Procrastination and Your Phone: Why Do I Reach for My Phone Instead of Starting?

Why do you reach for your phone when you meant to start?

You reach for your phone because the moment before the first move is the most uncomfortable part of the whole task. Your phone ends that feeling as soon as you unlock it.

Here are three terms, so we mean the same thing. The trigger is the discomfort a task sets off in you. The way out is whatever you reach for in that moment. The relief is the drop in tension you feel afterwards.

Take an example. You open the quote for a client and see the empty price field. A price can be turned down. You feel that before you think it. Your hand is on your phone before you've decided anything. That's why you often notice only much later that you've just been scrolling: there was no decision for you to catch.

Is your phone to blame for your procrastination?

No. Your phone isn't the cause of your procrastination. It's the fastest way out. The cause is the feeling the task sets off in you.

You see the difference as soon as you lock your phone away. The feeling stays and looks for the next way out: you sort emails, tidy your desk, rework a template. You work all morning, just not on the task that set off the discomfort.

That's why I keep cause and way out strictly apart. With your phone out of reach, your path to the way out gets a few steps longer. The gap stays open all the same. I go into more detail on why you avoid unpleasant tasks in particular in Procrastinating Because It's Unpleasant. If you take away the way out without filling the gap, you'll find yourself a new one.

How do you find out which task makes you reach for your phone?

You keep a tally for one week. Every time you pick up your phone without it having rung or buzzed, you write down one line: the time, the task you were on and that task's first step.

After seven days you read the list from top to bottom. If the same task shows up several times, you've found your trigger. Check whether these tasks ask you for a judgement: a price, a no to someone, a figure in your bookkeeping.

For exactly this task, you set the first move in advance. It's so small that it asks for no judgement. For the quote that means: file open, client name entered, the service described in one line. The price comes after.

A first move isn't a resolution. A resolution says what you want. A first move tells your hand where to go in the second when it would otherwise go to your phone. The gap never stays empty. All you decide is what goes into it.

Your next step: put a sheet of paper next to your keyboard today. Write the first line the next time you reach for your phone for no reason.

In the challenge you follow this path for four more days, from the pattern you've spotted to the person for whom that first move is normal. Try the free four-day challenge