An end to procrastination | Archana Murthy | TEDxMarcusHighSchool

Humans are all united by a force greater than joy, sorrow, and love... procrastination. Contrary to the humorous picture our popular culture paints, avoidance of work is a serious issue. Surveys suggest that 85-95% of students encounter problems directly related to procrastination. As a teenager, all-too-familiar with this torrid cycle of stress, anxiety, and depression, Archana Murthy presents an insightful cure to one of society’s greatest ills. Through personal reflection, Archana suggests that the cure to procrastination is a springboard for a greater journey that is better navigated with others.

Archana Murthy is a student of Marcus High School but also of life. She learns Indian classical music and dance but loves any and all art. She believes that art, science, and spirituality are often interchangeable. This is her first TEDx talk.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

It's Sunday night,
the day has come to a close,

and the sight of twinkling
stars in the night sky

is as welcome as the crisp night air.

That is not very welcome,

because it's Sunday night

and I still have to write
my English essay.

So I get ready to write,
and I realise that in order to write well,

I've got to channel some
of my favourite writers:

Steinbeck, Jane Austen.

Except, it might have been a while,

so strictly to remember
what they wrote like,

I indulge research with a novel ...

or two ...

After that's done,
I sit back down at my desk

ready to crank out what I'm sure
is going to be a masterpiece.

Except, that's when I realise
my nails are too long.

How am I supposed to grip my pencil
properly with my nails being too long?

It simply can't be done.

So I spend half an hour
looking for the nail cutter,

and I file down those bad boys.

After every nail on my body
has been trimmed,

and buffed and polished,

I get right back on task.

And that's when it hits me,

I haven't worked out yet today.

Or this past year, but somehow that didn't
seem relevant until right this moment.

Two hours, three push ups
and 24 cat videos later,

I realise that exercise just isn't for me.

But of course, one must follow
the standard conventions of hygiene,

so, since I exercised, I hop
into the shower for a quick cleanse.

I exit the bathroom
fresh faced and hydrated,

but one glance at the clock across
the room stops me cold in my tracks.

It's 12:30am and I haven't written
a single word of my English essay.

I somehow manage to finish
the essay and turn it in,

but it isn't my best work.

I feel like a failure, and the future
doesn't seem all that exciting.

The question 'What's next?'
generates only a dreadful sense of gloom

because I know what's next,

the same cycle of emotions
I went through while writing that essay.

So on Monday night, it's the same
guilt, stress, anxiety, failure.

On Tuesday night, it's the same -
guilt, stress, anxiety and failure.

And on Wednesday,
and on Thursday, and on Friday.

No matter how much
I tell myself to be better,

that I'll regret it if I procrastinate,

I can't seem to change my behaviour.

It seems like this will just
be my life till I graduate,

and my same bad habits will follow
me into college, and my career too.

I even see a vision
of myself in my old age.

Alone, in a messy apartment,

crying and blowing my nose into my shirt

as I watch 'Say Yes to the Dress'.

And I'm watching TV because
I'm procrastinating on writing my will.

(Laughter)

So, I was procrastinating
on writing my will.

Now, that's what I am: a procrastinator.

Now believe it or not,
being a procrastinator isn't easy.

I invest a lot of time,
effort and resources into it.

For example, every day after school,
I dedicatedly follow a rigorous schedule.

From 3:25 to 4:30, I dawdle.

From 4:30 to 6:42, I delay.

From 6:42 to 7:14,
one can usually find me loitering.

And then until 11:29, I'm just
way too busy twiddling my thumbs.

So other than these
valiant efforts on my part,

what exactly does
being a procrastinator mean?

Well, a procrastinator, simply put,
is someone who puts off doing work.

There are two types actually.

There's the situational procrastinator,

who's behavior depends
on the specific task they have to do.

If they don't like it,
they'll push it off and try to avoid it.

Think most people with laundry, cleaning,

and anything involving
unpleasant conversation.

Which is why my mother
still has not given me 'The Talk'.

Then there's chronic procrastination.

Now, the chronic [procrastinator]
has trouble finishing any task at all.

They generally have a tough time
getting anything done.

In case you're wondering,
I kind of fall into this category.

The chronic procrastinator's worst
nightmare is when an unpleasant task

combines with their high
impulsivity and lack of self-discipline,

to create a whirling cesspool
of 'erm, I'd rather not ...'.

So knowing all this, we can say

that there's a definite link
between work and procrastination.

There's a definite link
between our attitude towards work,

whether we like it or not,
and procrastination.

So me being this procrastinator,
what does that say about me?

Does this mean that I'm nothing more
than a lazy person, doomed to failure?

Does this mean that I lack the basic
skills necessary to manage myself?

Well, let's find out.

So, after the essay debacle,

just to make sure that
I'm not the only one with this issue

while everybody else
is sitting around in 'perfect world',

sipping apple cider out of wine glasses
while lounging pool side,

(Inhales, exhales)

I ask around a bit.

Turns out a fantastic amount
of people are procrastinators!

Almost all of my friends

go through the same
homework completing process as me.

They don't like the hassle of completing
hours for honours societies,

so they don't,

until the very last second.

My 23-year-old cousin
hates paying his bills, so he doesn't,

until the very last second.

My teacher hates
grading our tests, so he doesn't,

until the very last second.

And my parents hate
filing their taxes, so they don't -

say it with me now:

until the very last second.

Yeah, IRS just loves them ...

So I'd established that procrastination
is a big issue that needed some attention.

I started wondering
if it would always be this way for me,

if I'd always be
so unsatisfied in my life.

And that's when it hits me.

What would make for the best
world-changing innovation?

What would make for the most
epic TEDx Talk ever?

How about the one
in which I fix procrastination?

I could see it right then:

'An End to Procrastination'
by Archana Murthy.

So here I stand, in front of you
today, solving procrastination.

So I was pretty determined to solve
this little nuisance once and for all.

Except I had no idea how I was going to.

The whole point of this challenge
being revolutionary

was that no one had ever done it before.

Lucky for me, however,

I happened to find myself stuck
in a car trip with my family,

when my mother pulled out
a book to read, aloud.

The Bhagavad Gita for children.

For those of you that don't know,

the Bhagavad Gita is an ancient Hindu text

that supposedly contains
the answers to life,

and this is the part where my ears perk up
and I'm suddenly interested

because if the answers
to life are in this thing,

then cure for procrastination
has got to be in there somewhere.

So I'm trapped in the car.

I'm animatedly listening, not wanting
to miss the unveiling of the big secret.

The excitement is mounting,
and mounting, and mounting ...

and then I hear it.

I hear the ultimate truth.

And the secret to procrastination is this:

one must do action without any expectation
of the fruit of the action.

That is, one must do work
without any expectation of a reward,

or conversely, a fear of consequence.

It should be done simply
for the sake of doing the work itself,

with no emotion invested
in any other external factor.

Now, this didn't make sense to me.

The way I saw things, the entire world
operated solely based on external factors.

In my my reality, I did my homework

because if I didn't,
I wouldn't do well in my classes.

My teacher grades our tests

because if he doesn't,
he will fail in teaching us.

My cousin pays his bills

because if he doesn't,
he won't have a place to live.

I thought everybody did things
because they had to,

because there were consequences
and rewards that controlled them.

But, since I was at rock bottom
and I had no other go,

I decided to give this advice
of the Bhagavad Gita a try.

So I developed into a method
that I could follow in my own life.

Now, there are a few guidelines
to this method, but before we begin,

I need you to understand
that the first thing I did

was name this method
something extremely important.

I call it: 'Murthy's Method
to Mindful Metacognitive Meaning'.

MMMMM, or 'Mmmmm' for short.

Guideline number 1:

in order to succeed,
one must set a concrete specific goal.

I set the goal of studying
for my SAT every day.

So the goal behaviour was to come home,
study for my SAT for 30 minutes,

do my other homework,
and then if I had leftover time,

to enjoy other leisure activities.

Additionally, while I was
going through my routine,

going on my phone
or my internet was not allowed

because it gave me a means
to procrastinate all too easily.

Number 2:

only feelings of positivity
must surround this endeavor.

This entails both propagating
my own positive thoughts,

and pushing off any negative thoughts.

For example, whenever
I procrastinated until 10pm,

or just skipped doing my homework entirely
and completed it the class period before,

I had to acknowledge the error,

and then put a positive spin
on the situation.

Perhaps by saying that tomorrow
would be a clean slate

and a new opportunity
to make better choices.

Number 3:

at the end of the day,

I had to acknowledge
either a feeling of satisfaction

upon making some sort of
sincere effort towards my goal,

or if I failed to do that,

I had to acknowledge the feelings
of guilt and anxiety within me.

This again doesn't mean that
I was to beat myself up over failure,

but that I was to understand that it just
didn't feel good when I avoided work,

and that it did feel good when I didn't.

This step is imperative,

because self-reflection
is key to the entire process.

Being aware of your emotional
reactions to the method

and asking yourself
why you feel and act the way you do,

that is what causes lasting change,

as opposed to going through the process
without, well, processing anything.

Number 4:

No matter if I accomplished
a lot, a little, or nothing at all,

I was to take some time
out of my day to feel grateful

that I even had the ability
to do whatever goal behaviour

it was that I wished to accomplish.

I exercised feeling grateful
that I was even in a position

to take an SAT
to pursue a higher education.

Or that I even had the mental capacity

to sit through a test
and do my best on it.

The Bhagavad Gita is also
a spiritual and religious text,

so it does say to view
work as a service to God,

and to offer it to him as such.

If this helps, one
should follow this advice,

but if one doesn't
believe in this, ignore it.

Guideline Number 5:

I also followed guideline number 5,
which was to keep a reflection journal.

While this meant nothing
by the way of scientific evidence,

it was often just a bunch of random
thoughts jotted down on paper,

it recorded my general emotional state

as I went through
this transformative journey.

So with these five guidelines:

Number 1: set a goal;

Number 2: be positive;

Number 3: acknowledge
and reflect on my feelings;

Number 4: feel grateful;

and Number 5: record what happens;

I was ready to dominate.

So as I executed this technique,

I realised that amazingly,
it was actually working.

Looking back over my reflection journal,
I noticed two main trends occurring:

an overall lessening
in stress and anxiety,

and an increase
in satisfaction and happiness.

I started to view my responsibilities
less as a drudgery,

and more as something fun and worthwhile.

That in-the-zone, completely focused
feeling was one that came often to me

because I practised it,

and one that I started to crave.

This method even got my parents
to patch things up with IRS

and finally file their taxes.

So, this method works.

That's great and all,
but why does it work?

Is all this stuff about focusing on work
and not the result actually relevant?

Turns out, it may be the answer
to all our questions.

See, the part I didn't
tell you in the beginning,

was that every time
I sat down to write that essay,

these horrible thoughts filled me.

What if I put so much
time and effort into this,

but it's really bad
and I fail the assignment?

What if I can't find
anything to write about?

What if I start writing this thing,
but it's super boring?

So I essentially made a commitment
that I can't break.

And let me tell you, there is nothing
I fear more than commitment.

I would worry way too much
about the outcome

and not spend my energy
on the work itself.

Except this process happened so fast

that it didn't register
as conscious thought.

Instead, it was more a general
sense of dread and doom

that gathered in the pit of my stomach
until I felt like I was going to explode!

At which point I moved on to something
that could distract away my feelings.

Pro tip: you know it's bad
when you start asking yourself

why the room is suddenly
a pressure cooker,

and you're the innocent
baby carrot trapped inside.

So, procrastination is a result

of the negative emotions
associated with work?

Actually, yes.

Study after study shows us
that chronic procrastination isn't,

contrary to popular belief,
just laziness or poor time management.

It's actually a product
of a negative cycle of emotions

that creates other byproducts as well:

guilt, stress, anxiety, depression,
and diminished self-worth.

In fact, the cognitive mechanism
behind chronic procrastination

is eerily similar to that
of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

We may laugh at the cartoonish way

the chronic procrastinator
simply can't do what he puts his mind to.

But in reality, his plight
isn't so humourous.

For him, there's a fundamental error
between intention and action.

When I used Murthy's Method or 'MMMMM',

I was forced to confront
these stressful and negative emotions,

instead of avoiding them,

because I somehow thought I'd be able
to deal with them better later.

Well, actually facing
these emotions and fears,

accepting them and dismissing them,

wasn't easy.

The more I did it the easier it got,
and the payoff was enormous.

I rewired myself to handle stress

in a way that promoted joy, positivity,
self-acceptance and gratitude,

instead of guilt and hopelessness.

So this was revolutionary for me.

It meant that the Bhagavad Gita
was actually right.

My fixation on the results
of my work created all this negativity

that stopped me from achieving
my full potential of happiness.

And it's come to my attention

that other kids could benefit
from this piece of knowledge too.

Some people may not think
this is an actual or significant issue,

maybe especially the older generation,

but to today's youth, to you and me,

this is a mammoth-sized issue
that affects everyone.

About 20% of Americans
are said to be chronic procrastinators,

and I think that's 20% too many.

We have the ability to fix this,
so that we're not just a statistic.

So to all of you here today,
I say that we can make a difference.

Follow the 5 M method I talked about.

Commit to changing your own habits,
ask yourself why you procrastinate,

and go on a journey of self-reflection.

Become that person
that always stands front and centre,

loving whatever it is
that they're there to do.

We have the power to make a change.

Just, whatever you do,

don't put it off till tomorrow.

(Applause)

(Music)