination

and so those systematic strategies that

i implemented had such a powerful effect

on me i'm gonna go through them step by

step very shortly but first i think it's

really important to understand why

procrastination is so destructive

because for me most of my life

procrastination was a problem but i

didn't really see it as a problem

therefore i didn't really do anything to

fix it so as a direct result of my

procrastination i achieved pretty

average grades and that's been generous

but so what right the very definition of

average means that most other students

were getting roughly the same grades as

me so it wasn't really a problem until

it was you see i completed my final

exams at high school and so i applied to

five universities a couple of weeks

later i received a letter in the post

with the decision of those five

universities but four out of five of

them rejected me and the university that

did accept me honestly i just used them

to fill up the fifth slot because we had

to apply for at least five and right

there it hit me like a ton of bricks

just an overwhelming feeling of

disappointment and depression suddenly i

realized that my last nine years of

studying had come down to this to

rejection and that leads me onto my

first and in my opinion the most

powerful way to overcome procrastination

use your failures as rocket fuel i

didn't realize that this at the time but

that sinking feeling in my stomach from

opening my university decision letter in

the few months after that of really not

knowing what to do with my life it was

all a blessing i felt incredibly

defeated i guess so i used that feeling

to muster up enough motivation to never

allow myself to fall into that situation

again i made a conscious decision to

start taking massive action in my life

to avoid living a life of disappointment

so that one setback that one failure it

generated so much motivation within me

that i started this very youtube channel

about four and a half years ago i just

wanted to help as many other people in

the same situation as me and so that's

when i created my first ever youtube

video titled don't even think about

procrastinating it took me three weeks

to edit that three minute video because

i'd never done any kind of video editing

before and it's weird to think that if i

didn't have that one setback this

youtube channel probably wouldn't have

been created so the second strategy that

i implemented to overcome my

procrastination addiction was that i

took concrete steps to boost my

self-confidence and self-esteem and i

didn't really understand this before but

our beliefs and what we think about

ourselves are a huge determining factor

on how prone we are to procrastination

and pierce steele author of the

procrastination equation explains it

perfectly he wrote beliefs are powerful

because they form or directly affect

expectancy as you become less optimistic

or less confident in your ability to

achieve your motivation also ebbs the

more uncertain you are of success the

harder it is to keep focused so the

lower your self-confidence the lower

your motivation is likely to be

therefore the more you'll be prone to

procrastination and that's exactly what

i experienced for most of my life i had

a huge procrastination problem because i

didn't believe i was capable of really

achieving anything worthwhile so what

was the point what's the point on

studying for a grades if i didn't

believe i was even capable of achieving

them right it would be a waste of time

or at least that's where my mindset was

at the time poor self-perception then

becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy by

expecting to fail we make failure a

certainty because we never dig in and

make an intensive effort so what i did

to counteract that was i surrounded

myself with greatness the people that

inspired me the all-time great warren

buffett will smith michael jordan the

kind of legends in their industry i

started to read their books i started to

listen to their interviews to watch

documentaries i would consume as much

content as i possibly could from the

greatest people on the planet and over

the period of several months my own

self-belief started to rise gradually

because i thought if those people can

achieve phenomenal worldwide success

then surely i can get an a on my next

exam right or i can edit this short

three-minute video for youtube or i can

start going to the gym and get a little

bit healthier and so i just started

doing stuff and i put myself out there

and i did things that i wouldn't have

even dreamed of just a few months

earlier but it was paying off my grades

started to increase people began to

watch my youtube videos i slowly became

stronger and fitter and all these

successes just kept on fueling my

motivation and there was a very strong

negative correlation between my

motivation and procrastination so as my

motivation increased my procrastination

decreased to the point where i could go

throughout my entire day without

procrastinating at all there is one

thing though that i learned very quickly

and that was that i needed to obey the

law of forced efficiency the law of fast

efficiency states that there is never

enough time to do everything but there's

always enough time to do the most

important thing and this is incredibly

important to understand when it comes to

procrastination so one of the most

powerful strategies that i've

implemented this year when it comes to

being productive is that instead of

having a massive long daily to-do list i

just have a weekly schedule with the

most important task anywhere from one

task a day to four tasks a day so

whatever happens that day as long as i

complete those tasks then it's been a

pretty good day because i think the

average person today is just far too

busy where they're overwhelming

themselves with tasks that just aren't

that important and the job

responsibilities just keep piling up the

ideal scenario of getting caught up on

your projects is just not realistic a

more achievable goal is to stay on top

of your most critical tasks because the

busier you get the more overwhelmed you

become and the easier procrastination

can then creep in because

procrastination is a very kind of slow

moving enemy and an analogy that i think

really illustrates the destructive

nature of procrastination is eating junk

food so if you go to mcdonald's and buy

a big mac and fries once every month

it's probably not going to cause much

damage it's not particularly healthy but

once a month there's no significant

damage to your health however if you go

to mcdonald's once a week every week

okay that's when the health concerns

might start to begin but then you become

truly addicted and you start eating at

mcdonald's four days a week for the

duration of your lifetime then the

health risks really start to rack up so

you're now at significant risk of

obesity of cancer suffering heart

disease strokes diabetes depression all

of these illnesses that can

significantly decrease the quality of

your life in the same way if you

procrastinate every now and then then

it's probably not going to be a problem

but if your procrastination becomes a

habitual addiction like it was with me

then you can easily find yourself

incredibly unhappy as charlotte liberman

wrote in the new york times over time

chronic procrastination has not only

productivity costs but measurably

destructive effects on our mental and

physical health including chronic stress

general psychological distress and low

life satisfaction symptoms of depression

and anxiety poor health behaviors

chronic illness and even hypertension

and cardiovascular disease so a couple

of months ago i created a poll in the

community tab section of this channel

asking what is the biggest obstacle you

face as a student and a staggering 76

percent of you said that procrastination

was your biggest obstacle and i can say

pretty confidently that virtually every

single person watching this video right

now is struggling in some form or

another with procrastination so to help

you out i made two videos for you the

first one how i beat procrastination the

easy way where i go through a few more

strategies that implemented to overcome

procrastination that i haven't mentioned

in this video and if you're

procrastinating right now by watching

this then you should check out my video

called stop wasting time on youtube so

whichever video you choose i'll see you

over there