Chunking Method for Overcoming Procrastination

10/24/2019 Alex Michael

Getting there...2

Envision that you have a particularly dull assignment, you think to yourself, I will be more motivated to do this when the deadline is closer. This happens all the time to all types of people, in fact, I did this yesterday and caused myself a great deal of stress! Procrastination can defeat the best laid plans for producing excellent work, no matter the underlying psychological obstacle. Common reasons for procrastination include apathy towards the task, a feeling that the task is meaningless, or an uncertain or far-away deadline. However, regardless of the reason, procrastination is a particularly pernicious form of self-sabotage because often the only consequence is maybe handing in a crappy assignment or pushing a deadline. What makes the problem worse is that the more you procrastinate, the better you will get at it.

What if you could change all that? Enter chunking. I watched a TED Talk (while procrastinating) that introduced me in very simple terms to the method, but framed in language that appealed to how I felt exactly at that moment. So what is the chunking method? Interestingly, chunking is a common way to improve cognitive efficiency in many areas1, but the area where I personally find I need the method most is in overcoming procrastination. Chunking, applied to procrastination, is extremely simple: break down your projects or goals into smaller tasks. While this advice is oft-repeated, I find it frustratingly vague so I did some research that I wanted to share here.

The following are the best pieces of advice I found for breaking down tasks into chunks:

  1. Give yourself tasks that will take at most 10-20 minutes. These tasks will allow you to see a result quickly and make progress; these minimal cross sections add up.
  2. It is not necessary to break down the entire task into 20-minute segments, only enough to keep you occupied. Don’t get lost in the details of breaking the entire goal into segments, simply give yourself enough to build a to-do list.
  3. Reframe the task often. Complete a few segments, generate some more segments and/or change your segments list, repeat.
  4. Write down your tasks. Don’t try to remember the segments, if you have a lot to do your working memory will get bogged down (even if you use chunking)

Since my schedule is fairly self-determined, I will try out the chunking method over the next month and update this entry with my results and with functional insights gained from this exercise!

[1]: Chunking is a commonly used memory technique that improves working memory, see Wikipedia-Chunking (psychology)
[2]: Photo by Brady Knoll at Pexels