Procrastination sucks: It can be incredibly frustrating to procrastinate. It feels like you're getting away from something in the short run, but there's a nagging feeling that you're setting yourself up for more stress and work in the long run. If this is familiar to you, there's another cognitive pattern you can learn that can help break this cycle.

The structure of procrastination: For most people, procrastination is pushing off unpleasant feelings associated with doing a task. We imagine doing the work and that it will be difficult, confusing or generally unpleasant. We push this off in hopes of having a little respite in the moment with just about any activity other than the one we need to get done. 

Enter Pre-crastination: Precrastination is a cognitive pattern some people use to get things done as soon as possible. Professor and blogger Adam Grant is one example. People who precrastinate imagine almost catastrophic failure if they don't jump in immediately to do a task. A task may be due months out, but they're imagining failure as if it is real in this moment. This is so unpleasant that it drives them to jump in immediately to finish the task at hand. As Adam grant says, if he doesn't handle a task in the moment, he feels like his world is spinning out of control.

A New Tool: Precrastination is one of several strategies for dealing with procrastination. It doesn't work for everyone, but with a little practice can be extremely effective in jump-starting your motivation to get things done now. I recommend trying it out with several items on your todo list so you can learn this powerful tool.

ref: Adam Grant

https://youtu.be/_q7bJsl2iLk?si=QqU4K9prgDT5uXSU