Are you looking to stop procrastinating in your day-to-day life/work?
Well, you’re in luck, as a technique exists that allows you to do what you enjoy, in order to put an end to procrastinating things you don’t find as appealing.
It is known as “temptation bundling.”
Strangely enough, this technique originated from The Hunger Games movie.
The developer of this technique, Katherine Milkman absolutely adores audiobooks, especially The Hunger Games. She to wasn’t being regular enough with her exercise, so she made herself a deal: she could only listen to the audiobooks at the gym.
The results: she began going to the gym every day of the week!
You may be thinking to yourself: so what? Just because this worked for one person, doesn’t mean it will work for me.
However, Katherine Milkman is a professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And after her personal success, she went about researching whether or not her technique could be used to help other people.
Eventually, she found evidence that her “temptation bundling” technique worked for others as well.
To begin using this approach to reach your goals, simply replace ‘The Hunger Games audio book’ with something you love, and ‘the gym’ with whatever area you want to stop procrastinating in!
Do you love chocolate but hate going over your personal finances? Treat yourself to some goodies while going over all your expenses.
You will be tempted to cheat. And you might eat chocolate at other times as well, which kind of negates the effect of the perk. So how can you manage this?
- Only enjoy the treat when you are doing a task. Katherine found that people did especially well at completing tasks and avoiding procrastination, when their access to the treat was restricted.
- Punish yourself if you do not follow through on your commitment. Also get family/friends involved as ‘regulators’ who monitor your progress and give out reward/punishment. Listen to this podcast and read this article on the Freakonomics website for more information on this techniques.