Page 95 - End Procrastination Now Get it Done with a Proven Psychological Approach

Flex Your Emotional Muscle to Overcome Procrastination 63

Respond. This is the execution phase, in which you discover
what happens when you think productively, take a no-
personal-failure approach, and put yourself on a productive
path. At this stage, you put your counter-procrastination plan
into action.
Review and revise. This is an assessment phase. You review
what you’ve learned and decide what you can do to improve
your counter-procrastination plan.
Stabilize. This is an ongoing phase. You keep practicing and
improving your counter-procrastination efforts by actively
following a do-it-now path.

The example in Table 3.1 shows how to use PURRRRS to ward
off emotional procrastination.
Now that you know how to implement the PURRRRS plan, you
can begin using this technique to take a reflective and intentional
approach to shifting from following a procrastination impulse to
succeeding through productive efforts in which the rider regulates
the actions. By repeatedly stopping procrastination with PURRRRS,
using Table 3.2, you strengthen your emotional muscle, get more
done, and spend less time procrastinating and stressing yourself
when you are rushed to finish Once you get used to looking at
procrastination through the lens of PURRRS, you’ll learn how to
mentally and automatically pause, use, reflect, reason, respond, review,
and stabilize to overcome the procrastination habit.

Building Tolerance for Emotional Discomfort

Now that you know how to stop impulsive reactions, you’ve begun
to flex your emotional muscle. Let’s take this concept further by
learning how to build tolerance for discomfort. How do you build
tolerance for discomfort? The answer is partially found by tough-
ing it out to produce results. But since procrastination is a process,
and toughing it out with consistency can’t be assured, what cogni-
tive-emotive approaches can strengthen the process of building