Productivity Plan: How To Rewire Your Brain, Build Better Habits, And Overcome Procrastination With 31 Life Hacks

By Tiffany Adams

The never-ending lie you keep telling yourself that will lead to your ultimate demise…

You glance over at the stack of open envelopes whispering your name at the side of your desk, wrinkling your nose and wincing just at the thought of having to deal with paying the bills.

Not right now, I can't focus on that.
I'll do it by the end of today, after my lunch break.

Lunch break goes by, no bills have been paid yet. Then, dinner. Still no paid bills.

The sunlight floods your room and the birds sing you their good morning song as you stretch your arms above your head and smile at the thought of it being the weekend. No alarms to be woken up by, you can finally enjoy a nice breakfast at your own leisurely pace, and plans can be made according to your wishes.

Suddenly, all those feelings of peace drain from your body. The bills! I should have paid those last week! The smile disappears from your face and all you are left with is the feeling of shame and disappointment.

Why do I keep doing this to myself? You may continue to ask yourself every time a scenario like this plays out.

These situations are all too common, yet many people neglect to address the issue at hand and simply allow others to label them as "lazy."

There comes a point in life where you need to take responsibility for your bad habits and make the effort to change it for your own well-being and, well, sanity. That point in your life is right now.

In Productivity Plan, you will discover:

• The #1 reason why you can't seem to kick your bad habit out of the picture
• An easy-to-follow 31-day plan designed to help you overcome procrastination once and for all
• The main factor to keep in mind when implementing change in your lifestyle
• The top strategies that will specifically help you become a more productive individual
• Prompts and activities to help you uncover the secret behind why you do what you do
• How modern technology plays a much larger role in procrastination than you may have expected
• The dangers that procrastination pose to your health if not properly addressed in time

And much more.

Even if you're notorious for being that person who always gets things done at a later time, putting it off until you have no more excuses left to use, you are capable of changing your habits. No one is unable to change, not even you, no matter how long your habits have persisted.

And if you think being a perpetual procrastinator isn't a big deal, that it's just a harmless personality trait, think again. In the end, it will ruin your life.

No one wants to live a life full of regrets and feelings of failure, so why should you?

Do your future self a favor, and squash that bad habit of procrastinating like a bug.

If you are tired of feeling inefficient and hopeless and finally want to live a life where productivity comes as second nature to you, then check out this guidebook right now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tiffany Adams
• Release date: Dec 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393914761

Book preview

Part One: How Procrastination Gets Wired Into Your System

Chapter One: Am I A Procrastinator?

Everyone procrastinates - or do they? While it is true that we’ve all been guilty of letting things slide once in a while, for most of us, it’s simply that: an anomaly, not the norm. If you’ve picked up this book, you probably count yourself in another class of people:  the class who procrastinates daily, for whom procrastination is an issue either at work, at school or in relationships or all three.

Why do you suppose you put things off? Why do you suppose you have been unsuccessful in changing this habit? The #1 reason you can’t kick the habit is because you don’t label it for what it is. In this book, we will identify the many ways procrastination creeps in, what we call it, how it looks and what to do about it.

Recognizing that you procrastinate is the most important step in overcoming the stumbling block. You don’t need a psychiatrist:  this is one area where you can self-diagnose and save big bucks. You can self-treat to ultimate success.

Taking a tongue-in-cheek approach directly from Jeff Foxworthy, let’s see how your brain is wired now:

●  You might be a procrastinator if you fill your day with unimportant tasks on your checklist.

●  You might be a procrastinator if you transfer the same important task to your to-do list six days in a row.

●  You might be a procrastinator if you read your emails over several times without acting on any of them.

●  You might be a procrastinator if you start a task and then end up making coffee. Caffeine is good, right?

●  You might be a procrastinator if you fill your day with tasks you’re doing for others, rather than getting your own work done.

●  You might be a procrastinator if you’re waiting to be in the mood to get the job done.

●  You might be a procrastinator if you can’t start until the time is juuuusssst right.

If you are a procrastinator, don’t feel badly. You’re in good company. Ten famous procrastinators may leave you feeling a little better about it all: The Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, Franz Kafka, Saint Augustine, Frank Lloyd Wright, Leonardo da Vinci, Truman Capote and Margaret Atwood are all self-described procrastinators. Don’t let that fool you into becoming complacent with your situation. Each of these people rose above that tendency to achieve excellence, and you can, too.

Roughly 20% of all adults and a whopping 46% of surveyed college students claim it has a negative impact on their happiness. The Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Canada conducted an online survey, asking, To what extent is procrastination having a negative impact on your happiness? They found that one in two (46%) reported quite a bit, and one in five (18%) reported it as having an extreme negative effect. That means for them, it’s transcended from a slip into a way of life, often with unhappy consequences. If you find yourself in this same boat, realize you don’t have to stay there.

It’s time to make a change, to become the person you want to be, to rewire your brain for success and happiness. Our 31 hacks to rewire your brain are meant to transform your thought processes and your actions into a new frame of reference.

Chapter Two:  What Does Your Faulty Wiring Look Like?

There are six types of procrastinators based on six different personality styles. As you read through these descriptions, you will identify with one or more of them. That signals exactly where your wires got crossed and, with that knowledge, we are going to untangle them and rewire your brain for your ultimate success.

Type One: The perfectionist doesn’t want to start any task unless he/she can meet an exaggerated standard of quality. Some believe that perfectionism is the root cause of procrastination, but no, it’s not. It’s a myth, because research actually proves that perfectionists are less likely to be procrastinators. In reality, almost anyone can feel paralyzed when faced with postponed work, knowing they should start while being immobilized with anxiety. This is the result, not the cause of procrastination.

If you identify with the anxiety of not being able to start for fear it won’t be good enough, this is good news. It means you can rewire your brain for success.

Don’t get bogged down in details worrying about the little things like the type of font for your memos or where the calculator is for balancing your checkbook. One helpful strategy to worry less about details is conducting a reality check. Does it really matter? What is the worst possible outcome?  Will this be important tomorrow? Next week? Next year?

Learn how to compromise with your inner self. How long do you think this task should reasonably take for completion? Could you agree to shave off one hour? Could you write a proposal now, and return to the subject to perfect it tomorrow? These little deals give you some insight toward lowering your own expectations.

What would it look like if you were less than perfect? Force yourself to make some conscious faux pas:

●  Leave late for an appointment

●  Leave a corner messy

●  Admit to a weakness you would normally mask

●  Wear a scarf that doesn’t go with your suit

●  Once a day, refuse to indulge in excessive behaviors, like constantly checking for errors

●  Be late for an appointment once a day and make no explanations

●  Buy a gift without researching the best deal

You can quiet the inner critic screaming at you by remembering that this isn’t the demolition of your standards of excellence. It is reining them in so they don’t control you. If this is hard, it’s okay to ask for help. A friend or co-worker can help you talk through the areas where you may have focused too much importance and help you choose a non-critical area for practice. Last but not least, set a reasonable schedule.

By forcing yourself to moderate your own inner standards, you are wiring your brain for change. Each day try to increase the areas you choose to experiment in and let your inner critic learn to deal with it. Your anxiety will lessen over time and you will be able to self-monitor the paralysis that has made you a procrastinator. Look for more in-depth consideration in Part II at daily hack #1 and #3.

Type Two: The dreamer has all kinds of great ideas but considers carrying out the nitty-gritty details as such a downer. If you are this kind of procrastinator, you like the big picture and think in sweeping brush strokes. You are a visionary and, like most visionaries, happiest when others make your vision come to life.

In the real world of assignments and bosses and jobs to do, you have allowed your brain to get its wires crossed. Begin by striking certain words from your vocabulary. Someday and I wish need to go away. Instead, keep a planner handy and when you have an idea for a project, you may not know where to start. The dream remains a dream, and you reinforce your procrastinating habits.

Here are some ideas to start:

●  Write down the steps to make your dream a reality, and don’t worry about the order of importance.

●  Prioritize these steps into a reasonable order for accomplishment.

●  Put the steps into your schedule. Make self-realization a priority. Time block spaces to get specific goals accomplished.

●  Chunk your dream into achievable bites and build on them. By building two priorities into a small pyramid, you will see progress a whole lot faster.

Use your ability to dream big to your advantage and don’t let it paralyze you into inaction. Look in Part II for daily hack #13, #21 and #22 to practice your resolve.

Type Three: The worrier spends an inordinate amount of time on what if and gets caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of overthinking the situation. You may complicate the project with so many options that you don’t know where to start. Your anxiety mounts as you try to think through every possible complication, leaving you mired at the starting gun while others are racing to the finish line. All of these behaviors demonstrate your propensity to worry, and hence procrastinate starting the project.

A lifetime of worrying will not disappear overnight, but you can rein in your tendencies and actually make this mindset work for you. It begins with a notepad, a pen and a cup of coffee. Let all those worries loose and jot them down. That’s right. Get them out of your system. Once captured in black and white, it’s easier to bypass the least important. Tackle one. Only one thing. Decide on one thing you can do to accomplish the assignment while satisfying this one projected outcome.

Make your worrying work for you as a form of quality control rather than letting it dominate you into a state of paralysis. Look at Part II life hack #1 and #6 for additional focus on this topic.

Type Four: The crisis-maker is an adrenaline junkie who thrives on the high of waiting until it’s a last ditch effort salvation from disaster before tackling the project. You know this has spilled over into other parts of your life if you drive too fast, like extreme sports, shop late on Christmas Eve or prefer to debate on topics when they arise. Your procrastination is self-created as a way to producer another rush. It affects both your personal and professional lives and often results in destructive substance abuse.

It is also hard to combat because you justify your procrastination with a defense like, I work better under pressure. What that really means is you don’t like to work at all unless you are under pressure. All too often the result isn’t your best work because you’ve