TL;DR: this is for you if you procrastinate or often make decisions that you regret later

Disclaimer: Neuroscience and psychology are rapidly evolving fields and scientific understanding of the brain keeps changing as new discoveries are made. In writing this article, I’ve tried to balance accuracy with accessibility while staying true to current scientific understanding. Since I’m self-taught in these subjects (and not qualified in any way), this article is mostly a compilation of already established information from credible sources. I have been careful not to make any claims of my own but this article shouldn’t be confused with a subject matter expert’s opinion in any way.

We often do things that we know are not good for us such as not following through on plans like ‘I will start working out’ or buying an expensive product we don’t really need. The former is called procrastination (i.e. delaying an action that you want to take), the latter is Akrasia or lack of self-control (i.e. taking an action that you know is harmful for you).

If you usually fail to do what you think you should do, you are not alone. There are millions of youtube videos about procrastination, thousands of self-help books and seemingly infinite web-pages.

The problem with these resources is that most of them aren’t written by neuroscience/psychology experts. Some people will tell you about what worked for them, others will simply publish poorly researched content for money/views. Moreover, they usually talk about just procrastination not Akrasia; while both are inter-twined problems.

As a result, what ends up happening is that people get partial understanding of procrastination, try the advice (or procrastinate trying the advice too), they fail and become more disappointed with themselves — thus making it worse.

The aim of this article is to first help you eliminate self-blame by explaining the science behind it and then provide proven ways to overcome it, especially procrastination.

Note: Mental disorders such as depression, ADHD and anxiety can lead to poor self-control and procrastination in ways that require medical intervention. Nonetheless, the information here should still prove useful, though it cannot replace professional help from a therapist or psychiatrist.

How we decide what to do

The brain is not a single entity, it is made up of many complex interconnected parts and they work together to sense, feel, think, decide and do. For example, if you just finished watching a great episode of a show late at night, the interaction of these parts may go something like this:

  • “If we sleep now, we can get enough sleep to work efficiently tomorrow. We are going to wake up in a terrible state if we stay up any longer.”
  • “But that cliffhanger! We need to know what happens next!”
  • “Speaking of work, I wonder how the presentation is gonna go. I am a bit worried.”
  • “Why are we even discussing this? We always discuss this and we almost always end up watching more.”

These internal debates stem from distinct systems within the brain, each influencing our behavior in different ways. Below are some of such major systems:

  1. Prefrontal Cortex (PFC): Governs reasoning, planning, and impulse control.
  2. Limbic System: Drives emotional, instinctive, and reward-seeking behavior.
  3. Reward System: Reinforces behaviors through dopamine-driven rewards.
  4. Basal Ganglia: Automates habitual and goal-directed behaviors.
  5. Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC): Monitors conflicts and signals the need for control.

Note: This is neither precise nor a complete list for the sake of casual readers.

If you were a purely rational person, you might ask your date if they have any infections before kissing and never eat ice-cream. Moreover, reasoning takes time which can’t help with split-seconds decision and not doing some things on “autopilot” would cause immense mental fatigue. We can make a long list of problems such a person would face. Thus, each part is important but it appears that sometimes the unwanted part ends up making us perform an action.

To improve self-control (use reasoning over impulse), we should first learn how to identify which part of the brain is making us irrational. Some of the influencing factors are:

  1. Energy State: Self-control requires significant mental energy. When you’re tired, hungry, or have made too many decisions (decision fatigue), the PFC’s influence weakens dramatically. This is why you might make poorer food choices after a long day.
  2. Habit Strength: The basal ganglia automates frequently repeated behaviors to save mental energy. Research shows that about 40% of our daily actions are habits rather than conscious decisions. Once a behavior becomes habitual, it requires substantial effort from the PFC to override it.
  3. Stress Level: When you’re stressed, cortisol levels rise and the emotional and survival-focused parts of your brain tend to override the PFC. This evolutionary response prioritizes quick reactions over careful deliberation, making it harder to resist impulses/habits when you’re anxious or overwhelmed.
  4. Environmental Cues: Your surroundings can trigger automatic responses before your PFC has a chance to intervene. These cues are particularly powerful because they can activate impulsive brain regions before conscious awareness. For example, research hints that the mere presence of your smartphone hinders your attention1, let alone a notification.
  5. Emotional State: Strong emotions can bypass rational thinking. When you’re excited, angry, or sad, the limbic system’s voice grows louder while the PFC’s voice becomes harder to hear.
  6. Time Pressure: When you feel rushed, your brain shifts towards quick, emotion-based decisions rather than careful reasoning. This is why “sleeping on it” often leads to better choices. While significant, time pressure typically has less impact than the above factors unless it’s extreme, as demonstrated by research showing that time pressure mainly affects decision quality when combined with other stressors.

To sum it up, if we are not tired, under stress, emotional turbulence or following a habit in a given moment — we are likely to make more rational decisions. It is not possible to become immune to these conditions but it is possible to pause and regain control. This can be done with something as simple as closing your eyes and taking 10-20 deep breaths. No, this isn’t meditation, some spiritual bullshit or a even a solution. It is just a way for you to get enough calmness, focus and time to actually think instead of taking whatever action/decision your non-rational parts are leading you towards.

Let me explain why it works:

  1. It momentarily disengages both your vision and attention from the external stimuli that might be triggering impulsive or emotional reactions.
  2. Deep breathing activates your parasympathetic nervous system which controls stress/anxiety levels. In simple words, It tells the brain that you are not in a stressful situation (even when you are) and there’s enough time to think.
  3. It gives the brain enough time to let the reaction/impuslve/urge pass.
  4. Due to the effects above, the PFC gets enough time and clarity to do its job.

This can help you with the urge to check your phone, order a pizza, send an angry text, avoid a task or going back to sleep after your alarm rings.

To add structure to this technique, you can inhale for 4 seconds, hold it for another 4 seconds and then exhale for 4 seconds.

Not only that it works, the need to do this should decrease because research (and common sense) shows that self-control can be trained and made stronger like a muscle.2 There’s no need to make this complicated. Even waiting for a one minute before watching your favourite piece of media, meditating, exercising and just using self-control more often will do wonders.

The breathing technique mentioned here or being self-aware only deals with symptoms. If possible, try to fix the root cause thats trigger your brain to be irrational. Research shows that self-control is a resource that gets depleted over the day as you use it and restores during sleep.3 The more emotions/impulses you try to supress, the easier it becomes to lose control. For this reason, you should try your best to keep your environment distraction and stress free, and avoid bottling up emotions.

Now that you have learned to identify why and when you may take an irritional decision as well as what to do about it, you have two options:

[Skip to “How to get things done”]

Or, read about the “reward system” of our brain that drives motivation and our urge to choose a fun task (e.g. scrolling) over a boring one (e.g. studying).

Reward System

The “reward system” is one of the many systems in the brain that influence what we choose do. It is a group of brain components that helps us evaluate the pros and cons of actions, reinforce the actions that are rewarding and make decisions.4 For example, if an action leads to pleasure or helps us avoid discomfort/pain — the brain says “this is a good thing to do” and the reward system generates motivation to do it again. It is an excellent evolutionary behaviour to help us improve our well-being by motivating us to do what works in our favour.

Note: Most of us won’t snatch a sandwich from a child to satisfy our hunger even if we can get away with it. Self-control exists in our brain among many other processes, we are not just reward-seeking machines. The reward system is being discussed because it is at the heart of the problem.

While making decisions especially choosing among multiple rewarding actions, factors such as effort required to perform the action, level of familiarity with each action, social influences, emotional state etc. are taken into account.

The factor most closely related to the subject at hand is time preference i.e. factoring in how long it takes to recieve the reward from an action.5

For example, if you like cakes and were given the choice to recieve a cake now or wait for an year to recieve two cakes — you are likely to take the one cake. Your brain evaluates the situation and comes to the conclusion that one more cake isn’t worth waiting for an year.

This is a fair evaluation but when faced by more complex choices, the reward system may lead us to an action that isn’t necessarily good for us. Deciding to watch your favourite show (immediate reward) over studying for exam (delayed reward) is a choice that may harm us in the long run.

Delayed gratification, or deferred gratification, is the ability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in favor of a more valuable and long-lasting reward later. It differs from person to person and action to action.6
Thankfully, delayed gratification is a form* of self-control and can similarly be improved through practice.

I wish I could end this section about the system here here but I must discuss Dopamine as its a commonly misunderstood concept.

So, our brain sends messages to our body (including parts of the brain itself) through chemicals called neurotransmitters, dopamine is one of them.7

Dopamine performs many functions, but this article focuses on one of its major roles—causing “wanting.” When the brain’s reward system decides we should “want” to perform a certain action, it signals this through dopamine release. Once the action is performed, dopamine is released again, contributing to feelings of pleasure.

It is released in three key phases:

  1. Anticipation: When you expect a reward and work towards it (i.e. when ordering a cake)
  2. During: While performing the rewarding activity (i.e. eating the cake)
  3. Completion: After task completion (i.e. after eating the cake and thus satisfying your “want”)

The highest dopamine release occurs during the anticipation phase, which motivates us to complete the task. Dopamine levels during and after the task depend on prediction error — the difference between expectation and reality:

  1. Positive error: Reality better than predicted → dopamine spike
  2. Negative error: Reality worse than predicted → dopamine drop

For example, if you have heard great things about the cake you ordered and it turns out to be awful, you feel bad. If it is just how you expected, you feel good. If it is better than your expectation, you feel even better.

Thus, when a rewarding task is new to you — more dopamine gets released because you are still getting used to what to expect. Conversely, when a rewarding task is performed repeatedly — the brain forms accurate expectations and the dopamine spikes aren’t as big.

By carefully choosing what we want to feel motivated about doing and to what extent, we can improve our quality of life.

Note: Dopamine production is significantly influenced by factors like poor sleep and inadequate nutrition. If you are experiencing apathy and lack of motivation without an underlying medical condition such as depression or ADHD, it may be worth considering whether lifestyle factors are contributing to low dopamine levels.

Now that we have a better understanding of the reward system and dopamine, let’s talk about how to use this information to our advantage.

How to get things done

First of all, procrastination is not limited to “getting distracted by immediate rewards”. See if anything applies to you from the following list:

  1. Circadian Rhythm: Your biological clock influences alertness and motivation. Night owls for instance, may procrastinate in the morning due to low energy levels.
  2. Perfectionism: Fear of failure or not meeting high standards. This avoidance strategy protects self-esteem by ensuring the failure isn’t due to lack of ability but lack of effort.
  3. Task Aversion: If a task is boring, overwhelming, or unclear, it becomes emotionally repelling, leading to procrastination.
  4. Mood Regulation: Delaying action can be a coping mechanism for managing unpleasant emotions (e.g. stress, boredom or self-doubt) tied to the task.
  5. Decision Fatigue: Repeated decisions deplete mental energy, making it harder to choose productive actions later in the day.
  6. Planning Fallacy: We usually underestimate how long tasks will take, encouraging delaying action until the last minute.

While the core idea to overcome procrastination still remains around dealing with the reward system, the things from list require attention too. Discussing these factors is not within the scope of this article but at least you now have a more nuanced understanding and can take action accordingly.

So, if you haven’t been able to finish a book that you wanted to read, you will highly likely finish it if you are locked in a room with just the book. There will be nothing more stimulating, nothing more rewarding than to read the book. If you are thirsty, even the bland water tastes amazing.

Staying away from “quick and easy” rewarding activities is the easiest way to get hard things done.

The mistake a lot of people make when trying to change their lifestyle for the better is that they change too many things too quick. By starting small, you will see results without too much effort and stress which should make it easier to stay motivated. Remember, when we do something rewarding, the brain motivates us to do it again. Keeping that in mind, below is what I suggest you to do:

  1. It is hard to go from rest/fun to a task because reward system finds it less rewarding. To get around this, use the breathing technique mentioned earlier. Additionally, you can make the task seem less stressful by saying out loud: “Once I am done with this small task — I am free to spend my day however I like.” You can repeat the breathing and self-assurance multiple times if required.
  2. When you are about to start doing something you want to, keep your phone out of your room to minimize habitual checking. If your task takes place on the computer, use a website blocking browser extension or software.
  3. If your goal is to read a book for example, do not say to yourself “I will try reading this book, I will try my best”. Make it your goal to read just one page, do just 10 push-ups or write just one paragraph. Because if you push yourself too much, starting the task may become harder next time because your brain may associate it with high-effort and stressful.
  4. Everytime you feel the urge to quit before finishing this small task, do the deep breathing mentioned earlier.

If the weight of the struggle becomes too much at any point of the day, lie down and follow a Progressive Muscle Relaxation guide video like this one. Don’t worry, its not a task, just close your eyes. Once you have done it enough times, you can do it without a guide.

Once you are able to consistently do small chunks of the task for a week in the row, you will start to find it more doable and less scary. At this point, you should try the following (not all at once):

  1. Do not engage in scrolling on instagram, youtube shorts, reddit, twitter etc. If you crave entertainment, do/watch something that requires at least 5-10 minutes of focus at single media e.g. a TV show or a longer youtube video. You can use an app like NoScroll or URL blocking browser extensions to help you enforce this.
  2. Don’t say to yourself that “I will try to workout more today”, be more specific e.g. “I will do 1 more set of push-ups today. 5 more minutes of cardio.”
  3. Not all days will be equal. On some days you will be able to do only a little, that is not a reason to stress over or lose trust in the process. Just make sure you are consistent, do a very very small chunk of the task but do it.
  4. If possible, do not check your phone first thing in the morning. It is a highly rewarding activity and can thus make the subsequent tasks feel boring in comparison.
  5. If at any time of the day, you can’t bring yourself to get up from a resting position to do something, wait for something that requires you to get up e.g. having to pee, answering the door etc. Once you are standing up, it becomes surprisingly easier to do a task.
  6. Meditation doesn’t work for everyone but it works well for enough for most people that it is highly recommended. It does sound like a big word and a task in itself but it can be as simple as sitting in a relaxed position, closing the eyes and taking deep breaths. To avoid getting bombarded by thoughts during meditation, you can focus on each of your body parts one by one. Think abut how your eyes feel, then your nose, then ears and so on.

If you find any of these hard, it is normal. It will take a few days or weeks to adjust, do not stress or blame yourself — just try your best and trust the process.

When you reach a point where you can say “Wow, I am finally getting some things done”, just keep at it. After a month or so, focus on the big 3:

  1. Sleep: Essential for a well-functioning brain. Focus on getting recommended amount of sleep for your age. Then, try to not sleep too late at night. Progressive Muscle Relaxation may help you fall asleep easier.
  2. Diet: Eat a balanced diet to make sure your lack of energy or fast fatigue isn’t due to any deficiencies. If possible, get a medical check-up for vitamins and other essential nutrients.
  3. Exercise: Among many other benefits, exercise releases endorphins which reduce your stress. Since it is a hard thing to do by design, it also improves self-control.

This should be enough to get your life back on track. I will say it again, if you have an underlying medical condition please seek treatment.

Conclusion

If nothing changes, nothing changes. The change in this case starts with replacing “what’s wrong with me” with “i know exactly what’s wrong with me” and then being patient with yourself as you make gradual progress that eventually pulls you from rock bottom.

If you can learn just one thing from this article, it should be ability to be aware about what you are doing (or about to do) and then give your brain a chance to think it over. Things will get better as your brain adapts to whatever you do, good or bad.

If this article benefits you in future (or already has), support me with some money.

References

  1. Brain Drain: The Mere Presence of One’s Own Smartphone Reduces Available Cognitive Capacity ↩

  2. Diamond A. Executive functions ↩

  3. Prolonged exertion of self-control causes increased sleep-like frontal brain activity and changes in aggressivity and punishment ↩

  4. Reward system - Wikipedia ↩

  5. Time preference - Wikipedia ↩

  6. Delayed gratification - Wikipedia ↩

  7. Dopamine - Wikipedia ↩