How to Beat Procrastination Like a Stoic Philosopher
Seven tactics from the ancient world that have stood the test of time
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The Roman-era Stoic philosopher Seneca once joked that the one thing fools all have in common is that they are always getting ready to live but never actually do.
That was 20 centuries ago. For tens of thousands of years, people have been procrastinating just like you do today: They put things off, delayed, made excuses, and wished their deadlines would disappear. And just as it does with you, this caused them anxiety, made them piss off their colleagues and families, and, worst of all, wasted time.
Fortunately, unlike our ancient counterparts, we have ages of wisdom to help us avoid the mental traps that lead us to procrastinate. Here are seven anti-procrastination tactics that are rooted in ancient philosophy and can be applied in the modern world.
Action by action
Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole… Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.36
With any goal, our imaginations often run wild envisioning all the things that can go wrong. While it can be productive to think about the troubles that might lie ahead — the Stoics used an exercise called premeditatio malorum, or “premeditation of evils,” to prepare for potential adversity — imagining the worst usually just causes us to become paralyzed with fear.
This is why Marcus Aurelius’ advice was to keep in mind that a life is built action by action. No author ever writes a book, he would say. Instead, they write one sentence and then another and then another.
In the sports world, University of Alabama coach Nick Saban taught his players to ignore the big picture — important games, winning championships, the opponent’s enormous lead — and focus instead on doing the absolutely smallest things well. He would tell them, “Think about what you need to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”
