Chapter 6 Flashcards
(25 cards)
Why do you think the zombie-like, habitual part of your brain might prefer process to product?
What can you do to encourage process orientation even two years from now, long after you’ve finished this book?
ONE BAD DAY CAN SPUR MANY BETTER ONES
Mental contrasting is great!
I’ve been using this since I was a kid—it’s something that people could learn to apply to many different situations.
“I once was stuck for months in Maryland working in a chicken supplier factory in the middle of a hot summer.
I made up my mind right there that I was going to school to get my degree.
This experience is what I use as my mental contrast. I believe that sometimes all it takes is one bad day to spark an important realization.
After that, keeping your focus to find the way out of your current situation is much easier.
Practicing Your Zombie Wrangling
Would you like to check your e-mail or Facebook right when you wake up in the morning?
Set a timer for ten minutes of work first thing instead—then reward yourself with online time.
You will be surprised to see that this tiny exercise in self-control will help empower you over your zombies through the day.
Warning: When you first sit down to try this, some of your zombies will scream as if they want to eat your brain.
Tune them out!
Part of the point of this exercise is learning to laugh at your zombies’ antics as they predictably tell you, “Just this once it’s okay to check Facebook right now.”
X MARKS THE SPOT!
It’s a good idea to mark the objective of your daily reading assignment with a bookmark (or post-it note).
This gives immediate feedback on progress—you are more motivated when you can see the finish line!”
START
One helpful tip is to just get started.
This advice sounds relatively simple, but once you get off to a good start, it is much easier to accomplish something.
I like to go to the quiet floor in the library because you can often see other people in the same situation.
I learn best visualizing, if I can see other people working on homework, then I am more inclined to do that myself.
OFF WITH DISTRACTIONS!
I was born without auditory canals and thus am deaf (I’m a Treacher-Collins mutant).
So ,when I study, off goes the hearing aid, and I can REALLY focus! I love my handicap!
I took an IQ test at the end of first grade. My IQ was 90—well below average.
My mom was dismayed.
I was elated since I thought I made an A grade.
I have no idea what my current IQ is.
Now that I can hear, it’s probably dropped a few notches. Thank God for on/offswitches.
Ignorance Is Bliss
Next time you feel the urge to check your messages, pause and examine the feeling.
Acknowledge it.
Then ignore it.
Practice ignoring distractions.
It is a far more powerful technique than trying to will yourself to not feel those distractions in the first place.
What are the four parts that make up a habit? Can you explain and give an example for each?
- The Cue: This is the trigger that launches you into “zombie mode.
”The cue may be something as simple as seeing the first item onyour to-doo list (time to start next week’s homework!) or seeing atext messagee from a friend (time to dawdle!).
A cue by itself isn’t helpful nor harmful. It’s the routine—what we do in reaction to that cue—that maters. - The Routine: This is your zombie mode—the routine, habitual response your brain is used to falling into when it receives the cue.
Zombie responses can be harmless, useful, or, in the worst case, sodestructive that they defy common sense.
3—. The Reward: Habits develop and continue because they reward usgive us a dollop of pleasure. Procrastination is an easy habitto developp because the reward—moving your mind’s focus to somethingmore pleasant—happens so quickly.
But good habits can be rewarding.
Finding ways to reward good study habits in mathand sciencee is vital to escaping procrastination.
- The Belief: Habits have power because of your belief in them.
For examplee, you might feel that you’ll never be able to change your habit of putting off your studies until late in the day.
To change a habit, you’ll need to change your underlying belief.
What is a habit? Why do they exist? How do we form one? Can you give an example of an everyday habit?
You go into this habitual zombie mode far more often than you might think.
The point of the habit is you don’t think in a focused manner about what you are doing while you are performing the habit.
It saves energy.
Habitual actions can vary in length.
It allows us to free our minds for other types of activities.
An example of this is backing your car out of the driveway. The first time you do this, you are on hyper-alert.
The deluge of information coming at you made the task seem almost impossibly difficult.
But you quickly learned how to chunk this information so that before you knew it, all you have to do was think Let’s go,” and you were backing out of the driveway. Your brain goes into a sort of zombie mode, where it isn’t consciously aware of everything it is doing.
You go into this habitual zombie mode far more often than you might think.
How long can habits take? What’s an example of a short or long habit?
Habitual actions can vary in length.
They can be brief: seconds-long intervals where you smile absently at a passerby or glance at your fingernailsto see whether they are clean.
Habits can also take some time—for example,when you go for a run or watch television for a few hours after you get home from work.
How should you change your habits? Why would it be bad if you changed all of your habits at once?
You don’t want to do a full-scale change of old habits. You just want to overwrite parts of them and develop a few new ones.
How can you overwrite a habit? Where do you start? Have you changed a habit? If so, give an example.
The trick to overwriting a habit is to look for the pressure point—your reaction to a cue.
The only place you need to apply willpower is to change your reaction to the cue.
You can prevent the most damaging cues by shuting off your cell phone or keeping yourself away from the Internet for brief periods of time, as when you are working on homework during a twenty-five-minute study session.
Freshman actuarial student Yusra Hasan likes to give her phone and laptop to her sister to “watch over,” which is doubly clever because a public commitment to study is made in the very act of removing temptation.
Friends and family can be helpful if you enlist them.
What is the cue in the habit? Give some examples of cues in habits.
The Cue: Recognize what launches you into your zombie,procrastination mode.
Cues usually fall into one of the following categories:
location, time, how you feel, reactions to other people, or something that just happened.
Do you look something up on the weband then find yourself web surfing?
Does a text message disturb yourreverie, taking you ten minutes to get back into the flow of things even when you try to keep yourself on task?
The issue with procrastinationis that because it’s an automatic habit, you are often unaware that youhave begun to procrastinate.
Students often find that developing new cues, such as starting homework as soon as they get home from school or right after theirfirst break from class, are helpful.
As procrastination expert PiersSteel, author of The Procrastination Equation, points out, “If you protectyour routine, eventually it will protect you.
What is the routine in habits? How can you change old ones or develop new ones?
The Routine:
Let’s say that instead of doing your studies, you often divert your attention to something less painful.
Your brain wants to automatically go into this routine when you’ve goten your cue, so this is the pressure point where you must actively focus on rewiring your old habit.
The key to rewiring is to have a plan.
Developing a new ritual can be helpful.
Some students make it a habit to leave their smartphone in their car when they head in for class, which removes a potent distraction. Many students discover the value of settling into a quiet spots in the library or, closer to home, the productive effects of simply sitting in a favorite chair at the proper time with all Internet access disconnected.
Your plan may not work perfectly at first, but keep at it.
Adjust the plan if necessary and savor the victories when your plan works.
Don’t try to change everything at once.
The Pomodoro technique—the twenty-five-minute timer—can be especially helpful in shifting your reaction to cues.
Also, it helps to have something in your stomach when starting particularly difficult tasks.
This ensures that you have mental energy for that momentary dollop of willpower as you are getting started.
It also avoids the potential distraction of I’ll just go grab something to eat. . .
What is the reward in habits?
The Reward:
This can sometimes require investigation.
Why are you procrastinating?
Can you substitute in an emotional payoff?
A feeling of pride for accomplishing something, even if it is small? A sense of satisfaction? Can you win a small internal bet or contest in somethingyou’ve turned into a personal game? Allow yourself to indulge in alate or read a favorite website?
Provide yourself with an evening of mindless television or web surfing without guilt? And will you give yourself a bigger reward for bigger achievement—movie tickets, asweater, or an uterly frivolous purchase?
Remember, habits are powerful because they create neurological cravings.
It helps to add a new reward if you want to overcome your previous cravings.
Only once your brain starts expecting the reward will the important rewiring take place that will allow you to create new habits.
It’s particularly important to realize that giving yourself even asmall “ataboy” or “atagirl” jump-starts the process of rewiring your brain.
This rewiring, sometimes called learned industriousness, helpsbrighten tasks you once thought were boring and uninteresting.
As you will find, simply getting into the flow of your work can become its own reward, giving you a sense of productiveness you might not have imagined was possible when you first sat down to begin working.
Many people find that seting a reward at a specific time—for example, breaking for lunch with a friend at the deli at noon, orstopping the main tasks at five P.M., gives a solid mini-deadline thatcan help spur work.
Don’t feel bad if you find that you have trouble getting into a “flow” state at first.
I sometimes find it takes a few days of drudgery through a few cycles of the Pomodoro technique before flow beginsto unfold and I find myself starting to enjoy work in a very new area.
Also remember that the better you get at something, the more enjoyable it can become.
What are beliefs in habits? Why are beliefs important in habits? How could you create a belief? Do you already have a belief used for a habit? How could a belief be positive or negative for a habit?
The Belief:
The most important part of changing your procrastination habit is the belief that you can do it.
You may find that when the going gets stressful, you long to fall back into old, more comfortable habits.
The belief that your new system works is what can get you through.
Part of what can underpin your belief is to develop a new community.
Hang out with classmates who have the “can do” philosophy that you want to develop.
Developing an encouraging culture with like-minded friends can help us remember the values that, in moments of weakness, we tend to forget.
A powerful approach is mental contrasting.
In this technique, you think about where you are now and contrast it with what you want to achieve.
If you’re trying to get into medical school, for example, imagine yourself as a doctor, helping others even as you’re preparing for a great vacation that you can actually afford.
Once you’ve got that upbeat image in mind, contrast it with images of your current life.
Imagine your clunker of a car, your macaroni and cheese dinners, and your mountain of student debts.
Yet there’s hope!
In mental contrasting, it’s the contrast of where you want to be with where you are now or where you have been, that makes the difference. Placing pictures around your work and living spaces that remind you of where you want to be can help prime your diffusemode pump.
Just remember to contrast those great images with the thereal, more mundane life that currently surrounds you or that you are emerging from.
You can change your reality.
How can you reframe tasks to make them easier to complete? Give some examples of ways to reframe it.
Why should you focus on the process instead of the product? What is the difference between the process and the product?
If you find yourself avoiding certain tasks because they make you uncomfortable, there is a great way to reframe things:
Learn to focus on process, not product.
Process means the flow of time and the habits and actions associated with that flow of time—as in, “I’m going to spend twenty minutes working.
”Product is an outcome—for example, a homework assignment that you need to finish.
To prevent procrastination, you want to avoid concentrating on product.Instead, your attention should be on building processes—habits—that coincidentally allow you to do the unpleasant tasks that need to be done
For example, let’s say you don’t like doing your math homework. So you put off working on the homework.
It’s only five problems, you think. How hard could that be?
Deep down, you realize that solving five problems could be a daunting task.
It’s easier to live in a fantasy world where the five homework problems(or the twenty-page report, or whatever) can be done at the last minute.
How can focusing on the product hider you? How does it affect your procrastination? What can you do to change this or make a better habit?
Your challenge here is to avoid focusing on the product—the solved homework problems.
The product is what triggers the pain that causes you to procrastinate.
Instead, you need to focus on the process, the small chunks of time you need over days or weeks, to solve the homework problems or prepare for tests.
Who cares whether you finished the homework or grasped key concepts in any one session?
The whole point instead is that you calmly put forth your best effort for a short period—the process.
The essential idea here is that the zombie, habitual part of your brain likes processes, because it can march mindlessly along.
It’s far easier to enlist afriendly zombie habit to help with a process than to help with a product.
What can you say to your family to give them a friendly reason to leave you alone?
Pomodoro is that if you’re working around friends or family, you can tell them about the technique. Then, if they happen to interrupt you, all you need to do is mention that you’re “doing a Pomodoro” or “on the clock,” and it gives a friendly reason for them to leave you alone.
What is Pomodoro? How does it effect your ability to focus or procrastinate?
In Pomodoro-type timer systems, the process, which involves simplefocused effort, moves to the forefront. You disconnect from being stuck on anyone item and can get into a state of automaticity without concerns about having to finish anything.
This automaticity appears to allow you to more easily accesss diffuse-mode capabilities.
By focusing on process rather than product,you allow yourself to back away from judging yourself (Am I getting closer to finishing?) and allow yourself to relax into the flow of the work.
What is multitasking? Is multitasking a good thing? Why or why not?
Multitasking is like constantly pulling up a plant.
This kind of constant shifting of your attention means that new ideas and concepts have nochance to take root and flourish.
How does procrastination appear even when you try to study? What are some examples of the brain side tracking you?
Procrastination often involves becoming sidetracked on less essential litletasks, such as pencil sharpening, in part because you can still feel the thrill ofaccomplishment.
Your mind is tricking you.
That is why keeping anexperimental notebook is so important
