The Art of Avoiding Procrastination

Dr. Melodee G. Mancuso, Chief Learning Specialist for ProMEDeus

“Micromovements cause a habit of completion in the mind and the mind doesn’t know whether this has been a big step or a small step. It just knows that you are doing something towards creative action. And it will just keep on multiplying and duplicating that effort until you do more habits of completing than you do habits of not completing.”

Procrastination is a sneaky fellow that finds his way into everyone’s life at the most inopportune moments. He makes us feel foolish, lazy, and bad about ourselves. We beat ourselves up about our lack of dedication or focus which most often doesn’t lead to change because we haven’t adequately dealt with the actual problem of overcoming the habit of delaying preparation.

From working with years of classes of medical students, it is rare that I come across one that lacks motivation or dedication. It is also typical of the normal medical student to possess the ability to focus intensely, or they would not ever have been considered a candidate for medical school to begin with. So why do so many struggle with getting behind in their studies or waiting until the last minute to prepare?

There are several individual reasons, which range from personal problems to health issues that spring up during the course of medical school studies, but procrastination is among the most common.

To overcome procrastination, let’s first define it. Procrastination is the purposeful delay of attention to an assignment or work to do another activity. Even though a student may not acknowledge consciously that they are purposefully delaying studying for an exam, the act of not creating a schedule that includes daily preparation is in of itself an act of avoidance and purposeful delay. At times, this is hard for students to accept when they first hear this. However, they usually return to report that after thoughtful reflection and review of past behavior, they see that they were actively avoiding preparation. Instead of going deep into the psychology of procrastination, which is richly studied, I am going to offer two direct suggestions for overcoming delaying studying and preparation.

1 is to create a schedule for each day of the week, including weekends, every hour of the day. Schedule all school related activities, volunteer, chores, grooming, sleep, and even eating activities into your calendar. Most importantly, schedule in time for friends, hobbies, and exercise. Now check off each school activity as it is accomplished, but if it is not, then move it to another block of time where you have something else planned. Did you not accomplish your school goal because you underestimated the time it took to complete it or did you do a recreational activity instead? If you chose to do a recreational activity, then TRADE out one of your other activity times later in the week for the study time you missed and make it up there. This way you are not giving into procrastination, you are merely moving your schedule around.

Be realistic in your schedule and don’t overdo it. You want to be able to accomplish your goals, move forward in your studies, and feel positive about yourself. This will in turn result in energy and motivation to keep moving forward.

2 is to use Micromovements to help you get started on your assignments and projects. The largest issue for most people is not getting the work done, it is initiating the project. A micromovement is as you have probably guessed, a small movement to get you started in the right direction. Instead of thinking about getting started and feeling guilty about it, it helps create momentum to get up and get going. A micromovement can be as small an action as taking a shower and getting dressed. It can be opening up your computer and turning it on or getting out a book and opening it to the chapter you need to cover. However small, that first initial movement may be all you need to get started. The idea is to create energy in the right direction. Have you ever needed to get your hair cut or your teeth cleaned but put it off and put it off, and found excuses not to go, but all you really needed was the energy to pick up the phone and make the call? Once the call was made for the appointment, the rest was easy. The micromovement might be finding the phone number in your cell phone or on the internet. Once that momentum is driving you forward, it is easy to complete the task.

For micromovements to help deal with procrastination, it is also helpful to figure out what your blocks might be in your way. Is watching television a roadblock to getting started? Do you get up in the morning and fix a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and immediately sit down in front of the television? Before you know it, an hour has gone by and you have decided that you are too tired and down to study today. Or is there a friend or family member that is a major distraction? After you talk to them or read one of their emails you suddenly don’t feel like doing anything or can’t stop thinking about what they just said? If these sound familiar, what can you do about them?

A) recognize that they are keeping you from feeling good about yourself because they are keeping you from achieving your goals (even if it feels good in the moment)

B) you can reschedule these in your life at the end of the day or decide to handle them in a different way that results in a more positive outcome for you.

After recognizing your blocks and either eliminating them or reworking them, redo your schedule, and schedule in some micromovements to help you get started. Identify what micromovements help you create momentum toward studying, working out, socializing, writing, etc. and put them on your schedule.

Here is a list of micromovements students have reported to me that they have used to get started studying.

Turn on my computer
I clean off my study space and set it up for studying (light, pens, coffee, footstool, highlighters, sticky notes, laptop, snacks, good luck mementos)
Turn off my phone, TV, and get my books out and put them on the table
Put a blanket over my TV
Get out the timer. Set the timer for when I have to get off Facebook & texting and study
Move from my bed to sitting at my desk
Put on my study sweater
Have my roommate turn off the video game console at a certain time. I can’t be trusted to do it.
Make my bed so I won’t get back in itimage2.jpg
Fix coffee and turn on my laptop
Call my study partner to meet me or plan what to study
Walk over to the library
Put on my shoes to leave
Get a diet soda, sticky notes, highlighters and pens together
Look up a video on a difficult topic
Set my timer for an hour to study
Leave my apartment
Put my dog’s study scarf on her (she knows to settle down for a while), and then take for her last outdoor break before we start studying
Turn off email, instant message, and all social media
Get dressed
Shower and get dressed
Write a note about what I want to accomplish in the next 4 hours
Anything to change my routine
I have my sister call me and help me get started. She motivates me. Then she calls me to make sure I am working.
Here is a list of micromovements students have reported to me that they have used to get started doing their weekly schedule.

Any of the above to get some momentum
Get out my blank calendar worksheets and pencils
Open my Outlook calendar
Get out last week’s schedule
Make an ongoing To Do list while I am in class, running errands, etc.
Call a friend who is also doing a schedule
Meet a friend for coffee and do my schedule with her
Do one day’s schedule if that is all I can manage

This seems very easy to do but it is harder than it seems at first glance. Old routines are hard to break even when they lead to results that create anxiety and dread. It may even sound silly, but it works. Make a dedicated effort to scheduling, identifying your blocks, and micromovements toward your study goals to reach success. You may need to string several micromovements together to get focused, but that is fine. Don’t be hard on yourself. Whatever it takes to gain that movement forward is what we are aiming for.

As a last note of caution, the anxiety of preparing may be blocking some of your momentum and helping you generate this cycle of procrastination that keeps you from achieving your goals. If this is the case, then recognizing and acknowledging that anxiety surrounding preparation is an issue is a major step in overcoming procrastination. Ask yourself if the difficulty of the topic or the amount of material seems too much to learn in such a short amount of time or if you have gotten so far behind that you don’t see how you can catch up. If the answer to either of these questions is “yes”, then you may well be procrastinating because of preparation anxiety. In both cases, a weekly schedule and micromovements to create momentum would be greatly beneficial to your success. A trip to the student counseling center or student affairs to work with an academic advisor to help with a study schedule would also be wise if you find yourself in a situation where you have fallen far behind. There may be additional issues that require attention that look like procrastination and a visit to the counseling center is encouraged if a concerted effort at the above strategies fail to help you better manage your procrastination.

Please share with us what you find to be useful micromovements to get you moving and involved in studying, volunteering, writing, and accomplishing your goals. We have not focused on using micromovements to help generate creativity, which is an article in a slightly different direction. This would be useful for creating a personal statement and other medical school activities. For readings on micromovements:

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