escape chronic procrastination: craft an effective recovery routine

Caught in the depths of procrastination?

Fear not! There is a pill you can pop to reliably reclaim the day.

Enter the recovery routine.

What's a recovery routine?

A recovery routine is a strategic sequence of actions designed to pull you out of procrastination into productivity.

Ideally a recovery routine is:

Foolproof/reliable - it's guaranteed to get you back on track
Quick - so you're not hesitant to use it

My recovery routine

Here's my personal recovery routine:

Meditate for 20 minutes.
Get myself to my desk and monitor.
Clearly outline the next step for the task at hand.

The crux of my routine is the meditation. The meditation helps me get into a headspace where I'm less drawn to the pleasant emotions of distractions and less averse to the subtle discomfort of the work.

Personally, I need 20 minutes of meditation for the routine to be significantly reliable.

I also like to foster success by making sure I'm at my desk, and making sure I know exactly what I need to tackle next.

Craft your own recovery routine

You'll want to pull on these three levers in your own routine:

Increase your ability to weather distraction (consider naps and meditation)
Optimize your environment to decrease distraction (consider moving to your desk, turning on airplane mode or site blockers, and using Focusmate)
Optimize your tasks to be easier to get done (consider identifying clear next steps, and engaging in shitty first drafts to combat perfectionism)

Once you've settled on your recovery routine, document it. This can become your go-to playbook for combating chronic procrastination.

And refine your routine further as you test it out.

This looks awfully similar to a startup routine

Yeah. No reason you can't start off your day with a similar routine :)

For more tips on fighting procrastination, check out this short guide.