Speaker 1: The reason that walking around the block or making your
Speaker 1: bed is important. It's not going to get you in shape.
Speaker 1: What it will do is it sends a really important
Speaker 1: message to your brain. Welcome to the one you feed
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on
Speaker 1: this episode is Tim Irvine. Tim has become one of
Speaker 1: the Internet's most popular writers, with rye stick figure illustrations
Speaker 1: and occasionally epic pros on everything from procrastination to artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: Urban's blog Wait but Why has garnered millions of unique
Speaker 1: page views thousands of patrons and many famous fans. His
Speaker 1: recent Ted talk has been watched the most fifteen million times.
Speaker 1: Tim's articles have been regularly republished on sites like Courts,
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Business Insider, and Gizmodo.
Speaker 1: Tim was recently invited by Elon Musk to host SpaceX's
Speaker 1: launch webcast and was granted early access to information about
Speaker 1: SpaceX's interplanetary transport system. If you're getting value out of
Speaker 1: this show, please go to one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Support and make a donation. This will ensure that
Speaker 1: all five episodes that are in the archive will remain
Speaker 1: free and that the show is here for other people
Speaker 1: who need it. Some other ways that you can support
Speaker 1: us is if you're interested in the book that we're
Speaker 1: discussing on today's episode, go to one you feed dot
Speaker 1: net and find the episode that we're talking about. There
Speaker 1: will be links to all of the author's books, and
Speaker 1: if you buy them through there, it's the same price
Speaker 1: to you, but we get a small amount. Also, you
Speaker 1: can go to one you feed dot net slash book
Speaker 1: and I have a reading list there when you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash shop and you can buy t shirts, mugs,
Speaker 1: and other things. And finally one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Facebook, which is where our Facebook group is and
Speaker 1: you can interact with other listeners of the show and
Speaker 1: get support in feeding your good wolf. Thanks again for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's the interview with Tim Urban. Hi, Tim, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I am
Speaker 1: really happy to have you on your log. Weight but
Speaker 1: why is one of my favorites, and I had a
Speaker 1: great time preparing for this interview, so I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to getting into and exploring all that. But let's start
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always in battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life. And in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I like that that's a
Speaker 1: much more poetic way of talking about when I read
Speaker 1: about a lot, which is that there's like truly an
Speaker 1: internal battle going on inside every person. It goes on
Speaker 1: in us in our own way. The battle is always
Speaker 1: kind of to say two characters. One is this higher consciousness,
Speaker 1: this kind of higher center of rationality and logic and
Speaker 1: reasonability and high minded emotions that no other animal can
Speaker 1: experience or no other animal has. Then there's the fact
Speaker 1: that that higher center of consciousness is stuck inside of
Speaker 1: a primitive biological animal who cares about animal survival only,
Speaker 1: and humans that animal survival instinct is usually tied into
Speaker 1: kind of our tribal past, and so the animal wants
Speaker 1: to fit in in a powerful tribe along with other
Speaker 1: things like wants to eat as many calories as possible
Speaker 1: and wants to conserve energy as much as possible. So
Speaker 1: you kind of have this kind of Einstein style higher
Speaker 1: consciousness kind of dealing with the animal all the time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that, again, Max, that comes out in different ways
Speaker 1: for all of us. Some of us that makes us procrastinateing.
Speaker 1: For some of us, it makes it's very socially anxious.
Speaker 1: Some of those it makes us envious or greedy, or
Speaker 1: we succumbed to groupthink and we lose our ability to
Speaker 1: think independently. Even though the rational consciousness in us is
Speaker 1: so great at thinking independently, um, but it gets overpowered
Speaker 1: by this animal that just wants to say the right
Speaker 1: thing and think the right thing. So I think that
Speaker 1: most of the human struggles that we go through individually,
Speaker 1: and probably that we go through as a species kind
Speaker 1: of come down to this battle between these wolves. And
Speaker 1: anytime I'm writing about human psychology or something that's hard
Speaker 1: for people or whatever, when I'm thinking about this issue,
Speaker 1: I almost inevitably end up back at these two wolves,
Speaker 1: and uh, here we are again. This is just another
Speaker 1: version of the same battle. Yeah. Absolutely. That is a
Speaker 1: core theme that runs through all of your work, is
Speaker 1: that higher self versus the animal self. And I love
Speaker 1: the way that you talk about the rational mind being
Speaker 1: trapped inside the body with an animal and that that
Speaker 1: these two things have to coexist. And I love that
Speaker 1: idea that if we were one or the other it
Speaker 1: would be so much simpler. But we're not. But we're both,
Speaker 1: and that's what It's what makes things so challenging. We're
Speaker 1: just an animal would be so happy, would be you know,
Speaker 1: just eating an apple and sitting around and looking at
Speaker 1: the trees and everything would be great. If we're just
Speaker 1: either one of these characters on its own, we'd be happy.
Speaker 1: It would be simple. But it's almost as if evolution
Speaker 1: decided to create this rational center of consciousness, and it's
Speaker 1: planned obviously, you know, logically, would be to upload something
Speaker 1: like that to the cloud or to a kind of
Speaker 1: synthetic body, um, because it goes along with something like that.
Speaker 1: That's what would makes sense for it. But it hasn't
Speaker 1: done that part yet, hasn't figured out the uploading part yet.
Speaker 1: It's just as a temporary hack. It's using kind of
Speaker 1: like a biological primate body as a vessel for it.
Speaker 1: And while we're in this transition period, we unfortunately have
Speaker 1: been born into the transition period, and we are sitting
Speaker 1: here now dealing with the fact that we are both
Speaker 1: of these things at the same time. This leads us
Speaker 1: to one of the things that you're probably best known for,
Speaker 1: which is your post and your subsequent TED talk on
Speaker 1: procrastination and the way that you describe this, the way
Speaker 1: you describe how procrastination works is so great and it
Speaker 1: gets exactly to this. So could you kind of give
Speaker 1: the listeners a brief walk through of that idea. There's
Speaker 1: lots of parts to it, but let's start with the beginning,
Speaker 1: which is really about having these two things in our head. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one form that these two wolves take is the
Speaker 1: form of rational decision maker in your head, uh, and
Speaker 1: what I call the instant gratification monkey in your head
Speaker 1: as well. And to me, we're all actually acting. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the two wolves is about thinking or about feeling, and
Speaker 1: in this case, I feel like this is about when
Speaker 1: it's about acting, and as if there's like a there's
Speaker 1: like a wheel in your head that drives your actions
Speaker 1: at any moment, and the rational decision makers behind the
Speaker 1: wheel where he should be and making decisions rationally. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a good time to have fun. He drives the
Speaker 1: wheel so that you'll have fun. Then sometimes it makes
Speaker 1: sense to sleep or do something productive, get to work.
Speaker 1: It makes much more sense to get to work, and
Speaker 1: that's great. But then this instagratification monkeys in there, who's
Speaker 1: also very powerful and who has uh different ideas of
Speaker 1: what to do. What the instagratification monkey wants to do
Speaker 1: is at all times, no matter what's going on, wants
Speaker 1: to do something easier, fun period. Uh. You know, he
Speaker 1: never thinks it makes sense to work, and he wants
Speaker 1: to maximize the ease and pleasure of the current moment
Speaker 1: at all times. So when you're struggling with procrastination, when
Speaker 1: you're one part of you saying, oh, it's a really
Speaker 1: good time to work, I should definitely definitely sit around
Speaker 1: and work right now, and then some other party just
Speaker 1: opens it, uh the internet, uh, and opens up a
Speaker 1: different screen than you will, playing thing to and starts
Speaker 1: doing something that's not productive. And it's kind of odd.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's it's kind of, as I said,
Speaker 1: another version of you know, when you're when you're like,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have another cookie, but I really just want
Speaker 1: another cookie or I shouldn't. Uh, it's it's just the
Speaker 1: it's the acting version, it's the work version of that. Um.
Speaker 1: So what's happening is that the rational decision maker says,
Speaker 1: let's let's do some work, and then the monkey just
Speaker 1: like kind of jumps in and grabs the wheel. And
Speaker 1: you find yourself like physically you're you're part of your
Speaker 1: brain is saying don't do that, don't do this, don't
Speaker 1: open that window, don't open this site, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Your your hand does it anyway, It's kind of strange.
Speaker 1: We're kind of crazy people, but that's because we have
Speaker 1: two characters in our head, not one. The drawings of
Speaker 1: this are great, so folks, if you're not familiar with it,
Speaker 1: definitely go to wait but y dot com and look
Speaker 1: at this. I'm a big fan of the drawing of
Speaker 1: the monkey myself. I think a lot of people are,
Speaker 1: because you've now got a stuffed animal for it. But
Speaker 1: so we've got this situation where as you said, we're
Speaker 1: trying to steer the course of our life and this
Speaker 1: instant gratification monkey grabs the wheel and decides what's happening.
Speaker 1: And it's very difficult for us to get control back
Speaker 1: from the instant gratification monkey. But then you go on
Speaker 1: to talk about there is one thing that the monkey
Speaker 1: is terrified of. What's that? Yeah, so I know from
Speaker 1: my own experience my monkey is very powerful, much more
Speaker 1: powerful than my rational decision maker. And they're in an argument,
Speaker 1: the monkey always wins, And so why am I not
Speaker 1: lying on the street somewhere just just nothing. I realized
Speaker 1: that it's all about for me. If there's some kind
Speaker 1: of other pressure, there's some kind of external deadline or
Speaker 1: some kind of um serious consequence, then another character who's
Speaker 1: usually dormant kind of rages into the scene. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that's the panic monster. And the panic monster only wakes
Speaker 1: up when there's some kind of like very panicky moment
Speaker 1: when oh God, this is due tomorrow, you know, or
Speaker 1: you say, you know my own I'm gonna be on stage,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be I wanna embarrass myself. I don't.
Speaker 1: I can't believe i'ven't worked on you know, so thing
Speaker 1: where you totally freak out. Then the monkey's actually scared
Speaker 1: only of the panic monster. The monkey then runs away
Speaker 1: and for just you know, while that panic is happening,
Speaker 1: at least the rational decision maker can grab the wheel
Speaker 1: and frantically try to get things done, you know, cursing
Speaker 1: you and cursing himself now because of how a little
Speaker 1: time he's got. Then it's done, and you know, I
Speaker 1: get things done the very last second. Usually don't miss
Speaker 1: a deadline, Well I don't miss I don't miss a
Speaker 1: scary deadline. I might miss a deadline that I've set
Speaker 1: for myself, but I really don't panicky deadline, don't miss that.
Speaker 1: And then the second that's done, I move on into
Speaker 1: the next project to say, great, let's get going, and
Speaker 1: the monkeys back because the panic monster went to sleep
Speaker 1: monkey kind of you know, drop kicks the rash decision
Speaker 1: maker in the face and just takes the wheel back
Speaker 1: and then and I'm I'm back to back in that land.
Speaker 1: So this is a pattern that is not um a
Speaker 1: one or two time thing. This has been going on
Speaker 1: since I was like seven, This pattern um and it's
Speaker 1: very consistent and so, uh, you know, you're if you're me,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of other people are probably
Speaker 1: like this. You have kind of two options. You can say, Okay,
Speaker 1: well this is my situation, so I need panic, I
Speaker 1: need the panic monster to help me all the times
Speaker 1: while you build external deadlines and how you figure out
Speaker 1: how to do that always have that in your life,
Speaker 1: or you try to actually undergo an internal shift. And
Speaker 1: it's a little like who you feed. Maybe everyone's got
Speaker 1: these two characters. The difference between people who can manage
Speaker 1: their own work and don't procrastinate, the only difference is
Speaker 1: that the rational decision maker in their head is the
Speaker 1: alpha character. Uh and can just say no, monkey, not now,
Speaker 1: and the monkey listens and people over a procrastination problem
Speaker 1: that the the alpha character in the end is the monkey.
Speaker 1: The monkeys of bratt who does not who just you know,
Speaker 1: then the rational decision maker says no, not now, the
Speaker 1: monkey said shut up, and which is them out of
Speaker 1: the way and takes the wheel and uh So you
Speaker 1: can try to really work on your psychology to try
Speaker 1: to change that. Uh And I think that's probably very hard.
Speaker 1: It's been very hard for me, but I think it
Speaker 1: probably can be done. People treat procrastination lightly, but this
Speaker 1: is it's it's like anything else. It's like overeating. It's
Speaker 1: like someone gets into gambling or something else that they
Speaker 1: know they don't want to be doing, and they're doing
Speaker 1: too much of it. You know, it can be a
Speaker 1: form of addiction in a way. You're kind of you're
Speaker 1: stuck in in a pattern that can be very hard
Speaker 1: to get out of. I go one notch further in
Speaker 1: the post and the talk and say that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty of people in studies tend to be kind
Speaker 1: of seemed to be chronic procrastinators, and I think those
Speaker 1: are the people that have the same exact kind of
Speaker 1: very kind of deadline based problem and they really just
Speaker 1: can't their children about their work. But actually, when I
Speaker 1: thought about this a lot, and I read a bunch
Speaker 1: of emails that I got from readers after writing this
Speaker 1: post about their lives, it hit me that the monkey
Speaker 1: does most at the actual the most serious damage, not
Speaker 1: when you're cramming for some deadline and oh man, I
Speaker 1: now want to pull an all night or oh now
Speaker 1: this work is going to be as good. That's that's bad,
Speaker 1: but that's not serious long term like deep, you know,
Speaker 1: regretful damage, and that now that kind of damaged. The
Speaker 1: monkey does in situations when there are no deadlines, you know,
Speaker 1: much more daunting things like changing your career or breaking
Speaker 1: up with someone or or working on a relationship that
Speaker 1: you know you should be working on our senior family
Speaker 1: more are working on your health and getting you know, exercising,
Speaker 1: these big, really critically important things, the kind of things
Speaker 1: you think about in your deathbed that I think way
Speaker 1: more than people procrastinate on because you know, when there
Speaker 1: are no deadlines, uh, it's it's you know, you don't
Speaker 1: really see the procrastination happening, and you don't appear to
Speaker 1: others to be a procrastinator. But I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people when they really think about their lives,
Speaker 1: you know, the things that they're regretful about or stressed
Speaker 1: out about, or depressed about or whatever, often amount to
Speaker 1: the fact that they too are in the hands of
Speaker 1: the monkey when deadlines aren't part of a situation. So
Speaker 1: it's like they might not be scared of the panic
Speaker 1: monster right when he arrives in a full panic, but
Speaker 1: it can be that they actually dread his arrival so
Speaker 1: much that they do to work right away, so they
Speaker 1: don't seem to be but they're still driven in the
Speaker 1: end by the panic monster. The panic monster for them
Speaker 1: is still the thing that makes them do work, even
Speaker 1: if they don't realize it. And when he's not part
Speaker 1: of the equation, uh, suddenly that that work doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: just like it doesn't happen for the chronic procrastinator. So
Speaker 1: that that's kind of the extent of the talk in
Speaker 1: the post. And here's the rest of the interview with
Speaker 1: Tim Urban. You just talked about a couple of ways
Speaker 1: to deal with this. One is to sort of create
Speaker 1: your own panic monster, right, put all these external deadlines
Speaker 1: in place. You talked about changing your psychology, and I'll
Speaker 1: come back to that one in just a second. But
Speaker 1: you also have some fairly practical ideas too. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I say on this show a lot
Speaker 1: is that I think that being overwhelmed and things being
Speaker 1: ambiguous are a couple of big causes of procrastination. And
Speaker 1: you talk about how the fact that for a lot
Speaker 1: of us, when we try and come up with a
Speaker 1: plan for what we're going to do, we end up
Speaker 1: making a long list of you call them ikey daunting
Speaker 1: tasks that that the monkey can very easily be like,
Speaker 1: all right, you know what, No way, this is easy.
Speaker 1: I can procrastinate this. So talk to me a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you mean by that and and how
Speaker 1: doing better planning helps you to procrastinate less. Part of
Speaker 1: the problem for procrastinators is how they kind of view
Speaker 1: big projects, you know, how they frame them in their heads.
Speaker 1: And so they see, I have to do a big project,
Speaker 1: whether it's for work or whether it's agatting something in
Speaker 1: their in their life they want to get in shape
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and they see it as like
Speaker 1: this building they have to build, and they just look
Speaker 1: at the building and they say, Okay, well I'll do
Speaker 1: that some other time, Like I obviously I'm not doing
Speaker 1: that now that I don't even know how to build
Speaker 1: a building. I'm I'm trying to say in the post,
Speaker 1: is that you know, it's a building is just a
Speaker 1: bunch of bricks. If you look at any great achievement,
Speaker 1: you know, a great symphony, a great book somebody wrote,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's actually, you know, one book is
Speaker 1: just a bunch of individual pages somebody wrote. Um. And
Speaker 1: if you think about it, is I don't have to
Speaker 1: write a book. I have to write a page two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty times. Uh, and I have a year
Speaker 1: to do it. So really I only have to write today.
Speaker 1: I only have to write a page and that's it.
Speaker 1: And so I kind of say the post that I
Speaker 1: think that you know, a glorious kind of remarkable achievement
Speaker 1: is really just a bunch of really unglorious, unremarkable small achievements.
Speaker 1: From what it looks like from far away, like when
Speaker 1: you take a big step back, you're like, whoa, look
Speaker 1: at this whole achievement, But actually close it's a bunch
Speaker 1: of these little bricks that were just you know, that
Speaker 1: person that wrote that symphony, Well, on a Wednesday, they
Speaker 1: really just wrote a few bars of that symphony and
Speaker 1: it maybe did a little bit of orchestrating, and that's
Speaker 1: not that impressive on a Wednesday. But it's when you
Speaker 1: take you know, the four hundred and twenty three days
Speaker 1: they worked on a combined and you you look, you
Speaker 1: look at that altogether, you say, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: could never do that daunting, amazing achievement. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of this is framing and just breaking things
Speaker 1: down into smaller tasks and getting really competitive of yourself,
Speaker 1: as if you're being like, because you are dealing with
Speaker 1: a child, the monkey is kind of a child inside
Speaker 1: of you and saying, look, we just have to do
Speaker 1: this one brick today, that's it, and then we can
Speaker 1: have fun, like you have to do this one thing
Speaker 1: forget there's a thing that's not our problem. We don't
Speaker 1: you know, you have to kind of be an insane
Speaker 1: person talking to a child in your head. But if
Speaker 1: you can kind of do that, I find that that
Speaker 1: can really help. If I just wake up and I
Speaker 1: say this, only this one thing to do now, what
Speaker 1: a procrastinator does and often goes along with the same
Speaker 1: kind of personality that underestimates how much time everything takes,
Speaker 1: so they'll assign themselves way too much in a day.
Speaker 1: They'll make the bricks too big, unrealistically big, and then
Speaker 1: the monkey, you know, you'll feel daunted, which empowers the monkey,
Speaker 1: and then you end up in some kind of like
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy where you don't really think you're gonna
Speaker 1: get it done, and then you don't get it done,
Speaker 1: and then your self loathing, and then you feel less
Speaker 1: likely to get it done the next day, and now
Speaker 1: you feel like you have to get more done the
Speaker 1: next day because you didn't. Then you can get into
Speaker 1: this bad spiral. So I think it's also really important
Speaker 1: to just even just starting off really small. It's such
Speaker 1: a self esteem battle. You talk about which wolf you're feeding.
Speaker 1: I kind of think that it's when you succeed at
Speaker 1: overpowering the monkey, even just on a small little thing.
Speaker 1: You go to the gym and you've been telling yourself
Speaker 1: you're gonna do that, but you haven't been, and then
Speaker 1: you do it that day. You come back, I think
Speaker 1: you find the rest of that day, uh, the rational
Speaker 1: decision maker has a little bit more mojo, and the
Speaker 1: monkey is a little bit meaker than he normally is.
Speaker 1: And if you can do it the next day, internally
Speaker 1: start to predict that the ractional decision maker is gonna win.
Speaker 1: You say, well, he one two days in a row,
Speaker 1: I guess from a betting person that would bet on
Speaker 1: them again tomorrow. And it's when you believe that the
Speaker 1: rational decision maker is going to win, it's usually when
Speaker 1: he does win. It's when he's failed seven days in
Speaker 1: a row. And you say, well, let's be honest. You know,
Speaker 1: deep down you say, yeah, of course I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: Say but somewhere deep inside of you think, well, but
Speaker 1: I probably won't because that's not what's been happening. The
Speaker 1: monkey gets that information and feels that and that's all
Speaker 1: the power in the world for the monkey. So, you know,
Speaker 1: and the worst thing you can do is this what
Speaker 1: you know, what you mentioned is ikey daunting tasks. Say
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn this new skill just in general, and
Speaker 1: it's even know where to start. You don't even know
Speaker 1: where do I read books? Do? I would go on
Speaker 1: to YouTube? You know? And so you just look at
Speaker 1: that and you say, well, okay, I'm not doing that
Speaker 1: today because you haven't worked it down the smaller task.
Speaker 1: You just have this one big building in front of
Speaker 1: you. You You don't even know how to build it, and
Speaker 1: you feel like you're not going to do it, and
Speaker 1: so the monkey, you're no match for the monkey. The
Speaker 1: monkeys laughing at the even notion that you're going to
Speaker 1: get that thing done. And so I think that that
Speaker 1: that can definitely help. Yeah, I agree. I mean I
Speaker 1: work with with people on this sort of stuff, and
Speaker 1: everything you said is true in my experience. It's why
Speaker 1: starting so small is so important, because you can win
Speaker 1: a very small battle like, okay, you know what, you
Speaker 1: haven't been exercising a year? Great today your goal is
Speaker 1: to walk around the block, and people like that's stupid.
Speaker 1: I'll never get in shape walk around the block, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, you won't. But that one walking around
Speaker 1: the block, like you said, it builds your confidence a
Speaker 1: little bit. You start keeping promises to yourself, and then
Speaker 1: that gives you more strength. You're able to build from that,
Speaker 1: and then that changes what you refer to as the storyline, right,
Speaker 1: and that storyline is that idea like we don't really
Speaker 1: take ourselves seriously when we when we say we're going
Speaker 1: to do something, because we failed so many times before.
Speaker 1: Your storyline is logical. It just looks at the past,
Speaker 1: It looks at your patterns, and it guesses the story.
Speaker 1: Here is this that I don't actually get anything done
Speaker 1: when I say I'm going to, and that becomes your
Speaker 1: story one. That's what I will end up playing out.
Speaker 1: So it's this, It's this kind of catch twenty two
Speaker 1: where you know you need to break that cycle, you know,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. And someone I forget who it was,
Speaker 1: said that the first thing they do every morning is
Speaker 1: they they make the bed, not because they really care
Speaker 1: about having a made bed, um, but because it's the
Speaker 1: first moment to feel like an adult and to do
Speaker 1: something that you didn't have to do and that you
Speaker 1: did because it's the thing you said you were going
Speaker 1: to do. And I find kind of my version of
Speaker 1: that is if I just get up. You know, so
Speaker 1: I work. I'm a writer, and I worked from home
Speaker 1: a lot now, So if I just get up and
Speaker 1: pull the laptop onto the bed and started sticking around
Speaker 1: and started maybe you know, slowly working or whatever, um
Speaker 1: I might be in there till one pm and then
Speaker 1: just curse myself and get out of bed and shower
Speaker 1: and like get going. And um if I just get
Speaker 1: up and just get straight in the showers first thing,
Speaker 1: just get up and just mindlessly walk Suddenly it's like
Speaker 1: I just I just before, you know, kind of like okay,
Speaker 1: well so it's ninety one and I'm sitting here working
Speaker 1: it says it is great, and like just that that
Speaker 1: just like kicks me into I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like an adult. And then it kind of almost
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense to procrastinate. It's like if you if
Speaker 1: you go off sugar for a while, you know, you
Speaker 1: stop wanting it, you stop craving it, and you stopping
Speaker 1: addicted to it so much. So but on the days
Speaker 1: when it's one fifty, when I'm first sitting at the
Speaker 1: computer to start work, I'm so self loathing and just
Speaker 1: so like mad at myself that I often will basically
Speaker 1: get nothing done, even though now I still have a
Speaker 1: bunch of hours. I'll work very slowly. I'm just it's
Speaker 1: a sell. My self esteem is an a terrible place.
Speaker 1: Um So the reason that walking around the block or
Speaker 1: making your bed or getting up and getting the shower
Speaker 1: right away is important, you know. It's like you said,
Speaker 1: it's not going to get you in shape to walk
Speaker 1: around the block. But what it will do is it
Speaker 1: sends a really important message to your brain, which is
Speaker 1: that the monkey didn't want to do that, and the
Speaker 1: rational says youre maker did, and then rational and says
Speaker 1: you're maker one because the rational decision maker is in charge.
Speaker 1: And you come back from that walk and suddenly kind
Speaker 1: of the power dynamic might feel a little different than
Speaker 1: it just did, you know, an half hour ago. So
Speaker 1: starting a day with a little winds can go a
Speaker 1: long way, can actually really kind of a sort of
Speaker 1: chain effect. I love that concept of bricks that you
Speaker 1: talked about, and that idea that a book is just
Speaker 1: a series of small bricks put together. And and one
Speaker 1: of the things you said that really hit me about
Speaker 1: that you said that if you've got an author and
Speaker 1: somebody who wants to be an author, right, the difference
Speaker 1: in their day to day life isn't that big. Of
Speaker 1: their days are exactly the same. It's just that the
Speaker 1: author put that one brick in today and the non
Speaker 1: author didn't. And that really struck me. It's it's this
Speaker 1: idea of it's not about changing everything immediately overnight. It
Speaker 1: and it goes back to what you're just talking about.
Speaker 1: It's this theme of just these little steps taken, keep
Speaker 1: going in the right direction, and at the end of
Speaker 1: that things can look very different. But trying to go
Speaker 1: from A to Z almost inevitably fails. Right, And when
Speaker 1: you're when you're an author that actually writes books, you
Speaker 1: know this little secret. But when you're not, when you've
Speaker 1: always wanted to write your book and you've talked about
Speaker 1: it forever, I'm going to write a book. I'm going
Speaker 1: to write it before work every day. I'm gonna writ
Speaker 1: a little and then right, you know, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you have this myth in your head that the successful
Speaker 1: author just just simply has some power that you don't have.
Speaker 1: They say, oh my, I don't know how they could
Speaker 1: ever do that. They wrote an entire book. I just
Speaker 1: I could never actually do that because they see it
Speaker 1: as a full book. They're looking at a big building,
Speaker 1: when really it's two d and eight five bricks. Each
Speaker 1: brick is one page of writing, or maybe it's seven
Speaker 1: hundred bricks and each brick is just a paragraph. And
Speaker 1: so if you think about a brick as a paragraph. Say,
Speaker 1: you know, there's two people, and the first person wants
Speaker 1: to write that book. It just on that Monday doesn't
Speaker 1: do anything, and Tuesday doesn't do anything, and just you know,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't quite manage to start like most of us.
Speaker 1: And then the second person on that Monday, uh, they
Speaker 1: write two paragraphs before work. On Tuesday, as they're lying
Speaker 1: in bed at night, they write another paragraph. On Wednesday,
Speaker 1: they do nothing. On Thursday they have a little afternoon
Speaker 1: writing session and they write four paragraphs. On Friday, Saturday
Speaker 1: and Sunday they do nothing. Then on Monday, after work
Speaker 1: they write four more paragraphs, you know, on Tuesday the
Speaker 1: right one. So if you look at the difference between
Speaker 1: the two people's days, they're almost always the same. Some
Speaker 1: days they're they're identical, and the other days we're talking
Speaker 1: of about like a thirty minute difference, like plus percent
Speaker 1: of the time they're the same exact person. But then
Speaker 1: a year later, person A has got nothing like they
Speaker 1: always have, and person B has a finished manuscript that
Speaker 1: they can send in and maybe it's published a year
Speaker 1: later changes their entire life. Um, And that's that's the difference.
Speaker 1: And and and the difference is not seven. They're just
Speaker 1: different people. The differences you know, between six thirty and
Speaker 1: seven in the morning, you know, a few days a
Speaker 1: week they're doing something different. Maybe the other person is
Speaker 1: a week and they're just doing a crossroom puzzle in
Speaker 1: that time, whatever it. I mean, this is so similar
Speaker 1: and yet the differences are everything. So that's when I
Speaker 1: look at someone, you say, this person was prolific. How
Speaker 1: did this person do it? Look, this person wrote, you know,
Speaker 1: ten great novels in their life, and I'm thinking, like
Speaker 1: that person, as far as you know, was like, you know,
Speaker 1: basically doing nothing most of the time. And uh and
Speaker 1: just kind of habit, a good habit that they developed
Speaker 1: of they wrote for a couple of hours in the morning,
Speaker 1: four days a week. I mean, something can be as
Speaker 1: simple as that. That can turn into a prolific writer
Speaker 1: in history. I mean and so um So when you
Speaker 1: think of it that way, I think it's just it's
Speaker 1: very inspiring to a procrastinator to think, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: I can't do this. You remind yourself that like, no
Speaker 1: one has magic powers. It's a different version of how
Speaker 1: we think that people have expertise that we could never
Speaker 1: ever had. You know, they just well, I could never
Speaker 1: again keep using the book example, I could never write
Speaker 1: that book where I could never do a talk on
Speaker 1: this subject, or I could never get this job and
Speaker 1: learn to do that because I didn't get the degree.
Speaker 1: I don't have this. I just don't. I literally lack
Speaker 1: this forever, lack this knowledge that this this kind of
Speaker 1: person has, and I just could and that's just not true. Also,
Speaker 1: like everyone is kind of full of ship, everyone is
Speaker 1: learning on the job, everyone is you know, feels like
Speaker 1: a fraud, a little bait and feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't belong in the company there they're in. And
Speaker 1: when you kind of realize that as well, it's just you.
Speaker 1: You kind of it's this this myth of everything is
Speaker 1: the more daunt and more impossible, seeming it harder than
Speaker 1: it actually is. And I think that that's a brick
Speaker 1: kind of concept can really help. I think you get
Speaker 1: you out of that kind of myth absolutely. So the
Speaker 1: last part about procrastination, I want to hit because when
Speaker 1: I read it, I just was like, I'd never been
Speaker 1: able to find the words for it. But it's the
Speaker 1: dark playground. So explain to me what the dark playground is?
Speaker 1: Everyone knows what the dark playground is, and some people
Speaker 1: know it way way better than what it is is. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's that it's that moment when your rational
Speaker 1: decision maker has decided to work. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: perfect time to get some work done. It's the early afternoon.
Speaker 1: If you have if you get four more hours of
Speaker 1: work done today, you'll feel great tonight, you have a
Speaker 1: great weekend. Um. And if you don't, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to work over the weekend. And and you're gonna feel stressed,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna kind of like you're gonna be really
Speaker 1: upset with yourself and you won't have as much fun tonight.
Speaker 1: It's and and and there's not anything else really good
Speaker 1: to be doing the next four hour. It just makes
Speaker 1: every sense in the world to just put your head
Speaker 1: down and get get forms and work done. And yet
Speaker 1: there you are not working, and hours passed one hour
Speaker 1: or two hour, and you know you're not desperate to
Speaker 1: get it done, You're just doing something else. And where
Speaker 1: you are in that moment is the dark playground. And
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a place where LEAs your activities
Speaker 1: and fun things happen at times when they're not supposed
Speaker 1: to be happening. Um. And the reason it's a dark
Speaker 1: playground and not a fun playground is that, you know,
Speaker 1: I say that the air is filled with guilt and
Speaker 1: dread and anxiety and self loathing and all these very
Speaker 1: familiar procrastination you know feelings. Um. And so you know,
Speaker 1: the fun isn't actually fun. It's you're you're, you're, you're
Speaker 1: miserable when you're there. And you know, even if part
Speaker 1: of you is like laughing at a meme you're looking at,
Speaker 1: you know, a bigger part of you underneath is just
Speaker 1: has this head and its hands saying why am I
Speaker 1: doing this right now? And uh, it's a very very
Speaker 1: specific kind of self loathing. It's not a good feeling,
Speaker 1: and it it loomed needs the true kind of irrationality
Speaker 1: of procrastination, and that you'd be happy or right now
Speaker 1: if you were working, you'd actually feel like, okay, good,
Speaker 1: I'm manting this done. Like you know, it's hard, it's
Speaker 1: not fun to work, but you're not having fun either way,
Speaker 1: and now you're ruining like real fun later. And I
Speaker 1: always say that if you can just you know, get
Speaker 1: the work done, which I kind of call like that,
Speaker 1: you know, the dark woods, if you can kind of
Speaker 1: just blow through those dark woods instead of sitting around
Speaker 1: the dark playground. Unlike the dark playground, which has no
Speaker 1: good end to the side, it's just you continue to
Speaker 1: be there or you then have to you know, scramble
Speaker 1: the work later and you ruin your your your leisure timeue.
Speaker 1: If you just power through those dark words and get
Speaker 1: that four hours of work done, there's such a happy
Speaker 1: playground on the other side, and it's the best feeling,
Speaker 1: which is well earned leisure time. It's when you're now
Speaker 1: you know, you're in a movie that night, or you're
Speaker 1: with friends that night, or the next day you wake
Speaker 1: up and you go to brunchet. You have nothing to
Speaker 1: do that weekend because you've just got your stuff done
Speaker 1: the day before, or whatever the circumstances. It's the happy playground.
Speaker 1: It feels great. It's just you can be present. Your
Speaker 1: mind is present that you don't think I should be
Speaker 1: doing something should Why didn't I? It was just you know,
Speaker 1: it's so it's so incredibly logical. After the rational decision maker,
Speaker 1: it's not that he wants to work all the time.
Speaker 1: He loves leisure time. When it's when it makes sense.
Speaker 1: So he's pulling his hair out and saying why did
Speaker 1: we do it this way? And when you're in the
Speaker 1: dark playground, he's just sitting there, you know, thinking I
Speaker 1: can't why why are we here? What this is? This
Speaker 1: is such a valuable time right now that we're and
Speaker 1: the monkeys of course, is just dancing around, running around
Speaker 1: playing because he's thinking, I want to maximize this minute fun.
Speaker 1: I want this minute to be more fun, uh then
Speaker 1: as much fun as it could be. And right now,
Speaker 1: I guess my options are I'm gonna do something fun,
Speaker 1: you know, on the internet, or I'm gonna go you
Speaker 1: know whatever. So that's kind of the craziest place that
Speaker 1: the procrastinator is the dark playground. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: there all the time, and I know a lot of
Speaker 1: other people are too. Absolutely, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: so soal media time is in the dark playground. And
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of dark playground time playing Solitaire.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that that game can It's just it's like,
Speaker 1: don't even Devil's work. It's like in the dark playground
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of rides and Solitaire is like the
Speaker 1: premier is there's nothing, um more self loathing than when
Speaker 1: you should be working, you know it, and you're behind,
Speaker 1: and you're you're late for something and you're you're playing
Speaker 1: of all things solid I I had ups of solidity.
Speaker 1: It's just it is the most self loathing activity a
Speaker 1: human can possibly do. I agree. I'm glad someone else
Speaker 1: shares that feeling with me. Then you win solitaire, you know, like,
Speaker 1: you win and you're just looking with no joy at
Speaker 1: the screen, none like the cards fall. And again, yeah
Speaker 1: it is a joyless Okay, Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's it's a terrible thing. All right. Well, Tim, we're
Speaker 1: gonna wrap up part one of this, so thank you
Speaker 1: for for coming on, and we'll listeners will be back
Speaker 1: with part two. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a donation to the One
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Speaker 1: net slash support