Procrastination Solutions: Future Self
As Dr. Sirois breaks down in her book Procrastination, one of the reasons why procrastination happens is based on our relationship to time. Specifically, our relationship to our future sense of self.
Being out of touch with our Future Self increases the likelihood of procrastinating, because the more out of touch we are with our Future Self the more we can make incorrect assumptions about ourselves in the future. We can mistakenly assume that we will have drastically changed in some way between now and then, so that whatever task we’re procrastinating will be easier.
Or we can simply not keep our Future Self in mind much at all, and so leave tasks for them (really, us) to take care of. When we don’t include our Future self in our thinking, then we can instead focus on relieving our Present Self of uncomfortable feelings through patterns like procrastination.
Another issue potentially leading to procrastination is when we feel the tension between where we are now (our Present Self) and where we would like to be (our Future Self), and that tension causes enough of a negative feeling that we just look for an escape rather than feeling motivated into action by it.
“I wish I was able to x, but I can’t do x right now, and it’ll take forever to get there. This is so uncomfortable! How do I relieve myself of this feeling? Procrastination.”
Research indicates that in addition to mindset and perspective, if we can improve our relationship with our Future Self we have a good chance at reducing our procrastination. Here are a few ideas about how to do that.
Close the Gap
One idea is to make sure you’re not thinking too far out into the future. For example, if you have a task that needs to be finished by the end of the month, that might feel too far away to have much sense of connection to your month-from-now Future Self.
Try closing the gap by considering yourself not only at the end of the month, but also just tomorrow. How will you-tomorrow feel about this task, and what could you do today for you-tomorrow to make things a little easier on them around this task?
Visualization
When connecting with your Future Self, research has shown that simply visualizing yourself from the perspective of yourself in the future can be helpful. Interestingly, it actually may make a difference whether you are visualizing from a third-person or first-person perspective.
And as it turns out it may be more helpful to visualize yourself in the Future from a first-person perspective.
So if you are trying to start a new exercise routine, for example, try visualizing yourself from a first-person perspective at some point in the future, say a year from now. How will things look from your perspective in a year? What will you see, hear, or feel around you?
Take some time to visualize taking a walk in your own shoes, so to speak, at the point in the future where you will have felt the impact of your work toward your goal. Time-travel in your mind’s eye to your life experience at that point in the future, and consider the task at hand from that perspective.
Write a Letter
A very concrete exercise that Dr. Sirois gives is to have a kind of conversation with yourself in the future by writing a letter to your Future Self. And it turns out in the research that writing a letter in response from your Future Self back to your Present Self has an even greater impact on reducing procrastination than just writing the one letter to the future you.
First, decide what Future Self you are writing to. Given the task that you want to reduce procrastination with, what’s a time frame that makes sense? There’s a sweet spot here for this technique, where you’re writing to a Future Self far enough away that it doesn’t just feel like the same you as today, but it’s not so far into the future to be too abstract. Somewhere in the vicinity of a year out from now is a decent place to start.
Second, develop a profile for this Future Self. How old will you be? What will your occupation be? Where will you be living? What kinds of activities will you be doing? What will your personality be like?
Third, while considering this profile, write a letter to this Future Self. Just think about starting a conversation. Feel free to ask questions, like what your Future Self is working on, or what their life is like. Feel free also to share what your present struggles are. Aim for about a page-long letter.
Fourth, step into the shoes of your Future Self, imagine that you’ve just received this letter, and write a response back to your Present Self. Address their questions, let them know what your life is like in the future. Aim for about a page length here as well.
Finally, take some time to reflect on having done this exercise. What was this like for you to do? Did you find it easy or difficult to connect with the sense of yourself in the future? If difficult, what made it difficult to connect?
Think of these exercises like experiments to try for yourself, and see if they help make a difference with the amount you procrastinate on a particular task.