4 TED Talks to help you nip procrastination in the bud

Imagine this situation: you start off the week on a clean slate — no homework or assignments. As you trudge along the week, work starts piling. You tell yourself that you’ll get to it soon, but instead, you often find yourself putting off tasks and finding other things to do…from cleaning your room to bingeing on Netflix. The next thing you know, it’s Sunday evening and you have assignments that remain unwritten and quizzes that you haven’t studied for.

Does this sound eerily familiar? Procrastination, or the act of delaying or postponing an action, is something many of us have been guilty of. The saying, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today” is a concept that’s lost on many. This makes it unsurprising why  TED Talks on procrastination are so popular.

If you’re hoping to beat the procrastination bug, we’ve compiled four TED Talks on procrastination that we think are worth exploring:

 

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

“Inside the mind of a master procrastinator” by Tim Urban is one of the most popular TED Talk videos where he talks about procrastinating on his thesis while in university.

“Two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks and one day, I woke up with three days until the deadline. Still not having written a word,” he says in his video. Find out what Urban has to say about being a procrastinator in his funny video. 

Why we procrastinate

Vik Nithy may have founded three companies at the tender age of 20, but as a student, he struggled with procrastination. He would spent hours on social media which put him off the work he had to do. 

In his popular TED Talks on procrastination, Nithy shares research-backed facts on how conflicted our brains are and introduces a five-point method for tackling procrastination. Find out what they are in the video above. 

The vaccination for procrastination

Another on our must-watch list of TED Talks on procrastination is one by Bronwyn Clee, whose company’s mission is to create sustainable change in people, organisations and communities. In her talk, she explains some psychological findings pertaining to what hinders people from moving forward with their tasks. 

Unsurprisingly for some, fear came out as the number one reason for procrastination. Using her own personal struggles, she shares some sound advice on how you can also become a more efficient decision-maker.

The surprising habits of original thinkers

Rounding up our TED Talks on procrastination is one by organisational psychologist Adam Grant who studies “originals,” or thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world.

His view is that these “original” nonconformists have new ideas and take action to champion them. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. “The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they’re the ones who try the most,” Grant says. “You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones.”

One habit they tend to have in common is procrastination. EvenMartin Luther King Jr. was still editing his notes right before going on stage prior to making one of the biggest speeches of the century.

And there you have it! We hope these TED Talks on procrastination will not only make you laugh, but inspire you to become a better version of yourself. All the best!