Victor Hugo on How to Beat Procrastination and Finish Anything You Start
In July 1830, a young
twenty-eight-year-old named Victor Hugo, struggled with procrastination, and
almost gave up on writing his book.
Hugo was due to submit the book to
his publisher by April 1829, but he missed the deadline — in fact, he hadn’t
written a single word. And as a result of this, Hugo’s publisher threatened to pursue legal actions against him.
After much pleading and
negotiations, Hugo’s publisher agreed to extend the deadline till December
1830. But once again, Hugo procrastinated on writing the book and missed the
second deadline.
This time, Hugo’s publisher had had
enough and gave Hugo an ultimatum: if the book wasn’t submitted in five months,
Hugo would pay a fine of 1,000 francs for each week it was late (the equivalent
of 13,000 dollars today).
Hugo knew he had to do something
drastic and figure out a way to beat procrastination, and finish writing the
book.
Here’s what he did next.
You Are Under
House Arrest
Shortly afterwards, Hugo bought a
grey woolen body-stocking that covered his body from head to toe, a new bottle
of ink, and locked his clothes in the wardrobe to prevent himself from leaving
the house.
According to Hugo’s wife, Adele
Hugo: “[He] entered his novel as if it were a prison.”
Each day, from dusk till dawn, Hugo
would write his book, and only leave his working desk to eat, sleep, or read
the drafts of the book to his friends, for an hour after supper.
In short, Hugo self-imposed a house
arrest. And after a few months, his strategy finally paid off.
On the 14th of January, 1831, Hugo
finished writing the book — weeks before the deadline — and named it The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (French for Notre-Dame de Paris).
Within the first 18 months of the
book’s publication, it sold three thousand copies — a lot for the early
1830s — and today it is widely regarded as one of the greatest
books ever written.
But Hugo couldn’t have overcome
procrastination and finish writing his best-selling book without using a
special strategy.
This strategy is called the house
arrest strategy, and here’s how you can also use it to beat
procrastination and finish anything you start today.
How to Beat
Procrastination Using the House Arrest Strategy
Here are three simple steps to use
the house arrest strategy to beat procrastination.
Step 1: Write down a deadline in
the near future.
Deadlines are one of the five things to do to overcome procrastination and follow through on your
plans.
A good deadline is short enough to
force you to take immediate action and long enough to finish the task at hand.
In Hugo’s scenario, the publisher’s
five month deadline forced him to get started on writing his book.
Step 2: Create negative
consequences for inaction
The next step is to use “stakes” or negative consequence, to punish yourself if you
fail to meet the deadline.
For example, Hugo’s negative
consequence for failure to meet his publisher’s deadline was a fine of 1,000
franc per week of delay.
Step 3: Design your desired future
action
The final step is to put something
in place today that will ‘lock in’ your actions tomorrow — this is what
psychologist call “commitment devices.”
Examples include: buying small
plates to avoid overeating, locking away credit cards to avoid getting into
debt and paying upfront for exercise classes.
Hugo’s commitment device was
locking away his formal clothes and buying a bottle of ink to start writing his
book, and prevent himself from leaving the house.
Personally, I’ve also used
commitment devices to stick to my writing habits.
On May 2017, I announced to the
public that I’d write and publish an article each week, and aside from two
short sabbatical, I’ve written at least one article every single week since then.
This is just another example of the power of designing your environment.
The best way to get started with
commitment devices is to announce your plans to the public — friends, family and
colleagues — and keep them updated on your progress on a weekly
basis. This way you’ll be held accountable to finish anything you start.
Motivation
Isn’t Enough
Just like Hugo — prior to writing his
book — we tend to rely solely on motivation and willpower to beat
procrastination, but this often leads to failure to meet deadlines and follow
through on our plans.
A better way to beat
procrastination is to use the house arrest strategy in three
simple steps: write down a deadline, create negative consequences for inaction
and design your desired future action.
And just like Hugo, you’ll finally
break the curse of procrastination that’s been holding you back from your
achieving your potential.
Mayo
Oshin
https://medium.com/swlh/victor-hugo-on-how-to-beat-procrastination-and-finish-anything-you-start-3553ba27946a
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