I promised a post on productivity when I resumed writing last month, but as I’ve been gathering notes and writing drafts I’ve realised that it’s a really huge topic, and probably better treated in chunks. I’m starting here because procrastination is one of the most serious common roadblocks to productivity - no matter how robust your task-tracking methods or efficient your “inboxes”, if you regularly balk at certain tasks then progress is impossible.

So what are we up against?

Procrastination has one major root cause - fear. There are many sources of fear; some (fear of death, fear of pain) are hard-wired into all of us; others (fear of embarassment, fear of inconvenience, fear of failure) are learned responses to past conditions. All fears originate in the subconscious, and herein lies the problem.

Our subconscious has a highly vivid imagination - it’s always looking out for the wildest, worst scenario that could befall us, and steering us clear. Sometimes that’s good - it’s what stops us accepting rides home with drunks and playing with matches. Other times, it’s disastrous, holding us back from speaking in public, paying a bill or asking that cute stranger if they fancy a coffee. Our subconscious, designed to keep us safe from harm, has a hard time differentiating between Real Harm (certain death) and Not Actually Harm (”sorry, I’m dating someone”).

The very thing which makes us human - the ability to spot patterns, imagine scenarios and weigh up alternatives - can be a crippling burden if left in the control of the subconscious. Luckily, all those things also combine to afford us a defence against ourselves - rationality.

Fighting fear with rationality takes some practice, but it’s a useful skill to have. Training yourself to fight your subconscious knee-jerk reaction against getting something done provides you with a better chance of fighting stronger, more primally-driven fears (fear of flying, or spiders, or clowns).

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