Eliminate Distraction – Day 1: The Art of Starting Anything

Just pick something and start it.

Easy, right? Well not really…

Starting is often overwhelming. Overcoming the initial inertia required to start

something can be hell. This hell has a name: procrastination.

Procrastination is a big problem:

80%–95% of college students engage in procrastination (Ellis & Knaus, 1977;

O’Brien, 2002)
Procrastination occupies over 1/3rd of all daily activities for college students
(Pychyl, Lee, Thibodeau, & Blunt, 2000)
15%–20% adults in the general population chronically procrastinate (J. Harriott &
Ferrari, 1996)
95% of all procrastinators wish to reduce it (O’Brien, 2002).
Over the years, I’ve had some epic moments of procrastination. Looking back on my
work I seemed to have employed the following tactics to overcome procrastination:

Raising my energy levels (psyching myself out or consuming large amounts of

caffeine)
Focusing on the consequences of NOT finishing something (fearing failure)
Giving myself permission to quit after a short period of time (thinking of a clear
and immediate end to my suffering)
Breaking my task down to a tiny initial action (see the act of starting requiring
no effort at all)
The first two ‘starting tactics’ rely on willpower.

The last two ‘starting tactics’ bypass willpower.

Willpower is a limited resource that varies throughout the day. When you exhaust
willpower you are more likely to give into distractions and temptations – which
immediately brings you out of ‘Flow’. In other words, your ability to pay
attention and avoid the urge to view facebook or eat a dozen Hersey chocolate
kisses is depleted.

Therefore, adopting a method of starting that relies on willpower is NOT a good

long-term strategy.

“Willpower is reliable, but only if you don’t run out of it.”

– Stephen Guise

Having a strategy for consistently bypassing willpower is a wise long-term strategy

for overcoming procrastination.

“Just a Few…”

The phrase “just a few minutes” seems harmless – which is why it’s so powerful.

When you tell yourself ‘the suffering’ will end in mere minutes your brain puts up
less resistance to the idea of starting. Think about the act of exercising. If you
instruct yourself to start running without a fixed duration or distance, you’re not
very likely to start. But, if you only need to run for short period of time you
are more willing to endure a little bit of pain and simply start running. When a
marathoner approaches the finish line of a race she often increases her running
pace, even though she has very low energy reserves at that point.
Need to do some research? – “JUST read for 2 minutes”
Need to start that report? – “JUST start writing for 3 minutes”
Need to clean that room? – “JUST put stuff away for 5 minutes”
Every time I use this tactic I can’t help but think: “2 minutes of cleaning? Pfft,
thats nothing… Of course I can do that!”

Recent research has shown the “just a few minutes” method to be highly effective
when trying to overcome procrastination.

Another form of “just a few” is “just do something small”.

How small? Stupid small.

In his book, Mini-habits, Stephen Guise explains, “Saying ‘stupid small’ clarifies
it, because if a step sounds stupid relative to the most you can do, it’s perfect.”

Our objective is to identify a ‘sub-effort action’ – an action so small that doing

it seems to require no effort at all. The amount of effort required to do a task
is a matter of perception. I once felt that going to the gym every day took a lot
of effort, but now that it’s a habit it seems effortless. When you first started
brushing your teeth it probably seemed like a lot of work, but now it’s automatic.

Think about the next thing you should do and scale it back, make it smaller and
smaller – feel the resistance melt away.

“Make it so easy that you can’t say no.”

– Leo Babauta, author of Zen to Done

20 push-ups, down to 10 push-ups, down to 3 push-ups, down to 1 push-up…1 push-up

seems stupid small, perfect!

Translate “clean the kitchen” to “just put away one dish”.

Translate “go to the gym and exercise” to “just put on my gym clothes and get in
the car”
Translate “make 5 sales calls today” to “pick up the phone and dial the first
client on my list”
“Life by the yard is very hard; life by the inch is a cinch”

– Wolfgang Mieder

You might be thinking – “But how is doing something ‘stupid small’ or ‘for just a
few minutes’ going to lead to anything meaningful or significant?”

‘Stupid small’ & ‘just a few minutes’ activates the Zeigarnik Effect. The Zeigarnik
Effect is a well established psychological phenomenon that states: once a task is
started we feel compelled to complete it.

In 1927, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik performed an experiment where

participants did a number of simple tasks (stacking wooden blocks and placing toys
in a box). During the experiment, she would allow some participants to complete the
assigned task while stopping others before they had a chance to finish. At the end
of the experiment, the participants who were stopped midway through the task found
it much easier to recall the exact details of the task than those who were left
alone to complete the task.

“Once an activity is completed, your mind breathes an unconscious sigh of relief,

and all is forgotten. However, if you are somehow thwarted from completing the
activity, your anxious mind quietly nags away until you finish what you started.
If one can be persuaded (or tricked) to work on the activity for ‘just a few
minutes,’ they will often feel an urge to see it through to completion.”

– Richard Wiseman, author of 59 Seconds

The ONE takeaway for today?

You should expect to feel motivated to complete a task AFTER you start, not before!
By saying “just a few minutes” or by starting with a ‘stupid small’ behavior that
seems effortless, you will flank procrastination and go from ‘unstartable’ to
‘unstoppable’!

Practical action sequence:

Set a Short Timer: Approach an overwhelming task with “just for a few minutes” by
setting a short timer on your smartphone.
Start Stupid Small: As the timer ticks down just focus on doing an initial ‘stupid
small’ behavior. If you don’t know what that is, simply scale your actions back
until you discover a single motion that requires no effort at all (take one step,
put away one thing, turn the computer on, etc.)
An image to take home with you:

Spanish athlete Miquel Suner swims across the English channel without a wet-suit;
taking 42,000 strokes to get from England to France in cool 15ºC water. He
completes this endeavor by never allowing his mind to go further than ‘stroke,
stroke, breath’.

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