How do I keep from procrastinating on values?

It’s Monday – the first day of the work week.  It is the day that is typically filled with all the resolutions about what I will get done this week, including actions in support of my values.  If you have been reading regularly, you know that I really want to try to help people identify and act according to their personally meaningful values.  I am trying to post something each day for the month of February that supports that goal.  This week is the home stretch.  Can I keep it up until the 29^th?  (Did I have to choose a year in which February has an extra day?)  If I don’t want to miss a day I had better not procrastinate.  But I feel my motivation slipping a little and so I am going to try to get some help from Piers Steel, a researcher on the science of motivation,

well-known for his work on procrastination.  Perhaps His Procrastination Equation can help me.  His equation shows the relationship among the elements that influence procrastination.  Things that increase motivation are on top in the numerator.  Things on the bottom in the denominator reduce motivation. Expectancy is my belief that I can do something.  Value is what I will get from doing it.  Impulsiveness is the extent to which I can be distracted.  Delay is how long till I get there. 

Motivation =    Expectancy x Value

                          Impulsiveness x Delay

For each element, I am going to score myself out of 10 – just to be able to compare.  Remember in the numerator, high scores are better and in the denominator low scores are be better.
Expectancy:  Do I expect to succeed in writing each day till the end of the month?  You would think this would element would be high.  I have done it so far and but I am wondering if I can keep it up.  So I will rate my expectancy as 6/10.
Value: I general, I have enjoyed the chance that writing about values has given me to clarify and deepen my thinking and this feels worth it to me.  But on days where I am not sure if you are reading, I can wonder why I bother.  Still I think it is a 9/10. 
Impulsiveness:  Will I rashly quit this blog?  I am a university professor and we are not generally a group known for our impulsiveness ;-) and I would be embarrassed to not finish so 1/10.
Delay:   How far away is success?  Well this is the 22^nd and there is only one week left.  Mathematically that would be 2.5/10 but it feels further so I am rounding it up to 3/10.
So if I look at the elements, none are a huge risk to lose motivation and procrastinate but I am most vulnerable in the areas of expectancy and delay.  If I catch myself thinking that I can’t do this anymore (low expectancy) or if I don’t encourage myself with the idea that I am nearly there (delay), I might undermine my own motivation.  Something to keep in mind. If you want to know more about what to do about procrastination, visit Dr. Steel’s website http://procrastinus.com/.

Any suggestions for coping with distractions?

Today as I have been trying to write this post, I keep getting ping after ping from my email. I find myself getting more and more aggravated at the interruptions. (You’re not allowed to ignore an email are you?) As I switch from email to blog and back, I am going in circles trying to figure out what to write about.  My goal is to communicate to you about values so I want something that will be interesting for you and that you will read to the end.  Maybe I should just accept that my destiny today is to write about distractions from values and how to cope with them.   

Higgens, Margu, and Scholer (2012) have studied distractions and valuing.  They did an experiment where people were given a prize to solve anagrams while distracting noises played in the background.  The researchers told one group of participants to deal with the noise by “opposing” its interference - in other words to stay focused on the task.  People in the other group were told to “cope” with the unpleasant feelings the noise created – in a sense to pay attention to their feelings. The researchers measured how much attention people in each group paid to the noise versus the anagram, and also how much they valued the prize they would get.  Those who “opposed” the noise, paid less attention to it and also valued the prize more.  Those who focused on coping with feelings paid more attention to the distraction and valued the prize less.  It is not so surprising to me that if I focus on the task of writing (I’m doing that right this minute) and not on the distraction of my email, the writing will engage me more.  That seems intuitive.  What is a bit surprising is that if I focus on my writing instead of on coping with my aggravation, I will also value  the result more.The results for me is that I interest you in values and I can definitely say I will be very pleased it you got all the way here.    

Reference

Higgins, E.T., Marguc, J., & Scholer, A.A. (2012).  Value from adversity: How we deal with adversity matters. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 965-967. Doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.012