1: Why do you procrastinate? What can you do to procrastinate less?
Those were the questions a group of psychologists at DePaul University and Case Western University set out to answer.
So they set up an experiment. Half of the participants were invited to “take a math test.” The other half were invited to “play a math game.”
“In reality, the test and the game were the exact same activity,” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.
“The only difference was in the framing,” Jane notes.
All participants received one hour to prepare. Both groups received the same types of math problems as those on the test or game.
“They didn’t have to practice and prepare,” she explains. “They were free to procrastinate—that is, to ignore the practice problems and distract themselves with any enjoyable activity they preferred.”
Guess what happened. “The participants who thought they were preparing for a test were far more likely to procrastinate,” Jane writes. “They waited, on average, until 60 percent of the practice period had passed to get started.”
The participants who thought they were preparing for a game?
They were much more likely to dive into the practice work right away. “They hardly procrastinated at all,” she shares.
“Why? Because they didn’t consider the activity to be something they wanted to avoid. It was going to be fun, so they got started right away.”
What was the researcher’s key takeaway? Chronic procrastination is a “self-handicap” that can be eliminated by simply labeling more activities as “fun” or “pleasurable,” Jane reports.
What makes an activity “fun” is how you think about it—not the activity itself.
“The same activity can be fun or work, something to avoid or something to dive right into, simply because of the way you describe it to yourself,” Jane observes.
2: Yesterday, we looked at the power of focusing on “quests”—the term Jane uses to describe “simple, daily actions that help you reach your bigger goals.”
A quest is a purposeful action, not just another to-do item.
“Maybe you’re searching for better health, or better relationships, or a better job, or a better life for your family. Maybe you’re just searching for your next great adventure,” Jane notes.
“Whatever it is, completing quests in your everyday life will bring you one step closer to that which you seek.”
To apply the above lesson, consider designing any challenge or goal as an opportunity to enjoy yourself.
“Fun is not a discrete positive emotion,” Jane says, “like joy or gratitude or curiosity or pride.
“Fun, instead, is a state of mind. Fun is how we describe an activity that we enjoy for its own sake.”
Research shows that getting paid makes people less likely to call an activity “fun.”
“That’s because fun happens when we focus only on the intrinsic pleasure, excitement, and enjoyment we feel,” she writes, “not when we think about the extrinsic rewards we might get out of it.”
A similar pattern emerges in other research. In one experiment, a team of researchers from Cornell University, New Mexico State University, and the Grenoble School of Management in France explored this.
Their research centered around a “well-known but poorly understood phenomenon: Why so many people gain weight during exercise programs, even if they started exercising specifically to try to lose weight,” Jane writes.
Here’s what the research shows: “There is a very strong link between how people think about physical activity and what they eat afterward,” she notes.
“People who think of physical activity as ‘exercise’ typically have more dessert later in the day and eat more high-calorie snacks,” Jane explains. “That’s because they typically think of exercise as hard work, which we do to improve our health, rather than as something fun or pleasurable for its own sake.
“Therefore exercise deserves a ‘reward.’ And the calories contained in the reward often exceed the calories burned during exercise, leading to weight gain.”
Seeing activity as fun reduces the likelihood of “rewarding” with food later.
“That’s because they already feel rewarded by the excitement and enjoyment of the physical activity itself,” she notes. “They don’t need a cookie or a bag of chips. They already had fun, and that was reward enough!”
3: The really good news? The researchers showed that changing someone’s mindset around physical activity is not hard.
“Even people who think they don’t like exercise are able to reframe it as a fun activity,” Jane shares.
“Simply calling the activity a ‘scenic walk,’—for example—emphasizing the opportunity to enjoy pleasurable sights—rather than an ‘exercise walk’ made all the difference.
“This tiny change in state of mind,” she notes, “led people to eat fewer rewards and successfully lose more weight.”
What does this mean for you and me?
To increase our willpower and motivation, simply say, “This is going to be fun.”
Before beginning a quest, ask yourself, “What’s enjoyable about this?” or “What’s exciting about this?”
Jane says: “Just telling yourself you’re going to have fun is half the battle. It will also help if you think of your daily quests as opportunities for pleasure and excitement.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: What important activities in my life have I framed as “work” instead of something meaningful, enjoyable, or rewarding?
Action: Choose one task or quest today and intentionally reframe it by asking: “What could make this fun, interesting, or energizing?”
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