How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Plan a Short-Term Payoff

---

For those challenging tasks that bear fruit only after many days or weeks of
effort, where the future benefits may feel too distant to be alluring, it can help to
promise yourself shorter-term rewards for finishing each small piece of the
project.
A sporty ex-colleague of mine rewards herself with a bicycle ride when she
nails a task she’s been avoiding. A rather intellectual acquaintance allows
himself an episode of a trashy TV program after tackling something especially
difficult at work. I saw someone else install an app on his phone to count the
number of times he exercises, so that he can award himself a beer for each gym
visit.
Of course, all these people might have ended up doing some of these pleasant
things anyway—but by 
planning
these treats as rewards for effort expended,
they were helping to stack the cost-benefit analysis in the direction of
overcoming procrastination. In moderation, it adds up to a smart and enjoyable
approach to productivity. (As long as it doesn’t result in any drunken bike rides.)
TIE THE FIRST STEP TO A TREAT
In 
Chapter 6
on overcoming overload, I talked about the calming power of
identifying the smallest first step when feeling daunted by a task. When we’re
procrastinating rather than panicking, applying that “first step” technique can
also be helpful, because it reduces our sense that there’s a big short-term cost to
getting started. And we can add a twist that makes it even less likely that we’ll
procrastinate: we can link that first step to something we’re looking forward to
doing today. In other words, tie the task that we’re avoiding to something that
we’re 
not
avoiding.
Taking this approach has made a huge difference to Elta’s willingness to
prepare for her talks. “I really want my audience to walk out thinking they’ve
learned something. So my first small step is always to take ten minutes to decide
what I want my one memorable message to be.” And she weaves those ten
minutes into the most enjoyable part of her day. “I’m always looking for ways to
connect the things I do for pleasure and the things that feel like hard work. I like
to walk through a park on my way to work, so that’s when I think about
whatever I’m avoiding, like deciding the key message for my next presentation.
Because I’m in a good mood, I seem to be able to connect more readily with
what I need to think about.”

---

Elta is effectively adding some pleasure to the when-then goal-setting formula
I talked about in 
Chapter 2
. She’s saying, “
When
I’m walking through a lush
green park that lifts my spirits, 
then
I’m taking a little time to think about
whatever task I’m avoiding.” For similar reasons, it can be a good idea to allow
yourself to read lowbrow magazines or books when you’re at the gym, because
the guilty pleasure helps dilute your brain’s perception of the short-term cost of
exercising. Likewise, you might muster the self-discipline to complete a slippery
task if you promise yourself you’ll do it in a nice café with an indulgent drink in
hand. By making the immediate task feel more enjoyable, all these examples
reduce the amount of work that your brain has to do to make your short-term
effort stack up against the eventual benefits.