Why do we do anything?

I have spent a lot of time trying to answer this question. Why do we do anything? What drives motivation? I am sure a lot of people can relate when they think about getting up in the morning. Why do we get out of bed?

Some people have responsibilities. Some have jobs. Some basically can't physically sleep or lie in the bed anymore so they get up. What do all these things have in common?

I used to think the reason for all this was the satisfaction of doing the work. The pleasure derived from doing these tasks is triggered by the pleasure hormones in our head (Read this to find out more). But I might have been completely wrong. According to Nir Eyal’s book called ‘Indistractible’, humans do anything and everything only to avoid discomfort and that is the basis for everything we do.

To understand this, let's look at it from a biological viewpoint. When we feel hot, we turn on the air conditioning. When we feel cold, we put on some layers. This is because we want to remain at a comfortable temperature. If we see a lion in front of us, we will get scared and run away. That is because we want to stay alive. This can be explained by a concept known as homeostasis.

Homeostasis

It refers to the tendency of the human body to stay in a constant state of equilibrium. So when we receive an input that there is a change, we try to combat it by changing something accordingly. According to some studies, homeostasis also happens in our brains. For example, it's a cold winter night. I have to go out for something important. Currently, I am in the living room and it's cosy. I do not need any sweaters at the moment. But, I am able to imagine the scenario when I’ll be out of the house and I can also imagine the discomfort I’ll have to face. So, I put on layers of clothing before leaving, which is a discomfort at the moment, but saves me from a lot of discomfort later.

If we extrapolate this idea across every activity we do, we can come up with a logical reasoning that explains the trade we make in terms of discomfort. Basically, the hard truth that I had to face was that the pride I felt for doing something important or being responsible for someone else, is all to avoid a certain state of discomfort that I can imagine, either consciously or unconsciously.

Which brings me to the purpose of this blog. Why do I do anything? It is to avoid discomfort. If I can postpone the discomfort and increase my comfort right now, why would I not do it? To avoid more discomfort in the future. But if I can see there is still time to do it later, why would I do it now? Basically, I won't do anything unless it's high time. I won't do anything unless there is a deadline in my head. I like to take things slow. There’s a well-known term for this.

Procrastination

I am a master procrastinator and I am not ashamed of it. To be honest, I am a little proud. It might be weird for some people because I am saying I like being lazy. So naturally I believe there are pros and cons to procrastination. I’ll start with the cons. Delays in work can be attributed to it. A lot of things would finish before deadlines and it’ll be better in the long run. It adds an additional burden putting and having deadlines in the first place, which makes planning harder. The worst of all is that a one-week deadline ends up being a one-day deadline by the end, and that affects the work quality, as you might have to all-nighters to make sure you finish. Sometimes you might even miss the deadline altogether.

Given all of that, I think of procrastination as a double-edged sword. So you have to be careful with such a power. “With great power comes great responsibility”. So if you are responsible for something at large, you can utilise this ability to delay to your benefit.

Managing procrastination

When we get a task or a new project and decide to do it late, we set it aside. But do we really set it aside? Once during preparation for JEE (entrance for IIT), I was stuck on a difficult mathematics equation. Unable to solve, I decided to give up and sleep as I was indeed exhausted. My mind was not at rest, I was still thinking about the equation as I drifted away.

In the middle of the night, I woke up to a kick (the falling feeling). I was very restless for some reason. I was so in deep sleep that I didn’t remember the dream I had also. I got up to drink water and switched on the light. I was drinking from the bottle kept on my study table and looked at the notebook which had the incomplete answer. I sat down and finished it in like 2 minutes.

The question I was stuck on for more than two hours of constant grinding, was somehow solved. Did it just click at the right moment? I didn’t realise then but after a few more similar episodes, I realised that I was able to solve them, because my subconscious mind had been working in the background on it.

So I came up with a trick, which made procrastination useful. I do not postpone the task right away. I start with a draft and then leave it. It sits in my head and gets nurtured. The next time I sit to work on it, it's almost fluid. Everything comes rushing in. This blog, for example, I had the title 3 weeks back and I had written bullet points on what I wanted to write about.

The trick

Then today I had to put in not more than 1 hour writing this. There are sure to be edits along the way, before a self-imposed deadline that I have to publish every Sunday. The weak structure is also an amazing tool. The seven-day time period is ideal for productive procrastination. Using productive tools can also help in managing time for this.

To be able to use productive procrastination to the fullest, to-do lists do not work at all. The calendar is the way to go. In a to-do list, a master procrastinator will only put all the things that need to be done and never work on them. And also while doing one task, it's easy to be distracted by other tasks as well. The trick here is to use a Calendar because, in a Calendar, the date and time are key. When deciding on a task to be done, we have to assign a date and time to it. It becomes difficult to do that. But this is a discomfort that you have to put up with to be able to relax for most of the time. Then all you have to do is to make sure that you put the time allotted for that task in that task. Not necessary to finish the task in that sitting. You can set another calendar entry for the rest of the job.

I have been using the calendar more and more these days. It helps me get things done more than ever. Initially, I used to-do lists as an exhaustive list of tasks to be put on the calendar, but I don't need that anymore as I have become better at planning these things. I also leave a few empty slots in my Calendar, so it's not like being a robot.