“Has someone texted me on Facebook?I hope so. It has been 10 min since I published my latest post” said my chronic procrastinator mind

After a quick glance at my phone,

“What?? Zero notification!!! No WhatsApp, No Facebook messages???? “

“Ok I am going to  open Facebook APP nevertheless . Maybe someone write something and Facebook forgot to notify me”.

After putting  the phone on online modes

“Shit . Nothing indeed” !! 

“No This can’t be like that. There’s Probably something I received in between. Let us have a quick look at our emails and come back to work”

After I  googled “Yahoo Mail” and logged in  to my account

“Pfff Nothing interesting again “.

As I was closing my Email box, I stumbled around Yahoo Feeds with a post titled:

“Halloween! A Hollywood Star spends 12 hours to wear her mask before she was ready ..”

“That is interesting,  I have to learn more.” I clicked on the link full of excitement.

30 minutes later.

” wasn’t we supposed to work?” an internal voice reminded me.

“We are going to see that later” my procrastinator mind replied.

2 hours were gone just like that.

What is the problem?  Envy to connect comes from within

Like I did many people  tend to turn off their phones   to avoid being disturbed by friends, colleagues and relatives .

And we assume it is also enough to avoid social media.

Is it enough to stay focus? BIG NO.

Lesson:  chronic procrastinator mistake   symptoms with roots

Reducing exposure  strategy is not enough because the root cause comes from  within. I was LOOKING for VALIDATION from others. And because I didn’t find it I started looking for gratification under the form of ENTERTAINMENT.

Once you set out to work, what can you do NOW  to get rid on this internal distraction NOW, so that you actually do what you planned?

What is the  solution: Negotiate with your inner chronic procrastinator mind

A quick and effective solution is to shut down the source of the root cause first (internal thought) before you think addressing the symptom (Your phone).

TO do so, negotiate with your inner Procrastinator mind  instead of tyrannizing yourself by  ignoring the source.

That means you want procrastinator mind  and your conscious mind to agree on a deal at an emotional level.

However, before you negotiate, you need to understand the object of the negotiation: What makes social media so attractive to you? What triggers your desire to check your Social media feeds? Where does this envy come from? What is the missing piece you are trying to compensate ?

Thus, the process goes like this from a bigger perspective:

Move 1: negotiate with inner procrastinator mind (shut down the source)

Move  2: reduce exposure to external distraction (turn off the phone)

Move 3: start working

Below we  elaborate on move 1.

Step 1: Identify why you are looking for validation through a dialog with your unconscious mind 

Ask a question ( write 12 times)

what do you want to receive messages from others so much?

Make 5 hypotheses about emotional reasons (repeat writing each of them 5 times) 

Because it fuels my sense of pride

Because I want to be liked

Because II want others to see my photo/ posts are awesome

Because I want to see someone thought about me

Because I don’t want to feel so lonely

Identify the hypothesis that creates the worst feeling of guilty/ shame on your body

Between those 5 hypothesis, one will create a huge sensation of guilt or  shame under the form of a bad feeling.

This feeling could mainly be located on your belly, your chess or your throat.

So pay close attention to these areas when listing  hypothesis.

Step 2:  accept that you are going to sacrifice the reason why you are looking for validation

To to do, use the techniques described here: How to quickly deal with internal distraction

For example, if you detected your “Ahha” hypothesis was “ Because I want to see someone thought about me” ,  the sentence would be

“ I accept that nobody will think about me in the next hour”

Step3 : Make a deal 

Agree you will quickly check out your phone as a reward every  X minutes

Believe it or not, these internal thoughts will come back again. So you better make the deal  with your chronic procrastinator mind upfront. SO doing, he will stay quiet for a certain time.

Final thoughts:

The entire process  takes about 7-12 minutes. It is nothing compared to wasting 1H30 because of social media distractions.

Some of you are going to read this and think  ” oh it sounds good but I don’t have time to apply this because ….. I challenge you to put this in practice now.

HEUDOU TCHIHIKOU Aubin

A Master chronic procrastinator who chose to execute on its dreams because of frustration and self-criticism.