Fiore's book, " The Now Habit, the Fiore Productivity Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-free Play," presents a positive view of human nature, where procrastination is not considered an indelible character flaw or a travesty against the Puritan work ethic.
Making Sense of Procrastination
Instead, Fiore, who holds a bachelor's degree in economics and a doctorate in psychology, explains that procrastination itself is not the cause of the failure to complete important or necessary tasks, it is an attempt to resolve underlying issues.
Fiore says, "People don't procrastinate just to be ornery or because they're irrational. They procrastinate because it makes sense, given how vulnerable they feel to criticism, failure and their own perfectionism."
This is a far cry from more rigid and judgmental portrayals of procrastinators as couch potatoes. In fact, by Fiore's assessment, procrastination is hard work. Not starting a task in the face of future condemnation, financial ruin or unrealised potential is no easy task in itself. So, clearly procrastination is not a matter of laziness.
Prioritise Fun
Is all of this just an excuse though? Are these the things we tell ourselves just to continue letting things slide and, at the sme time, stick it to the man? Maybe so, but Fiore says there are many things that have been told to us, which we repeat over and over to ourselves. Things like, "work is drudgery and needs to be hated" or "it's not worth doing if we can't do it perfectly."
Fiore threw out this old paradigm with his "unschedule. " Instead of scheduling in work commitments first, he suggests that leisure time take precedence. By prioritising fun each week, procrastinators can ditch the ideas that their lives are taken up with tasks they do not enjoy. Fun can be used as a reward system for the completion of less attractive jobs on the to-do list. Unpleasant tasks can be scheduled in just before leisure time, so there will be something to look forward to.
The Procrastination Cycle
According to Fiore, procrastination is the end result of a vicious cycle, where people begin by feeling overwhelmed by a task. They then feel pressured, fear failure, try harder, work longer, feel resentful, lose motivation and only after going through all these stages, do they procrastinate. Fear of failure, fear of success and perfectionism all play into the inability to start projects which can provide obvious benefit.
In order to prevent procrastination in the first place, issues which bring on a sense of being overwhelmed do not necessarily need to be addressed. Fiore provides many ideas on how this can be done without years of intense psychotherapy. For instance, he suggests that when it comes to difficulty in starting, only work in increments of thirty minutes. He says that the expectation of a half an hour of good quality work is not threatening enough to trigger the procrastination cycle.
Book Review
The enduring popularity of Fiore's book, "The Now Habit," is well-founded. It is non-judgmental, without pandering to readers. It delicately reinterates its assumption that work, in whatever form it takes, does not have to be onerous. Fiore also provides some genuinely helpful ways to circumvent procrastination, which can be easily initiated. The thirty-minute work period is a favourite among them. Much more can be accomplished within thirty minutes than one might think.
Source
- Neil Fiore. "The Now Habit, the Fiore Productivity Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play" published by Tarcher Penguin, 2009.
Gabrielle Pollock - I have worked as a freelance feature writer for over twenty years in a broad range of fields, including health, business, parenting, ...
