Something that’s closer to 3-hour chunks would be more ideal. I’ve found that when I’m programming or when I’m writing, that 20 minutes or maybe even an hour often isn’t enough time to get into a productive state of flow and make a good dent. Paul Graham explains in his essay “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” that people who make things tend to prefer longer chunks of time in order to be productive. 5Ī particularly effective way that I’ve found to use these if-then plans is in making better use of small chunks of time. 4 This explains why in other studies, if-then planning has increased goal completion rates for people like high school students studying for the standardized PSAT tests, dieters trying to lower their fat intake, smokers trying to quit, people trying to use public transportation more frequently, and many others. When we make if-then plans and decide what to do ahead of time, we’re much more likely to consider the long-term benefits associated with a task whereas, in the moment, the short-term value that we get from procrastinating can often dominate. That reluctance leads us to rationalize why it might be better to do something easier or more fun. The subconscious followup is important because a major reason why we procrastinate on the things that we’d like to get done is due to the initial reluctance and activation energy required for us to get started. Halvorson explains that the “planning creates a link between the situation or cue (the if) and the behavior that you should follow (the then)” and so when the cue triggers, the “then” behavior “follows automatically without any conscious intent.” 3 Making these types of if-then plans can be helpful for achieving our goals, whether it’s a long term goal to build up knowledge and skills in mobile development ( if it’s right after dinner, then I’ll watch an Android lecture) or a more short-term goal like fixing an old bug ( if it’s after my 3pm meeting, then I’ll investigate this problem). So examples might be “ if it’s 9am in the morning, then I’ll go running” or “ if it’s Sunday after lunch, then I’ll catch up on my emails.” In an if-then plan, we identify a situation where we will take a step toward a certain goal. Heidi Grant Halvorson sheds some light as to how and why a simple practice called if-then planning can help us be more productive. Why did that little bit of planning make such a large difference? In her book Succeed, Dr. The study reveals just how powerful a few minutes of planning can be in terms of overcoming our natural tendency to procrastinate. That’s more than twice the completion rate for a relatively minor tweak. Of the students who specified these “implementation intentions,” 71 percent of them mailed in their essays of the other half of students, only 32 percent did. Half of the students were also asked to specify when, where, and how they would write the essay. Students who agreed were told that they had to mail in their essays within two days of Christmas. At the University of Konstanz in Germany, he asked students who were on their way to final exams if they would volunteer to participate in a study to write a Christmas essay of how people spend their holidays. In the 1990s, Psychology Professor Peter Gollwitzer conducted a study into the science of motivation.
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