So..
We're gonna use..
That's okay.
It's no big deal.
We'll sort that out later.
Who knew that if you move locations and you have all the same gear it sometimes doesn't work.
We're gonna use Microsoft Word.
Okay?
And we're gonna use this to kind of make..
make..
take some notes.
Alright?
Just gonna roll with it.
Okay.
So..
First thing to understand about procrastination..
is..
[Switching to a superior font]
Okay.
So today we're gonna talk about..
So you guys should take notes yourselves, okay?
We're gonna talk about procrastination.
We talked a little bit about this last time..
that..
when..
ummmm..
when..
So I..
So..
One of the things we talked about in terms of motivation, is that..
If it's like ever-present or anxiety..
If it's..
If it's present [in] most human beings..
That generally speaking it's actually not a problem.
Um.
So it's not like a..
A pathology.
So what I mean by that is like if we think about like pathology within human beings is rare..
So if we take something like..
"Cancer"..
or "Schizophrenia".
Those are rare conditions that like literally mess with sort of the way that we work.
They're not..
They're not designed to work that way.
Whereas if you look at something like "procrastination".
Like how common..
..is procrastination?
Right? Like..
It's a universal experience.
That is [experienced]..
..by all people.
So it's not something that's a problem
It's actually..
It's..
It's a solution!
It's not a problem.
I know that sounds absolutely bizarre.
But..
What do I mean by that?
So if we think about like 'What is procrastination?'.
Like, how do you guys define 'procrastination'?
Let's start there.
So procrastination is waiting until the last minute to get things done.
And so I want you guys to think about this for a second, right?
So the first thing is not..
Procrastination.. is different from not doing it.
Procrastination is different from failing.
Procrastination is..
Waiting until the last minute..
To Get Things Done.
So what we need to understand about procrastination..
It is actually a strategy..
..for getting things done.
And furthermore..
It is a strategy to get things done..
..in the most efficient way possible.
And this is why it's so hard to get rid of!
Because it's not a problem.
It's actually..
..a very efficient solution.
So our brain tends to be incredibly incredibly efficient.
This is why when we want a glass of water..
We go to like our kitchen and we grab a glass of water..
Or we bring water with us when we come to our bedroom or a room to study or things like that.
We don't walk two miles every time we want a glass of water.
Why is that?
It's because..
That's inefficient and our brain is incredibly efficient.
And so I'm gonna walk you guys through a scenario, okay?
So..
I want you guys to think about this for a second.
Like when you have..
Like.. you know..
You have tests.
Right?
Like, look..
So let's say that you have a final paper that's due in the class.
Then your entire grade is based on that final paper.
You have three months to work on that paper.
When do you start working on it?
Like..
When you have two weeks left, right?
And so like..
What you want to do is you kind of think like..
Okay..
With the start of the semester you're thinking, okay..
I'm gonna work on this paper every week..
And then I'm not gonna be stressed out..
At the end of..
..of the semester.
So three months later..
I'll have it all like.. like..
Done and I'll like..
Polish it.
I'm actually gonna turn in..
..two weeks early.
Like I'm gonna just get it done and then I'm gonna relax the last two weeks.
And then it's gonna be amazing
I'm gonna get an A.
Everything's gonna be great.
And then..
Then like..
I want you guys to think about that..
So your brain is like..
"Okay.."
"Buddy.." like
"Let me.."
"Let me understand this.."
"What you're saying is that.."
"We're gonna spend three months working on something that we can finish in three days?"
Like "Why on earth would we do that?"
Like "You're dumb, man.."
Like "You're telling me that you want to work your ass off?"
"For.."
"Ten weeks.."
"And then do this paper in two weeks?"
Oh, sorry.
"You.. You're telling me that you want to work your ass off for ten weeks.."
"And then we're gonna relax for two weeks when you turn it in early?"
"or.."
"OR..!!"
"We can actually just relax for ten weeks.."
"And then.." like
"..work our asses off for two weeks and then be done with it."
Like think about that for a second, right?
So the reason that procrastination is so resistant..
To get like..
The reason we're so resistant to getting rid of procrastination..
Is because it's a really really effective solution.
Think about all of the time and pleasure..
And enjoyment..
You buy yourself by procrastinating.
Like sure..
Like..
.. you stress to yourself out for those last two weeks or three days or whatever.
But all kinds of..
Of like..
You know..
Emotions that are floating beneath the surface but like..
Think about all of the Youtube you get to watch!
Or all of the games that you get to play by procrastinating.
And then your brain is like "Dude.."
"..I don't understand why you want us to suffer for ten weeks doing 'boring' stuff that we don't want to do.."
"When we can do it in like [somewhere] between three days and two weeks instead."
" It's just dumb.."
"It's.. It's silly.."
So the first thing to understand is that procrastination is not a problem..
..it is a solution.
And it is an incredibly effective solution..
Which is why it's so prevalent.
So the things that work well tend to spread evolutionarily.
Right?
So like eyes tend to work pretty well..
Furthermore..
Two eyes tend to work better than one eye because it gives us depth perception.
And lo and behold
Most people in the world..
..have two eyes.
It's because it's so effective.
So procrastination is actually a highly efficient..
"..task completing strategy."
And if you guys don't think it's efficient, just think about this for a second..
If you can write a paper in three days..
..and..
..one semester.
Like let's say you take a class..
And you have to take like..
Let's say five classes a semester.
And you take..
You do four..
Uuuh.
Let's see..
Eight semesters..
..over the course of college..
That means you're taking 40 classes.
Right?
If you can write one paper in three days..
What that means is that..
If you wanted to you could be done with college in a 120 days.
Think about that.
You could do all the work in 120 days.
Done.
Start to finish.
Because if one..
If one day you can write a paper..
Uh, I mean..
If [for] one class you can write a paper in three days..
And then your brain is like..
This is actually only a 120 days of work
I don't need to spend..
Four years..
Which is a 1200 [days] or even more than that.
Right?
It's like 1500 days.
Why would I spend a 1,500 days doing work that you can finish in 120 days?
Your brain is like..
We only need 10% of the time that you're trying to do this in
Like that's all we need.
Think about that for a second.
So the first thing to understand about procrastination..
Is that it's an incredibly efficient..
..task completing solution.
Okay?
Now the question is like, wh[at]..
But then why does it cause us so much trouble?
And that's because we have goals..
..set in our mind.
We have fantasies about our performance.
That our brain is not..
Like doesn't..
..get behind us..
..with that.
Okay?
So like what I mean by that is like..
You know..
If you write a paper in three days..
You're gonna get like a B or C.
But what you want is an A.
But like what the brain..
The brain has trouble getting behind this idea that like..
"Okay, I could spend 10% of the work."
"I could spend 10% of effort and get a B."
"Or I could spend a 100% effort and get an A."
Your brain is like..
"That seems like kind of a bad deal to me."
Like "Why would I want to spend.."
"..fifteen hundred days.."
"..getting an A.."
"..when I could spend 120 days getting a B?"
"Or C.."
Brains like..
"That's dumb, dude."
"We can get a.."
"We can get a degree with.." like "..a straight.." like
"..2.8 average."
"Or.." like "..3.0 average and we could just work 10% of the time"
Right?
That's the first thing.
So second thing is that..
You know..
When.. when it comes to actual..
So that's the first thing to understand about procrastination.
Now..
Even if it's a solution.
There are different kinds of things that happen with procrastination..
That like cause..
So that's..
So even if we say it's a solution we still want to change that solution.
Right?
We don't.. We don't wanna accept that solution.
So the process of changing and overcoming procrastination..
We need to understand like how to change it even though it is a very efficient solution.
And the reason that there are, you know..
Thousands of like..
Videos on procrastination..
And tons of books..
And tons of blogs on procrastination..
Is that like..
One solution doesn't work..
Because I don't think procrastination is one problem.
I think it's like half a dozen problems.
So I want you guys to think about this for a second.
So let's say I'm a doctor..
And someone comes to me and they say
"I have an illness."
And then I say
"Okay, you have an illness?"
"Let me give you medicine for your illness."
And then someone else comes in and says
"Oh, I'm sick."
And then I say
"Okay, you're sick?"
"Let me give you medicine for your sickness."
And there's no specificity of diagnosis
So whether someone comes in with a heart attack..
Or depression..
Or an allergic reaction..
Or erectile dysfunction..
My treatment is all the same.
Like how good of a doctor do you think I'm gonna be?
I'm gonna be a bad doctor..
Right?
And what's the problem here is that..
We're.. we're taking something like "sickness"..
And we're not breaking it into its component parts..
Which are actually different..
And have different solutions.
So the first thing to understand about..
Next thing to understand about procrastination..
Is that there are actually multiple kinds of procrastination..
And that's why it's so hard to get rid of
Because until you understand what kind of procrastination..
What type of procastination..
..you are dealing with
There are different strategies for different kinds of procrastination..
Which is why you can read a procrastination blog
Which says
"Here are five tips to overcome procrastination."
It doesn't help you at all.
So let's start by understanding there are three different..
So today we're going to cover three different kinds of procrastionation
Those are ideal..
.."Idealistic Procrastination".
"Consequence Procrastination".
and "Operational Procrastination".
So the first one is idealistic procrastination..
And this is when..
..our brain..
..creates a particular fantasy..
..about what we want..
And our inability to..
Get that fantasy [that] keeps us from trying
So this is the procrastination of what I call
"Readiness".
So this is also "Readiness Procrastination".
This is the procrastination that..
I will do this task when I am ready to..
When I'm ready to do it.
Right? Like..
So I'll give you guys a prime example.
Before I started doing the webinar..
The reason that I hadn't done the webinars..
Because in my mind, I.. I..
..wanted to improve my handwriting..
..before I did the webinar.
I was like
"I'm gonna practice my handwriting..
"..for like one or two months or three months.."
"..and learn how to write legibly again because I'm a doctor and all of our handwriting sucks."
"And once I I'm ready to like write legibly then I'll start the webinar."
And so, I don't know if you guys..
Like.. Realize that..
"Can you take notes in your word?" 
 [Question from Twitch Chat]
Yeah. I have notes in word.
Um.
So..
Do you guys really want notes?
Hold on.
Okay, sure.
I can type this.
Okay, so the first thing.
Point number one.
Procrastination..
Let me just make sure this is
..is a solution,
[not a] problem.
Procrastination is waiting until the last minute to complete a task.
Procrastination..
..is an incredibly efficient..
..Task completion strategy.
So the key thing here is that
Procrastination is not about..
..quality,
..it's about..
..value..
..or efficiency.
And remember
Value
Equals
Effort
Sorry.
Yield divided by effort.
Okay, so that's the first thing..
So second thing is..
Procrastination..
..it's hard to fix because
..there are subtypes..
..and so we frequently..
..mis-
diagnose..
..our..
..procrastination.
So that we end up treating it incorrectly.
Okay?
That's the second thing.
So the three types..
So those are subtypes of procrastination.
Number one.
"Idealistic Procrastination"
Number two.
Uh.
Is "Avoidance .."
".. Procrastination"
And number three is..
"Operational.."
"..Procrastination
The each of these has a different thing going on in your mind..
And as a result..
..has a different..
..has a different solution.
So what is "Idealistic Procrastination"?
So first thing is..
"Idealistic Procrastination" is about a fantasy.
Okay?
So what that means is that you think like..
"I want this task.."
".. to turn out a certain way."
I want this task to dot dot dot..
And until the ta[sk]..
Until your brain figures out how to make that..
..possible.
You're not gonna do it.
So this is also a procrastination of readiness.
So what I mean by that is like..
"I'm gonna do this task when I'm ready to make it perfect."
And so think about all of the things in life that you avoid doing..
..because you're not ready to make them perfect yet.
So the example that I use for this webinar is like..
..I wanted to improve my handwriting..
..before I..
..started doing the webinar because then like my notes would be nice and clean and things like that..
And since like I'm not going to improve my handwriting
Like.. I'm not gonna do the webinar.
So in this case, like..
There was an interesting pressure from Covid and all this kind of stuff that we decided..
Okay..
Let's do our mental health bootcamp.
Let's just do it.
Even if we're gonna do a bad job..
Let's just try it and see what happens.
And so your attachment to the fantasy..
..prevents you from moving forward.
So I'm gonna ask that there's this girl I like.
I'm gonna ask her out but she's gonna say no because I'm out of shape
So let me get in shape first and then I'm gonna ask her out
You guys with me?
Like this is an "Idealistic Procrastination".
Right?
And so..
Um.
So..
..what this means is that..
Like..
If you want a 4.0 like you're not gonna..
You know..
This really leads to all kinds of weird things
Like..
Let's say you wait halfway through the semester..
And you procrastinate and you want like a 4.0 that semester..
And then you realize that you're not gonna get a 4.0..
..because you've procrastinated so much
And then instead of like shooting for the 3.0..
Since you can't have the 4.0..
It's sort of like causes you to lose any desire to do work..
..and then you end up with a 2.0
It's this really weird convoluted mental gymnastics kind of thing..
But you're so attached..
..to a particular fantasy or ideal
That you're not willing to..
Like..  do something..
..less than the ideal.
So it's sort of like this..
This attachment to an idealistic..
..outcome.
And the difficulty of obtaining that idealistic outcome..
And we'll kind of get to that in a second.
Has to do with "Operational Procrastination".
..prevents you from actually acting.
Right? Does that make sense?
Yeah, you don't even take the test.
Absolutely, right?
So you'd rather have..
..a 100% chance at an F.
Then the F..
Then the 20% chance at an A.
So you just think about that.
Like that's crazy.
You'd rather take..
..a 100% chance of an F..
..rather than a 20% chance..
..at an A.
Just think about that..
That's completely messed up.
Like it's bizarre.
But it's so true, Right?
So let's not..
Let's remember that the goal of like..
Like our..
..our boot camp here is..
.. we don't..
..care about..
..whether things are smart or dumb.
Or we don't care about..
Whether we're idiotic or our brain is stupid..
We care about what is.
So we're not going to judge that we're gonna just accept..
..that this is the way that we're wired.
And if this is the way that we're wired we can ham and haw..
..and we can get upset about it
Or we can just say like..
Okay, let's scratch our heads a little bit..
And see if this is the way that we're wired
Like let's see if we can just fix it.
Let's see if we can start from where we are and move forward.
So..
If we think about this, we'll get to..
[Thinking]
Okay, let's get those solutions, right?
So how do you deal with "Idealistic Procrastination"?
"Idealistic Procrastination"..
..if we're thinking about solutions.
The first thing is to recognize..
..that what you're chasing is a fantasy.
The solutions.
But what you need to do is learn how to step away from your fantasy or idealization.
Right?
Recognize that like, okay..
The problem is that you set a target for yourself..
..which is unrealistic.
So if you..
If you've never gotten a 4.0 if you have a 2.0 GPA..
And you start your second semester and you're like..
This semester..
..I want a 4.0
Like this semester..
..I'm gonna do it.
You start by actually letting go of that, right?
You start by saying
"Hey, Buddy."
It's like very very very unlikely..
..probably impossible..
..for me to go to it from a 2.0..
..to a 4.0
Right?
So..
..recognize you're chasing a fantasy..
And then..
This is the tricky part..
Then grieve..
..your..
..loss.
Okay?
So the solution to "Idealistic Procrastination"..
..is grief.
This is what you guys need to learn how to do..
Because your attachment..
..to the 4.0..
..is what keeps you stuck.
If you can grieve and you can say like..
Okay, that 4.0 is never gonna happen.
It's not gonna happen. I'm just not capable.
I'm not that smart.
I'm not that capable.
I'm too lazy.
I'm too undisciplined
Let me grieve that loss..
..and let me set a more realistic expectation.
Like what are you actually..
And say like..
And then aim low, right?
So say like, okay.
Let's..
..shoot..
..for a 2.1..
..this semester.
This is the cognitive process..
..that you need to do.
Like just grieve it and just let it go and be like..
Okay, well, that's it.
Screwed.
Let's shoot for a 2.1
And the cool thing about that..
"Doesn't grieving sound like giving up?"  
 [Question from Twitch Chat]
On the contrary!
G..Grieving is NOT giving up.
Grieving is actually accepting a loss and moving forward.
Right?
Like if we think about grief like when someone when a loved one passes away.
The process of grieving is accepting their loss..
..and then moving forward
Giving up is completely different.
Um.
No, you guys are that smart.
The..The all of these problems are worse for people that are smart.
Easier for people that are less smart.
Because your brain is working against you
This is what you guys have to understand..
The smarter you are the stronger your brain is..
..and the harder it is to overcome problems like procrastination
You guys get that?
It's..
It's..
Um.
Anyway.
So the solution to "Idealistic pra..Procrastination" is grieving your loss..
..or..
..letting go of your fantasy.
And we'll kind of get to this in a second..
But..
So I want you guys to think about this.
As long as you have an unrealistic fantasy.
You're never going to be able to move forward, right?
If you have a 2.0
And you don't have that.. the study skills or the habits..
or environment or intelligence to get a 4.0
If you attach yourself to that 4.0
You're never gonna be able to study..
..because like you're never gonna be able to get there.
You're shooting for something that is like impossible and therefore all its gonna leave to..
..lead to..
..is like disappointment and the lack of confidence.
Instead what you need to do is let go that fantasy and say
"Hey."
"I'm just.." like "I've gotten a 2.0 for four semesters in a row.."
"Let me see if I can at least get a 2.5"
And once you have an attainable goal because this is..
This..
..fantasy..
..it's.. it's for the most part unattainable.
You're setting yourself up for failure here.
I want you guys to really think about this.
You're setting yourself up for an equation that you're like..
..bound to fail.
And so like no wonder you're stuck in life because..
..you're playing a game that you literally cannot win.
And If you.. And you hope you win..
And that's what the fantasy is..
The more you start to fail them the bigger the fantasy becomes
And the harder becomes to achieve and the more stuck you get.
Like.. this explains why people are stuck.
Because you're not letting..
You're not willing to let go of your fantasy of progress.
And if you don't..
If you can't let go of your fantasy of your progress
You can't actually progress..
And here's the thing..
When you actually let go..
..of your fantasy.
Cool things happen.
Instead of a 2.
1
You actually get..
2.7
And then you're like..
Okay, I got a 2.7..
..let me -shoot for a 2.8 and then you get..
3.0
And then you get..
3.50
So if you guys talk to people..
Who like put their lives together?
It's not an over..
It's not an overnight thing.
Right?
It's not an overnight thing.
It's a gradual process.
How do you let go of your grief?
So we'll talk more about that.
But..
You accept right?
So you tell yourselves like..
So you're gonna have a thought that I can get a 4.0 and then you na..
..need to have another thought that says
"Hey buddy, that's realistic."
"Let's shoot for a 2.1"
You have that thought along with your thought.
So this..
So we can talk more about how to grieve..
But I want to go through a couple of other
Uh.
Types of procrastination, right?
So the second thing is "Avoidance Procrastination".
So this..
..procrastination..
..tends to be based on..
..emotions.
What I mean by this is that..
If you think about a particular task, like..
Let's say that you want to..
Um.
Ask your boss for vacation..
Like you want to go on vacation..
..but you're afraid that your boss is gonna say "No!"
Or you're afraid that your boss is gonna think you're lazy.
Or..
You're asking..
This is an example..
..I was dealing with recently.
You're asking your professor for an extension due to Covid.
And you're afraid that like..
Your professor is gonna think you're dumb..
Because you need an extension..
And so there are all kinds of like emotions ..
And you're trying to avoid that..
..emotional impact.
Right? You're trying to avoid the emotion..
..of..
..people thinking or ego..
You're trying to avoid the emotion of like..
You know..
Oh, I'm afraid that my professors gonna think I'm dumb.
I'm afraid that this is not gonna ..
..go well.
There's it's.. It's fundamentally..
It's an emotional procrastination.
So this is different from the fantasy!
You guys get that like fantasy is like..
You having an ideal in your mind of what you can accomplish if everything goes right
Man.. During Covid..
..I can't leave the house so I'm gonna learn five languages..
And I'm gonna get into shape..
And I'm gonna wake up at 7 a.m.
Every day.
That's fantasy.
And the bigger your fantasy becomes the more you're gonna procrastinate.
That's fundamentally different..
..from having an emotional barrier..
..that holds you back.
So emotions..
That..
..you try to avoid.
And this too is protective
Because your brain is now like
"Hey man." Like..
Oh..
If.. Until we..
Until we ask our boss..
We're not gonna have to feel bad.
Because our boss is gonna call us an idiot.
He's gonna call us lazy and he's gonna say
"No!"
And then I'm gonna have to call my friends and then..
I'm gonna have to tell them I can't come..
And then they're gonna be disappointed.
So that sounds terrible.
Hmm.
How about we don't do that.
So your brain is like..
"How about we don't do that?"
Right? You guys see this?
Brain is trying to help you out.
Your brain is like..
"Hey man. If this is gonna be bad for you.."
"..how about we don't do that?"
"How about we avoid.. the fear?"
Right?
And..
And.. But these are fundamentally different..
Because the solution is different..
You can sort of let go I mean letting go works really well..
So the solution to this
[angry noises]
The solution to this..
..is first..
..to recognize..
..the..
..emotion.
Actually, hold on, one second.
So another thing.
Okay.. So one of the things that I want to point out here..
So the only thing with "Avoidance Procrastination" is a lot of times we try to rationally
..justify..
..what we should do.
So we try to tell ourselves.
Oh like it's no big deal. Like..
Everyone's gonna ask for..
Everyone's going to ask for extensions.
Covid is going on like..
Who.. What kind of professor is gonna say no to anything during Covid?
Like who's gonna do that?
No one's gonna do that.
Like.. so we.. we have all these rational arguments.
Or other people like if we turn to friends or family members and we tell them
"Oh hey, I'm having trouble like doing this task."
They're like.. "Hey man, just do it."
They're not gonna say anything wrong.
Like it's gonna be fine.
We try to rationally justify..
..what we should do.
And how effective is that?
When we ra.. do rational justification.
[Happy noises]
Okay.
Um.
How rational is it?
Or how effective is it?
truth is.. it isn't..
It isn't effective, right?
And the reason for that is because we're trying to use thoughts..
..to deal with emotions.
And thoughts don't really work well at dealing with emotions.
Because it's kind of like apples and oranges
It's kind of like you're trying to..
..build something with a pen.
Right? A pen is used for drawing.
It's not used for building.
It's just.. They.. They don't connect..
So that our solution is to recognize the emotion.
So..
Ask yourself.
What is the emotion?
I am feeling or trying to avoid feeling?
Okay?
And if you guys are having trouble with that another question you can ask yourself is..
What is the consequence..?
If you can't pin down the emotion..
..I'm trying to avoid.
Okay.
And then ask yourself another question..
How would someone..
..who is in that situation..
..feel.
So this is a..
..really..
..quick
Cheat code to figure out what your emotions are.
So a lot of people have trouble answering this question.
They don't know what their emotions are. So maybe we'll talk about "Alexithymia" tomorrow
And so oa.. one thing that a lot of times like.. uh..
People who are technology savvy or gamers are..
They.. They're don't really have a whole lot of emotional empathy.
But they have good cognitive empathy.
And what does that mean?
It means that if you ask them to..
..analyze..
..a situation..
..and use reasoning to figure out what emotion someone is feeling.
They're really good at that
But if you ask them, what are you feeling they're like..
"I don't know."
They're emotionally colorblind..
..but their analytical capability..
..to..
..reason emotion is very good.
So this is a way..
..of transforming..
..emo.. like..
Inability to determine your emotions.
This is leveraging..
..your analytical capability to figure out your emotions.
So it's kind of like a..
..little bit of a cheat code.
Someone was asking
"Is there some way to productively use this?"
Absolutely.
It's all productive.
Um!
And so..
This is.. So.. If you have "Avoidance Procrastination"..
The first thing..is that you can't rationally fight against it.
But that's usually what we do.
So stop.
Don't even try to rationally fight it.
Start with the emotion.
Ask yourself.
"What is the emotion I'm feeling?"
And then you're gonna be like..
"I don't know what I'm feeling."
I.. I feel..
..bad.
And these are the answers you can come up.
Bad.
Lazy
Stupid
These are not emotions!
Guys.
They're not emotions.
Stupid is not an emotion.
Right?
But these are the only words that we can come up with..
..because we don't understand what like..
..we're emotionally colorblind
So do this practice and then recognize?
"Oh, okay.."
"So this is the negative emotion that I'm feeling."
"And then what you have to do is work on an emotional level, right?
So.. how do you co..
..and then.. and then you're like..
"Okay, well.."
[Happy noises]
Let's play through this dialog.
So then what we have to do is work on..
..emotional..
..level.
Okay?
Instead of a rational level.
And then y'all's responses
"How the.."
"..F.."
"..do I do that?"
Okay?
So I'm gonna tell you guys let's use our cognitive empathy.
Let's turn cognitive empathy..
..into emotional empathy again.
So..
..ask..
..yourself
[More happy noises]
If..
..I had a friend who..
..felt..
..X emotion.
What would I say to them?
Right?
And then..
..say that to yourself
You guys gettin this?
So this is gonna be kind of weird..
But a lot of times like..
inst[ead] like.. when you have friends..
..who are like?
"Oh, I'm afraid that she's gonna say No."
You know, what you want to say is like you don't want to say
Um.
You know, you don't want to say
"Just fucking do it. You're.. you're a retard."
"Just do it!" [Don't let your dreams be dreams.]
Like that's.. that's what you tell yourself, right?
Like you're lazy..
You're incompetent..
But the way that you talk to yourself and the way that you talk to your friends..
..is different.
So learn how to be supportive towards yourself.
Instead of being a judge..
..for yourself..
..learn to be a coach.
And what's the difference between a judge and a coach?
A coach is not someone who says
"Oh, everything is wonderful."
"You're amazing!"
A coach still acknowledges your flaws..
But then like encourages you to work on them instead of a judge who's punishing you.
A judge is like..
"You're lazy!"
Smacks his gavel.
"You.. You deserve to go to jail!"
"You don't deserve to play video games!"
"You suck at life!"
"Screw you!"
"[in] jail with you!"
And the coach is like..
"Hey buddy. I understand that you have trouble dribbling.."
"Let's practice dribbling and.."
Like.. "..if we if we work on it.."
"..you'll actually.." like..
"..get better." like..
"I believe in you."
So you need to start to like..
Instead of an angel and a demon on our shoulders..
Our generation has a judge and a coach.
Those are the two things that you have on your shoulders.
And.. And you still.. The coach isn't gonna let you slide..
He's just gonna be a little bit more encouraging.
Right?
And learn how to say this to yourself.
This is a task to..
This is also the subject of an entire video..
Or.. Or..
Day.. about like..
How to deal with emotions and how to talk to yourself?
Okay?
But remember that..
..that the main thing I'm asking you guys to really focus on right now is that..
..there are three kinds of procrastination and understand which one you're dealing with.
Because do you guys get that like..
Dealing with this one is fundamentally different from dealing with this one.
Two of them can coexist
But then you have to deal with each one, right?
Like.. Someone can come in with like a cough and a fever..
And then you want to give them something for their cough..
And you want to give them something for their fever..
but that's the effective..
That's the way that you become an effective doctor ..
As you deal with like..
..each part of the problem in and of itself.
And this is why procrastination is so hard to deal with because..
..we use 'one word' for procrastination.
But..
In fact..
It is actually a lot of different psychological like..
..patterns..
..that are all coexisting.
And that's why it's so persistent and so hard to fix.
You guys get this for a second that..
..if we had a solution to procrastination..
There wouldn't be a thousand solutions for it.
Because one thing would work..
and then like..
All of the self-help books about procrastination would..
..be useless.
Because there'd be one book about procrastination..
..that works for everyone.
So the fact..
The fact that you..
..you..
..don't.. You have all these thousands of solutions..
Means that like none of them work and that's because it's a complex problem.
But there shouldn't be one word procrastination.
It should be a dozen different books..
..about a dozen different kinds of procrastination.
So now let's go to the last one which is "Operational Procrastination".
So..
..this..
..is.
So operational procrastination..
..is our brain's..
..difficulty
..engaging..
..in..
..unclear tasks.
Okay,?
So what I mean by that is if our brain..
So this is the.. This kind of procrastination.
I'll tell it to you guys..
very quickly. Okay?
If you guys ever..
..procrastinated to do a task..
..for the first time?
And then when you do the task,.
You're like..
"Oh that.. actually I could.."
"I should have done that way earlier. It was actually really easy."
Does that ever happen to you?
Like this is the procrastination..
..that you experience.
When.. After you're done..
You tell yourself..
"Oh.."
"..that.."
"..actually.."
"..wasn't.."
"'..that.."
"'..bad.."
"..I should.."
"..have.."
"..done it.."
"..weeks.."
"..ago."
Great example of this..
You guys are doing yoga with us.
You're like "BAM!".
"Yoga is not that hard."
"I could have done that weeks ago."
"I could have done that weeks ago."
"I should have done that weeks ago."
This is "Operational Procrastination".
So now I want you guys to think about this..
This kind of procrastination..
Right?
I'm.. You guys can't see me pointing
[Laughter]
Is different from this ..
..procrastination.
Do you guys get that?
Do you guys get that "Avoidance Procrastination"?
"Idealistic Procrastination"
An "Operational Procrastination"
Create different thoughts in your head!
So like these are different things that are going on in your mind.
And so they have different solutions..
And if you guys actually start tailoring your solutions..
..to what is going on in your head..
..instead of having..
.."a" solution..
..to procrastination.
It's gonna be like night and day.
So what is "Operational Procrastination"?
Okay.
And how do we fix it?
Okay?
So this is how to recognize it..
..First of all
Alright? This is how to diagnose it.
This is the diagnostic question.
This is the diagnostic question.
And then this is the diagnostic question.
So if your mind is doing this..
Then you're dealing with fantasy..
.."Fantasy Procrastination".
If your mind is trying..
If your mind is like avoiding negative emotion..
If your mind is telling you this..
Actually this is the diagnostic question.
If this is what your mind is telling you..
..it's a different procrastination.
And this is kind of tricky but..
This.. 'cause this is after the fact..
If this feels..
..like..
You would say this after the fact..
Then it's "Operational Procrastination".
Okay?
So what do we do?
What is "Operational Procrastination"?
So the first thing is that..
When we..
..tell..
..our brain to do abstract tasks..
Our brain has difficulty, like..
Executing the abstract..
And this is a big problem for video gamers.
Okay?
So..
..abstract tasks..
..are difficult..
..or impossible..
..to execute.
I'll give you guys an example of this. Okay?
But let's say that I tell my four..
So let's say I tell my four-year-old
She's like almost..
..four and a half..
..or four and a half year old
Um.
So she's like four and a half and I tell her to clean..
..clean her room.
She goes into a room and she can kind of clean it.
Right?
If I tell my two and a half year old
"Go clean your room!"
She goes into the room..
And she stands there..
And she can't clean her room.
Why can't she clean her room?
It's because..
And then I tell her I'm like..
"Okay.." Like..
She doesn't understand..
So the four and a half year old..
..nderstands that cleaning room..
..is a set of individual tasks that are put together.
She recognizes a clean room and she recognizes a dirty room.
And she recognizes that her stuffed animals go here..
Her Legos go here..
And the chess set goes here..
And her markers go here..
Now the two and a half year old..
..can't piece that together
So I can tell the two and a half year old..
I can ask her where does the chess set go..
And..
..she says
"Okay, it goes here."
And I say "Clean up the chess set!"
And she can do that..
Then I can say
"Where do your markers go?"
And she knows where the markers go?
And I say "Clean up the markers, do that!"
"Where do your stuffed animals go?"
She knows that.
"Clean them up!"
"Do that!"
Right?
And then..
..Legos too..
So.. she can do each of the individual tasks.
But the..
But she can't..
..put the abstract picture together.
And this is a faculty that if you play video games..
You are worse at abstraction..
because what video games do..
..is they give..
..They.. They do all the chunking..
..of tasks for us.
Right?
The video game breaks it apart.
All it tells you is what's the next objective?
Okay, collect five rat tails.
Go turn this in over here.
Go do this over here.
And it takes it like how do you beat the game?
Like if you play like an RPG, like I play a lot of RPGs.
Right?
The RPG doesn't start with you at the beginning..
And says
"Okay.." Like..
"..so FF7 [Final Fantasy 7] remake is gonna come out soon.."
Just like you're if you're Cloud [Main Character]..
It doesn't say like..
"Go kill Sephirot!" [Main Villian]
It says like..
"Go do this thing.."
"..and go do this thing.."
"..and go do this thing.."
"..and go do this thing.."
"..and go do this thing.."
And it breaks it up for you.
So the more that we play video games.. the more..
..rusty..
..our abstraction..
..and operationalizing part of our brain becomes.
Because we're spending like 10 hours a day with tasks..
..that were not operationalizing.
Because the computer and game does it for us.
So we lose that faculty..
It's kind of like..
If you don't speak a language for a long time, you're gonna pfl..
You're gonna forget the language.
Right?
And so..
The the solution to "Operational Procrastination" is to recognize first of all that you're kind of..
You are like a two and a half year old instead of a four and a half year old..
And that if you think about like.. uh..
A good example of "Operational Procrastination" is..
..finding a job.
How do you find a job?
You can't find a job.
Do I walk out on the street?
And I see one lying there and I pick it up.
"Oh, look.."
"..I found a job."
No, that's dumb.
That's not.. We don't even have the right word for it, right?
Finding a job is not something you do.
You don't like walk down the street. You're like "Oh."
"Oh, there's a job!"
" Oh look, I got one."
We don't use the right verb.
Why do we use the word..
.."find" to get a job?
Like that's not..
It's because..
..we don't
We take this super abstract task and we assign..
..one crappy word to it
Whereas actually finding a job is like a super complicated thing, right?
It's making a resume.
It's polishing a resume.
"Do I make a resume?"
"Do I make a CV?"
"What font do I use?"
"What color do I use?"
"How do I make my margins?"
What if my resume looks fat?
Like.. What if my resume looks empty?
Right? Then we kind of get into this procrastination..
"Oh my god! My resume is empty.."
There's a little bit of "Avoidance Procrastination".
People who are reading this are gonna think it sucks..
"Oh my god!"
Right?
So it's..  it's making a resume.
That's something you can do.
Opening up Microsoft Word.
That's something you can do.
Those are tasks.
So the solution to a..
..to "Operational Procrastination"..
As many people sort of figured out..
..is..
..to actually..
..operationalize it for you.
So what I'd suggest is you..
..sit down with a piece of paper..
and you actually write out all.. as many steps as you can.
..to completing the task.
So.. in.. in..
If you guys are having trouble with this what I'd say, so..
Take..
..an abstract task..
And chunk it up
If you guys are having trouble with where to start..
This is another key thing, right?
So.. like.. How do I make a resume?
Don't start with the resume!
Start at the end!
Okay.
[Tea Cup?]
So..
..accept..
..a job offer.
Right?
So just think about this, okay?
So we accept a job offer.
Receive a job offer.
Interview.
Apply.
So then actually we can even say this.. so like..
Follow-up..
..post..
..interview with thank you notes.
Interview..
Apply..
..for job..
..(s)
How many do we need to apply..
..for..
..Interview?
What are our chances..
..of..
..an interview?
Hey, for this.. Before we interview we need to..
Dry-clean our suit..
Have hair shave..
Okay.
In order to apply for a job we have to find jobs to apply for.
How are we going to find jobs?
Okay, we can use Monster.com or online sites.
Use Craigslist..
We can..
..ask people we know.
How we get..
Now things are getting tricky so how do we know..
..we know which jobs.
..to apply for?
Okay?
So..
I'm gonna do a video about how to get the job of your dreams which is essentially operationalizing.
You guys get this?
So this is what you need to do.
Then what this does.. is like..
Like.. You can do this, right?
Can you get a job today?
No!
But you can dry-clean your suit cut your hair and shave today.
Like..
..that you can do..
And then something cool starts to happen..
As you start to check these off..
How do you think you feel about yourself?
Hmm?
It's pretty..
Start to feel good, right?
Like you're like..
"Oh I applied for five jobs today."
"Got my hair did."
Got an interview.
And the more that you kind of abstract..
You operationalize your..
..your abstract thing.
Hold on.
Oop.
Okay.
The more you operationalize your..
..your abstract thing like the..
..the easier it becomes and the better you feel about yourself.
And then the other really really cool thing about this is if you're thinking about..
Applying for a job..
And you apply for "a" job..
And you get an interview..
And..
You.. don't get the job.
You feel crushed.
But if this..
So I want you guys.. I don't know how to say this.
So if you have a bunch of..
..check boxes.
Okay?
That are successes.
And you don't get one job after one interview..
You're less likely to be crushed at it
Whereas if you apply for one job and get one interview..
And you don't make it part of this abstract large process.
That involves all of these steps..
Then all.. all you have is failure..
But if you don't get one job in this process
It's like..Who the fuck cares like you have..
You have all these different things that you're doing..
Like you're still succeeding at all of them. "Okay.."
"No big deal.." like..
"..one interview."
So like that's why..
You know..
..you're..
How many it's like..
Like.. this is part of the process right here.
How many do we need to get an interview?
Where our chances of getting an interview?
You become way more resistant..
..to despair..
..when you do this process.
Because you start to remove yourself from an equation..
You have lots and lots of successes in there..
..so you don't need to worry about a singular failure
Right? And so this is how you move forward. This is how you deal with procrastination
And this.. So this is how you move forward.
This is how you deal with procrastination.
Okay, good.
So we're gonna do a couple..
Actually uh.. We're gonna have to do meditation
So unfortunately..
..we don't have time for questions now.
So we're gonna go ahead and do meditation.
'cause then I gotta go.
Okay.
You know, I'll sort out my technical difficulties for tomorrow.
Okay?
So let's think about what kind of um..
[Slapping Noises]
You guys wanna do something new?
Let's do something new.
Alright.
So we're gonna do.. we're gonna do..
Um..
We're gonna do OM chanting. Okay?
So I know I'm chanting is kind of weird, but we're gonna do it.
Okay..
So..
Um.
So OM chanting..
OM is composed of three syllables
A..
U and..
M.
Okay?
So..
Um.
So I'll demonstrate once..
So I'm gonna sit up straight..
take a deep breath
[Inhale]
[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuuu]
[MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM..]
[..mmmmm]
Okay, so I want you guys to do it with me.
[AAA]
[UUU]
[MMM]
In one breath.
We're gonna do five breaths, okay?
Close your eyes!
Take notice of your anxiety if you feel silly.
So be it.
Notice that feeling of silliness..
..we're gonna practice anyway, right?
We're gonna practice..
..dealing with "Avoidance Procrastination"..
..right now!
So notice what is it that you feel?
Do you feel silly?
Are you afraid that people are gonna be mad at you for waking them up?
Like wha are.. What is that that emotion that you're feeling?
How would someone if it's 2:00 a.m. where you are, and you don't want to chant like this.
How would someone feel if it was 2:00 a.m.
..and they started chanting?
Okay?
So..
..let's play that little game.
And then let's to notice those feelings and then let's go ahead and do it.
Sit up straight!
Five rounds.
[Inhales]
[AAAAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuu]
[MMMMMMMMMM..]
[..mmmm]
[Inhales]
[AAAAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuu]
[MMMMMMMMM..]
[..mmmm]
[Inhales]
[AAAAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuu]
[MMMMMMMMM..]
[..mmmm]
Iwant you to focus on the vibration in your body!
Not the sound.
[Inhales]
[AAAAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuu]
[MMMMMMMMMM..]
[Vibrato]
Last one.
[Inhales]
[AAAAAAAAAAA..]
[..aaaa]
[UUUUUUUUUUU..]
[..uuuu]
[MMMMMMMM..]
[..mmmm]
[Pianissimo]
[Opens his eyes]
[Sound of Silence]
Okay.
So go at your own pace..
Right?
So learn to breathe..
You guys will get there.
That's okay.
So thank you guys very much for coming.
We very hope you all are doing well.
Um.
And.. uuh..
Yeah, we'll see you guys tomorrow.
So thank you guys very much.
So I think we're taking donations on.. on..
..coffee Kofi.
Um.. So for those of you who have.. have donated..
..we really appreciate it.
Um.
And for those of you who like watch stream and stuff, we appreciate that as well.
So come back..
..uh..
..tomorrow.
We're trying to you know to keep things free.
Um.
And..
We're streaming later today, so I'm streaming in about..
..an hour and a half.
So..
Um..
And stay well, stay safe.
Take time to meditate.
Take time to reflect.
Take time to do yoga.
Start to take care of yourself because that's what you deserve.
Right?
You owe yourself.
The care that you give to your loved ones and friends is not care that you give to yourself.
And that needs to change today.
So start taking care of yourself!
