How to eliminate 80% of your procrastination (raise your activation energy)
A guide to overcoming activation threshold and switching into the ACTION state.
You procrastinate on a task for hours, days, even weeks.
When you finally get to it, you realize it isn't as difficult as you anticipated. Not only that, but you enjoy the work. You build momentum, and maybe enter a flow state too.
So why did you postpone it for so long, and why was it easier to continue working than to start?
It's due to Activation Energy, or Activation Threshold.
“It will probably be harder to start working than to keep working. You often have to trick yourself to get over that initial threshold… Work has a sort of activation energy, both per day and per project.” —Paul Graham (How to Do Great Work)
The majority of procrastination likely results from this activation threshold. And improving your ability to overcome it is one of the best things you can do for your personal effectiveness.
Building activation energy compounds your life
Let's define some terms:
Activation Threshold: The point where you cross from inaction into action.
Activation Energy: The force that helps you overcome the Activation Threshold.
This compounds powerfully. Let's illustrate.
James & Caleb have projects and tasks they want to complete. But they struggle with procrastination—particularly, getting started on the work.
James decides that activation threshold is a fact of life. Instead of applying the tactics in this guide, He makes no changes, "tries his best," and remains dissatisfied with his results.
Caleb makes small changes. He cultivates, harnesses and leverages activation energy. Day by day, he gets a little better at overcoming the threshold. He improves by 5% every month. In a year, he's 70% more productive than James. In two years, 300% more.
This is a crude example, but it’s true enough. You can be much more productive than you think. There are people out there who face resistance to action and overcome it almost every time. You can become one of them.
Consider how different your life would look if you had twice the activation energy you do now. You procrastinate half as much. You have powerful momentum as someone who’s action-oriented and gets things done.
And then consider that you’re still not at the ceiling, and that there’s more compounding to come.
If that excites you, read on. If it doesn’t, then this article is not for you.
Why do we experience activation threshold?
Let’s focus on the three most common variables, which I believe account for 80%+ of most procrastination problems.
Perceived difficulty
The higher the perceived difficulty of a task, the higher the activation threshold.
It’s harder to sit down and write an essay than reply to an email. Focused writing work—the type required to write an essay—is more complex, demanding and involved than replying to a simple email.
Your brain wants to conserve energy. It will convince you to not start writing the essay, and might even tell you that replying to emails is a much better move (because it’s “urgent”, and the essay isn’t). Hence, high activation threshold.
(There is an exception, which is that more challenging goals can counter-intuitively lead to higher activation energy. You’ll know this is true if you’ve ever set goals that are too easy and uninspiring—they can create a lot of resistance.)
Level of interest & alignment
Sometimes, the converse is true: It’s easier to write the essay than reply to the email.
This will be the case if writing the essay is interesting while replying to email is boring. We’ll sooner perform a harder, more interesting task than an easier, boring one. The more boring something is, the higher activation energy it requires to start.
A lot of work that’s interesting to us is work that aligns with our nature. For example, writing feels like play to me. Spreadsheet & process work bores me. I find it much easier to sit down and write than do other types of work.
Work that aligns with our longer-term goals will also have lower activation threshold. It’s hard to get yourself to do a task where you don’t see its importance, or how it’s aligned with your long-term trajectory.
Physical & mental energy
The higher you can raise your physical and mental energy, the easier it is to overcome activation threshold.
If you’re always tired, then productivity hacks will only help you so much. You can’t outperform your biology.
That doesn’t mean you need to feel like a million bucks 24/7. In fact, only taking action when you feel like it is low agency, and should be avoided. But it does mean that, where you can, you should aim to raise your physical and mental energy as much as possible.
With this in mind, let’s look at some ways to build activation energy and overcome activation threshold.
Build a strong self-narrative
What you say when you talk to yourself matters. Even it's exaggerated and pushes the boundaries of reality. You want to build a strong internal narrative that raises your activation energy.
You want to believe that you're that guy. You're someone who easily overcomes activation threshold.
Don't feel like doing the work? Neither does anyone else. But you do it anyway because you're that guy.
Been procrastinating for an hour on a task? No problem. Small moment of weakness that you can snap out of right now and take action.
The more you identify as the person who takes action, the more you'll take action.
This doesn't mean you can affirm your way to success. An internal narrative is only useful if it's exercised. You must back it up with evidence too. You must take the action. If you don't, you'll encounter severe dissonance as your real world experience fails to match up with your narrative.
One more point: the inverse of this is operating out of a negative-identity frame, where you give yourself a label and then struggle to break out of it.
For example, if I procrastinate a lot, I can choose to say, "I tend to procrastinate a lot, but this is something I can fix." Or I can say, "I'm a chronic procrastinator."
It's a lot easier to effect change in your life when your internal narrative is closer to the former. You recognize weaknesses in yourself that you can change, but you don't see them as identity-defining.
Atomize
Framing is important. Not only in the context of internal narrative as we've just looked at, but also in how you frame the work.
Let's say you need to write an essay. It'll take 20 hours or so. A demanding task with high activation threshold attached.
The non-atomized version of this task is: Write an essay. (Oh and it's going to take you 20 hours btw).
In your wisdom, you decide to shift focus off the demanding "big" task by atomizing it and narrowing down on the first step: brainstorm essay topics.
Now, the activation energy required to start this task has shrunk. The work required hasn't changed, but your perception and framing of it has shifted.
You can atomize through multiple "layers" depending on how high the activation threshold is for you. For example, I might have no problem with the "20 hours writing an essay" framing because I love writing. I don't need to break it down into individual, discrete tasks.
But if you're facing massive resistance, then you can atomize until it feels stupid not to take action.
As an example, I need to write 4 YouTube video scripts this week. Here's successive layers of atomization, showing the starting point for each:
Layer 0: Write 4 YouTube video scripts
Layer 1: Write first YouTube video script
Layer 2: Brainstorm first video script
Layer 3: Read research material to help feed mind with ideas for brainstorming the first video script.
The layer 3 starting point is much easier than the layer 2 starting point, and so on.
You shouldn't atomize the starting task only, though. You should do it across the entire project. Otherwise you'll finish the first step and face high activation threshold again, because you haven't clearly defined the next step.
So, the true layer 3 looks like:
Step 1: Read research material for the first video script topic to spark ideas
Step 2: Organize/tag research material highlights
Step 3: Brainstorm all possible video subtopics & points
Step 4: Outline script
Step 5: Write first draft
Step 6: Write second draft
Step 7: Edit ruthlessly
Step 8 & beyond: repeat for the remaining 3 videos
This is productivity 101. A fancier way of saying that you should break your goals and projects down into smaller tasks. And it's something we need to be reminded of, not taught, which is why I've included it despite it being obvious to many.
Switch modalities
You can write the essay at your keyboard. But it might be easier for you to get started with pen and paper, sitting outside in the sun.
Or you might be a talker, not a typer. So you dictate using voice memos and transcription.
These different approaches—modalities—may lower the activation threshold. I find when I'm facing resistance to writing, using voice dictation as a starting point helps me get going. I'll inevitably end up typing, but I overcame the threshold through a different medium.
Not all tasks allow you to modality-switch like this, but if you're a knowledge worker, a decent amount of what you do can benefit from it. And it's worth taking the time to experiment. It makes you more creative too.
Switch environments
Because activation energy is downstream of physical/mental energy/vibes—and our environment affects such things—we should switch it up on the regular.
Can't seem to get anything done at home? Hit the cafe and start your task there. If you always go to the same cafe, try a different one. New environments = new stimuli = energy.
Book a hotel for two days. Or an AirBnB.
Work on the plane.
Don't underestimate how potent this can be. One of my most productive mornings in the past few months was when I found myself working at a cafe attached to a high-end luxury gym. It was a nice environment. Other people floating around, working, doing things. It raised my energy a lot.
The parlay approach
It’s easier to cross activation threshold when you're already in motion.
If you're sitting around doing nothing, maybe scrolling Instagram, then of course you're going to feel resistance towards that difficult task you need to do. You're not in motion.
Often when you're in this state of inertia, there's something you can do to get yourself in motion that might not be "the main thing." But you can parlay the momentum you gain from doing it into the main thing.
You don't want to write the report. But after cleaning your office and getting into motion, you feel more like doing it.
This is also why some people like to cross the easy tasks off their todo list before moving on to harder tasks. They do the easy thing so they can do the hard thing.
Priming
I used to put this in the "useless, masturbatory self-help nonsense" camp. I wish I didn't, because it actually works (here's an interesting paper). You can test it yourself without harm.
In the morning, when I read 10-20 mins of a business/personal-development book—like Straight-Line Leadership—I am far more motivated to get to work.
When I prime myself by reading over my principles, vision, and goals, I'm far more likely to take action afterwards than procrastinate.
I'll do both of these a few times a week, especially when I need an extra boost.
Other ways to prime yourself into action:
Reminders in your workspace. Art, quotes, or other items that inspire you.
Visualization. Read Psycho-cybernetics if you haven't already done so.
Music. Leverage certain songs or playlists to get you in the zone.
Changing environment, as discussed above.
State change
“Anyone can continue to feel good if they already feel good, or if they’re “on a roll”; it doesn’t take much to accomplish this. But the real key in life is to be able to make yourself feel good when you don’t feel good, or when you don’t even want to feel good." —Tony Robbins
If you can change your state on command, you've unlocked the cheat code to life.
Often, I'll find myself procrastinating with the excuse that I'm "too tired" to work. In reality, I've been sitting at the computer all day and my state has degraded as a result. What I've learned is that if I don't do something to shift my state first, I'm likely to continue procrastinating.
So I'll hit the gym, go for a run, get some sunlight. Anything to change my state. 9 times out of 10, this energizes me and I can get to work afterwards.
This isn't always easy. Exercise has its own activation threshold. But at least for me, that threshold is much lower than the threshold for taking action on something boring and mundane during my mid-afternoon dip. So I'll opt for the thing that changes my state, re-energizes me, and lets me parlay the momentum into the task I was procrastinating on.
You don't need to do a full workout to change your state (in fact, too intense a workout will make it even harder to do work afterwards). Sometimes, all it takes is a quick walk outside, or a set of push ups. But you should do hard workouts anyway, because Socrates said it's a shame not to reach your physical potential.
Note: This does not mean that you become the person who must rely on feeling energized and happy to do work. You don't want to be the weak, over-optimizer who needs equilibrium to take action. No. You want the psychological fortitude to overcome activation threshold even, and especially, when you don't feel like it. The point is, you want to do things that make you feel like it more often. Life's better that way.
Stimulants
The key with stimulants, like caffeine, is to associate them with work. You may not like this idea, but it works.
95% of the time I'm drinking coffee, I'm working. The two exceptions are on Sundays, where I try not to work, and if I'm out with friends. Otherwise, if I'm caffeinating, I'm working. This association is so strong that on the rare occasion when I'm sitting at my desk with a coffee and not working, I feel an intense impulse to do something productive.
Wouldn't it be better to not rely on stimulants at all?
Sounds good in theory but probably not. I've tried doing the no coffee thing. Much prefer life with it.
Psychological trickery
Revisiting the Paul Graham quote from earlier:
It will probably be harder to start working than to keep working. You'll often have to trick yourself to get over that initial threshold. Don't worry about this; it's the nature of work, not a flaw in your character. Work has a sort of activation energy, both per day and per project.
One of the easiest ways to trick yourself into overcoming activation threshold is to commit to extremely short work periods.
"I'll just do this for 10 mins, then I can go back to procrastinating."
Most of the time when you do this, you'll hit the 10 min mark and realize you feel pretty good and productive and you can keep going. You've overcome the threshold. It's easier to keep working than to start working.
The role of speed
The faster you get at doing things, the lower the perceived cost of doing them becomes. As J Somers writes in Speed Matters:
The obvious benefit to working quickly is that you’ll finish more stuff per unit time. But there’s more to it than that. If you work quickly, the cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mind. So you’ll be inclined to do more.
If it takes you 3 months to write a blog post because you keep stopping and starting, then the activation energy required to start writing the next blog post will be high. If it takes you 3 hours to write a post, then the activation energy required to do it next time will be fairly low.
You should do things as fast as possible, but no faster. Don't sacrifice quality, but don't waste your time either. You can usually apply more intensity, more focus, more speed. And doing so compounds mightily in your favor, especially when it comes to starting similar projects and tasks in the future. Not to mention, working fast is fun. It builds momentum. It becomes addicting in its own way.
Accountability & coaching
You don't need a coach. You don't need accountability. You have agency and no one should tell you otherwise. But if you want to enhance that agency and overcome activation threshold more frequently, then having an outside "partner" who can hold you accountable is useful.
I would have shaved years off my timeline if I'd had someone like this while building my first business. And it's part of the reason why I work privately with entrepreneurs now in my coaching practice.
It doesn't have to be a coach, though. It can be a friend working on their own self-directed projects who "gets it" like you do. It can be a public commitment that you make. There are many ways to do it.
Concrete routine
If you're waking up every morning wondering where to start, then it's easy to get caught up in other activities, or start procrastinating. You want some sort of routine. It doesn't have to be rigid, but you should have some cornerstone, important action that gets done every day.
For me, it's writing. I write every morning for at least an hour. I don't have to think about this. I wake up and I do it, first thing. The activation energy required to start this is extremely low. As I'm writing this, it's 6am in the morning, I woke up around 4am after a terrible sleep. I'm still recovering from a cold. My state is poor. But I've done this almost every day for a long time, so it's easy to keep doing it.
Fundamentally you want to reduce decision fatigue. One way to do that is through routine. Another way is to frontload your decision-making the night before (plan tomorrow, today).
For more on routine, read this guide:
A quote to end on...
"Our greatest weariness comes from work not done." —Eric Hoffer
P.S. Another conversation we need to have is that sometimes, high activation energy is a signal that you are operating outside your zone/ignoring what you are naturally good at, and you should pivot to the thing that has lower activation energy. That's a topic for another time.
P.P.S. A huge component of overcoming activation threshold is dopamine management. A topic for another time too. But know that if you’re constantly frying your brain with social media, porn, junk food, then getting yourself to work on challenging tasks is harder than it needs to be.