Let’s start by making a note about what’s happening inside your brain all the time. These are the patterns and habits that are running your life. You could call them habits or processes, but they’re the same thing. You’re going to have to think about them and learn how to control them.
In my case, I have several habits that control all the time. Most of them are simply habits but there are a few that are considered “processes.
The habit of putting a certain way into a certain task. In this case, putting the phone down to text. When I do this, I find it easier to stay focused on something while I wait for my train, which is a great way to kill the time.
The habit of staying in the same place at the same time. In this case, I am in a train station waiting for my train. The time is about to expire and I am trying to save the rest of my day by procrastinating.
The train is a very busy place, and it is no surprise that I am a frequent flyer. But I am also very aware of the fact that I cannot just hop on a train without a reservation, as I do not know the address of the station that I am standing in. This is an example of a process, and the only way I can save my day is by procrastinating.
Procrastination happens when we know we are going to have a lot of downtime in the near future. This applies to every day in our lives. I know I am going to have more downtime in a year than I have in the last ten years, and I know that I will have to spend a lot of time procrastinating to make up for it.
Procrastinators (myself included) are a lot less likely to procrastinate if they have a plan. Although it may be hard to get to a specific point on a project, you can still get to it if you think it will help your project. If I put off the next step of the project until I have a lot of time to do it, I can get to it.
One way that procrastination can help you is by being proactive. By planning what you will do in the future, you can avoid having to make excuses for why you can’t do it. I know most people think that planning is just putting things off instead of actually doing them, but there is this really good scientific reason for planning. It is called the “Predictive Process Model.” It is based on the notion that we are not always thinking about the future.
The reason for this is due to our habit of habitually engaging in habits by default. When we are engaged in habits, we automatically engage in the habits of the present, which makes it difficult to think about the future. This becomes much more difficult when you are engaged in a task by habit. So with planning, you have the advantage of planning ahead and preparing to engage in the task and then doing the task.
By contrast, the control method is about thinking about the future and then engaging in the task. It’s about making plans, but this is done by thinking ahead. It’s not about starting in the middle and then working your way forward. This is where the habit comes in. We engage in the habits of the present because we are engaged in the habits of the present.
