How to stop procrastinating when you've already tried everything

Sunday night. You write the week's to-do list, make it look nice in the notes on your phone and promise yourself that Monday will be different. By Monday afternoon you have tidied your desk, answered emails that could have waited and watched half a documentary. The important task hasn't been touched.

To stop procrastinating you need four things that almost no to-do list has: a specific time to start, a first step so small it doesn't feel like effort, proof that you did it and something to lose if you don't.

Why it's so hard to stop procrastinating

Putting off a task that stresses you out brings relief in the moment. The psychologists Fuschia Sirois and Timothy Pychyl describe it as a way of repairing your mood in the short term: you get calm now and your future self pays the cost a few days later. As long as not doing it is free today, relief usually wins. If you want to understand it in more depth, we explain it in why do I procrastinate.

1. Give it a time and a place

"I'll study this week" is not a plan. "Tuesday at 18:00, at the kitchen table, with chapter 4" is. A meta-analysis of 94 studies by Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran compared people who only had the goal with people who had also decided when, where and how they would do it. The second group followed through considerably more often.

Start with a single task. Ten at once compete for the same motivation.

2. Make the first step ridiculously small

The more unpleasant a task feels, the more you put it off: it was one of the strongest predictors Piers Steel found in his 2007 meta-analysis. So shrink the unpleasant part. At 18:00 your commitment is to open your notes and read the first page. Once the notes are in front of you, carrying on is much easier than starting.

Before you start, leave your phone in another room. If it's on the desk, relief is one tap away.

3. Prove that you did it

A promise nobody checks gets broken quietly. Take a photo of your open notes at 18:05 and send it to someone, or write it down somewhere you see every day. What counts is that there is proof made at that time.

4. Make not doing it cost you something

A study in the Philippines offered smokers who wanted to quit an account into which they deposited money for six months: they got it back if they passed a nicotine test and, if not, it went to charity. Smokers who were offered the account were 3 percentage points more likely to pass the test, and the effect was still there at 12 months.

It doesn't take much. With €5 that you lose if you are not sitting down at 18:00, staying on the sofa stops being free. It's the same thing we suggest for keeping your New Year's resolutions.

5. If you miss a day, forgive yourself and go back

Beating yourself up doesn't help. In a study of 119 university students, those who forgave themselves for procrastinating before the first midterm exam procrastinated less before the second. Tomorrow at 18:00 you go back to the desk as if nothing had happened.

How Ultimatum helps

In Ultimatum you decide what you are going to do and at what time, and you leave a guarantee: €0 to €20, a few days without TikTok or Instagram, or both. You prove it with a live photo; if you keep your word, nothing changes, and if the check has doubts, a person looks at it and nothing is charged automatically. The app isn't available yet, so join the beta and we'll let you know.