I took a poetry workshop class in my senior year of college. Each week, two different students submitted a piece of work for the class to critique, and by the end of the semester, we submitted a collection of poetry for the final grade.*

This is what I look like when I've procrastinated. Yet again. 

The class cemented what had become my growing suspicion that I was terrible at poetry. One of my submissions for the class included these brilliant stanzas:

The sun is shining, the grass is green
Last time I checked I still had a spleen
I am happy.

I saw two lovers kiss on my way to class
A kid on school bus flashed me his ass
I am happy.

A fellow classmate suggested that this poem was exactly why people didn’t write about happiness. 

I grew so uncomfortable with the class that I put off the assignments at every opportunity. By the time my portfolio submission was due, I had little to work with, and no cover poem. So I opted for honesty and wrote the following piece:

Procrastinating Poet

Meant to write a poem. 
But the weather hasn’t been
quite
right
for writing poetry. 

I thought it was witty and maybe a tad clever, but my professor saw it for what it really was. A shoddy last-minute effort at my portfolio. She was kind to give me a B. 

Willpower and procrastination

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spend a lot of time reading about willpower - about decision fatigue and ego depletion and how willpower is a finite resource. We know that making a ton of decisions and resisting urges throughout the day can directly impact our self-control by the end of the day. So what is the solution to making better and healthier decisions when your willpower is depleted?

Here is a quote from the book I've been referencing (Willpower):

“Successful people don’t use their willpower as a last ditch defense to stop themselves from disaster, at least not as a regular strategy.” 

The writers of the book suggest that folks who use their self-control to avoid a crisis as opposed to surviving a crisis, have more success (defining success is another matter altogether). Taking your car to the mechanic for regular maintenance before it breaks down, seeing the dentist before the toothache, giving yourself enough time to finish a project - are all examples of playing offense instead of defense. 

When I got to this part of the book, I laughed out loud. Mostly because I'm on defense so often it's almost absurd.  

I’m such a procrastinator that years ago when I wrote a weekly newspaper column for the local paper in Pennsylvania, I titled the column “At the Last Minute.”

The column was due every Monday and each week I’d start an idea on Thursday, only to leave it unfinished until Monday night when I'd bang my head against a wall wondering how I could possibly have put off my column until the last minute, yet again. 

My chronic procrastination is a constant source of stress and depletes much of my willpower throughout the day.

So what to do? Well, the authors of the book make these suggestions to help me, and you, play offense instead of defense. 

1. Know your limits

Willpower is a limited resource and it’s depleted and used in more ways than we realize throughout the day. Walking past your co-worker's candy dish 25 times throughout the day and never indulging - dealing with computer or technology issues- going to the gym when you don’t want to - getting out of bed when your body needs more sleep - these all affect your willpower. Recognizing that you are going to be out of willpower by the time you go out with friends for dinner that night might help you better prepare to make a nutrition choice that is on par with your goals. (One suggestion in these situations is to order first, so as not to be influenced by the decisions of those around you.)

2. Make a to-do-list

This is one habit I've always done, mostly in an effort to brain dump and clear my head. When I don't make a list to get things out of my mind and onto a piece of paper, you can find me pacing the gym and muttering things under my breath. The gym is a stimulating environment, and I use a lot of willpower to just focus. Making a list helps me to get my tasks on paper and out of my mind, freeing up my unconscious, at least a little bit. 

3. Don't forget the basics 

As it turns out, our unconscious is also affected by subtle cues such as a clean desk and a made bed.** Although we might not care about whether our bed is made or the desk is clean, these environmental cues subtly influence your brain and your behavior, making it less of a strain to maintain self-discipline. 

4. Pick your battles

We can't control or predict the stresses in our life - the loss of a job - a breakup - a sick family member, but we can use the calm periods to play offense. We can use the less crazy times in our lives to make new changes, to start a new exercise program or make some nutrition changes or learn how to macrame. Because macrame is fun. I think.

If you are dealing with a major job change, move, or other significant life event, now is not that time to make big changes. 

5. The nothing alternative

I've used this strategy quite a bit in recent weeks, especially with writing. When I commit an hour to writing, I don't allow myself to do anything else with that hour. I'm allowed to not write - I can pace the room, pet my dog, scream at him in horror for eating a cricket - but I'm not allowed to do anything else - like check social media or email or Amazon.

I love the authors' suggestion of playing offense, even though it's not something I always do very well. We often try to make a ton of changes at once - recently I was trying to train for a marathon, write a page per day, while we packed up and moved our house. 

Eventually, I had to acknowledge that packing up and moving the house was too much of a strain to add the other pieces, and so I let them go for a few weeks. Now that we're moved, I've got more space in my life to commit myself to writing one page a day.  

All of these above recommendations are habit-based. The focus is not on trying a new diet or new exercise program, but in making a habit change to nutrition or exercise. You focus on one habit per week or per month to help keep the process less overwhelming.  

As the authors suggest, the most lasting technique for conserving willpower is building a habit. 

Learning to plan ahead, whether that's stocking your refrigerator with healthy foods, removing the tempting food from your house, or putting your gym bag on your front seat in the morning on your way to work, can help you conserve willpower and make the changes you want to make.

And sometimes you're going to come up short. Be kind to yourself in those moments though, ok?

* It's also fair to admit that the only time I was drunk before noon was the day that my friend and I had our poems presented for criticism at the workshop. 

** Right now my partner Sheila is reading this and wondering whether or not I'll adopt these habits...stay tuned...

For September, I'm going to try a new approach for my blog, where I choose a theme for the month. This month, I'm writing about willpower. 

Two weeks ago, I went for my long overdue eye appointment. My doctor is a matter of fact fellow, not easily excited, and when I complained to him that I was playing trombone with reading material and my headaches were increasing, he suggested progressives lenses. 

“Or,” he offered. “You can just do this all day.” And he brought his glasses to the tip of his nose and looked at me over the top. Not wanting to look like a high school librarian just yet, I opted for progressives.  

After my eye exam, which included many of the “is it better like this? or like this?” questions, I met with another fellow to order my new lenses. (Confession - I already had reading glasses so I kept the frames.)

The list of questions about my glasses was endless -

Guy: What kind of progressives do you want?

Me:  The kind that won't make me puke?

I won't get into the nitty gritty, but from there he asked me about a dozen more questions. And within each question were about five different decisions I had to make. What kind of coating? Blue screen protection for my computer? I’m pretty sure at the end I agreed to adopt a miniature donkey. Because at that point, I was saying yes to anything.

I've heard about decision fatigue before, but recently, in reading  the book "Willpower" by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, I've been reminded at how the process of making decisions affects your will power. 

I walked right out of my eye doctors and into the Starbucks located in the same building. I promptly ordered a large mocha with whipped cream and a chocolate chip cookie. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with a large bucket of whipped cream and a chocolate chip cookie. But at that moment I wasn't even hungry - I was just so overwhelmed with decision making that my willpower was depleted and I gave in to what was right in front of me.

I'm pretty sure I enjoyed the hell out of that cookie and bucket of whipped cream though...

I don’t know how many decisions I made at the eye doctor that day, but I’d guess no less than 50. And that was just at the eye doctor. Leading up to that point I’d taken the dog to the vet, and started packing my house. 

By the time I walked into Starbucks, I’d probably made 200 hundred decisions for that day. Some of them tiny - like when you’re packing you’re deciding what to keep and what to throw away - and some of them major - did I want to start wearing glasses all of the time? Would that get rid of my headaches? Would I start to depend on them and make my eyes worse? 

The most oft repeated phrase I hear as a coach is "I know what I need to do, I'm just not doing it." It's my job to help a client figure out what comes between those two statements. Is it something emotional that you're not acknowledging? Or is it willpower? 

There are many factors that affect our self-control, but decision fatigue is certainly a piece of the puzzle. If by the time you leave work at 7:00 you've already made 200 decisions - whether or not to send an email, respond to a phone call, cram in a noon workout - by the time the end of the day rolls around, your will power is depleted. It's much more difficult to make the healthy decisions that you know you need to make - but you've used up your reserve.

So what can you do? 

That's where meal prepping plays a part. Making sure you already know what you're having for dinner. That's where planning can help - not having food in the house that is tempting but that's not in your nutrition plan. 

If you plan to go to the gym at the end of the day, put your gym bag on the front seat - change in to your gym clothes before you leave work - find a workout buddy or hire a coach - something that will make the decision before you, so that going for your workout is automatic. 

Had I not walked past a Starbucks that day, I’m not sure I would have gone looking for chocolate - (though I might have, since I’m 40 years old and just ordered progressives..) but because it was right there in front of me, I had it. 

The concept I've most taken away from this book is that will power is a limited resource.

Let me say that again. 

Will power is limited. 

You use it in a variety of ways throughout the day - which means by the end of the night - it might very well be gone. 

The other day I set a timer for 45 minutes, trying desperately to bust through the sluggish place I've found myself in recently, especially when it comes to writing. I spent 30 minutes starting and stopping ideas, thoughts and sentences. 

Finally, I surrendered to honesty and wrote about everything that was on my mind.   

The struggle is real people. 

And what was on my mind was everything. All at once. Split your television screen into 25 smaller screens. Play 25 different movies with 25 different themes.

This is my mind. 

I don’t talk often about the anxiety that accompanies my depression - but that's really what's been happening. I set a timer and forced myself to write, surrendering to whatever it is that came to my mind. This is my mind. 

Right now I am anxious. Constantly.

My first anxiety attack happened during my first semester of college. The onset was slow - I sat in with new friends, eating dinner in the cafeteria, talking about classes, professors, and weekend plans. My skin felt tingly and breathing was becoming difficult. 

We walked back to the dorm and I went to my room. I had no t.v., I had no computer, I had nothing but my stereo to distract me and it wasn’t working. I went downstairs to the lounge and turned on the t.v. There was an episode of Cagney and Lacy playing and I tried to follow the plot, to immerse myself in the story. 

The ice was pouring through my veins. Slow and cold and winding its frigid way through my body. Every breath was a struggle to catch and each time I was able to take a deep breath, I worried I wouldn’t catch the next. As my panic hit its peak, I finally knocked on the door of my resident advisor. 

“I don’t feel right,” I said.

Eventually, the “episode” was attributed to a medication I took for my heart arrhythmia - a side effect - and so the medication was changed. But when my dad called later that week to check on me, he did something that I hadn’t realized I needed. 

He named my experience.

“I had an anxiety attack once,” he said. “They’re no fun.” 

I don’t know what I said in that moment. But I know it was the first time, despite my having had times on and off throughout high school where I struggled to catch my breath, that I realized what was truly happening for me. I was battling anxiety. 

It might sound small - but what my dad really did for me that day (and the best thing I can tell you about my dad is that if you want to know how the moon got there, he hung it) was give me words for my struggle. And those words gave me some direction. 

While it took me years before I would really treat my struggle, my dad cracked the seed of my understanding a little bit that day. He gave me a name for what was going on, and that name alone made me feel a little less helpless. That name allowed me to say ok, this is what is going on. This is what I can do for myself. 

But even more so, in that conversation, my dad gave me an even great gift. He let me know that he shared my struggle.  

"I had an anxiety attack once."

Experiences like that are scary and unnerving and make you feel incredibly vulnerable - and alone. And sometimes, a gesture as small as naming the struggle, and knowing that you are not alone in your struggle, can be the first giant step towards healing. 

Be kind to yourself, today and always.