You tell yourself, "I'm not interested."  Okay, tell that to a hearing officer if you decide you are not interested in paying the fine for  a speeding ticket.

You have a low interest in filling out tax forms.  College applications may be a pain to do and this type of discomfort  holds no interest for you. However, by giving the admissions people what they want, you can get what you want, which is your letter of acceptance.  Your roof leaks. A storm is heading your way. You have little interest in going through the paces of repairing the roof. You have less interest in incurring the greater expense of paying for extensive water damage. You do what you have little interest in doing to support a higher order enlightened interest.

Some activities have a lack of interest written all over them. Changing your baby's diaper is an example. However, you may have a greater interest, which is to keep your baby healthy.

Throughout your life, you'll do many uninteresting things. Learning to read may be frustrating and uninteresting. Yet, reading will later prove useful, interesting, and entertaining.  

Motivation for doing something uninteresting doesn't have to be a precondition for action.  Your enlightened interest may be to achieve a desired outcome or to avoid a negative one.

Rule 1: You don't need to be interested in a priority to do it.

Procrastination and Compliance

It takes a reasonable amount of compliance to function in society. Learning compliance starts at birth.  

We all go through a lengthy socialization process. You learn to eat and sleep at fixed times, suppress your desire to run wild in a glass menagerie, and to wait your place in line. At elementary school, you raise your hand when you have a question. On the job, you follow a time and activity schedule. Governments regulate your activities: you can't smoke in restaurants, you have a due date for submitting tax forms, and your automobile must be able to pass an inspection before a designated date.

At times, you may feel like you were living in a red tape world where many of the priorities you put off are both unnecessary and externally imposed. Without these impositions, procrastination would be less of a nuisance or a burden. However, as long as society is as it is, you'll have tradeoffs and decisions to make about what to do first.

Rule 2: Get critical social responsibilities quickly done to have more time for what is productive or fun.

The Depletion Effect

It's in our human nature to take the quickest route. For many activities, this is the right thing to do.  

Conserving energy was especially important to people living in a primitive world.  You pick the low hanging fruit on the tree because that was both convenient and easy to do.

In our modern world, procrastination is immediately easier. However, you expend mental energy prophesizing that later is better. Since you are not in the mood to dispense with the task, you do something more interesting that has little relevance to achieving your priority. That consumes time and emotional energy. Here is a procrastination paradox.  By trying to make it easy on yourself, you make it hard. In short, you don't live in a primitive world and learning to adjust to the times is a worthy challenge.

You may conserve energy by ducking responsibilities, but this has consequences. Distractions deplete resources. This is another procrastination paradox.

The concept of going for the low hanging fruit on a tree is both intuitive and correct in some circumstances. It also can be highly counter-productive especially when this represents a roundabout route to where you will eventually go.

Rule 3: In the end, you conserve more energy by expending effort to complete a priority than by swerving from it.

Expectations and Effectiveness

Wait to feel inspired to do what is dull, and you are likely to circle about in a procrastination rut. Efficiently dispensing with both mundane and complex priorities normally takes mental concentration and extra steps in the form of preparation and self-guided actions. That may be the shortest and quickest path. Once on that path you may feel exhilarated. If not, that's too bad. Nevertheless, you will have acted to get an uninteresting priority off your back.

Other false expectations, such as thinking that one magnificent effort will permanently rid you of procrastination, is pie-in-the-sky thinking.  You'll never be a 100% non-procrastinating person. Nevertheless, you can improve on doing what is most pressing and important. That's a more realistic expectation.

You develop a reasoned perspective by thinking through what is in your enlightened interest to do, and then by taking responsible actions. By keeping your expectations reasonable and realistic, you are more likely to act responsibly and get pressing things done within a reasonable time.  

Rule 4: By understanding your enlightened expectations, you position yourself to avoid procrastination trap thinking, such as believing that you have to feel motivated to engage priorities that don't interest you.

Here are resources for applying the four rules:

I recently did a first ever Internet workshop for the public on procrastination. If you want to dig deeper into procrastination, you can listen to a free Podcast of the program at   www.smartrecovery.libsyn.org.

A free, brief, eBook accompanied the workshop: Beat Procrastination Now.

If you want information on how to overcome procrastination, and other human psychological afflictions, visit me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/BillKnaus.

My latest book on procrastination is End Procrastination Now!  Use it for systematic guidance to self-improve.

Dr. Bill Knaus