Day 9/100 Ted Talks — Procrastination Monkey by Fave Writer on the Interwebs

Corey Cottrell
5 min readMay 15, 2020

I’m watching 100 Ted Talks in 100 days and tracking the result to see how much it will effect my state of mind & work. You can check out the details and my very first check in HERE.

First off, Holy Shit is Tim Urban an amazing writer. I’ve been a fan of Wait But Why for ages, for eg his epic on Artificial Intelligence is where I tell everyone to start if they want to learn about it. It’s DEFINITIVE. And fun AF to read. I went to the site this morning to get a link for the A.I. article and “accidentally” clicked on his most recent post. 20 minutes later I was screaming OH SHIT in my head because the goal this morning was to try to get this banged out before #coffee starts at 10am. He just GRABS you. It’s awe inspiring!! Anyway… at the top of his site it reads:

Every Sometimes.

Every Sometimes. ;-) I Love Him. This Ted Talk is about procrastination. Let’s Begin.

https://youtu.be/arj7oStGLkU

As I’m watching I can’t stop thinking about Adam Grant on procrastination. We have his Ted Talk about the Surprising Habits of Original Thinkers on the list but if you want to jump ahead save THIS LINK. Also his episode w Tim Ferris is in the top percentile of all time value add podcasts. HERE.

Moving on. As I have the video paused just now it’s creeping in how much I’ve designed my life to combat my own brutal capacity to procrastinate. Small bits each day with the intention of building an over-arching large project. Social pressure to keep me coming back each day. Oh and guilt free video games after I’m done work in the mornings! Which often turns into more “work” researching or thinking about other stuff but I find my monkey mind attaching itself to the idea of just being free to do whatev after I get my articles done in the morning. There may be a secret key here.

The Instant Gratification Monkey

The Dark Playground

He describes the place your in when you’re letting the gratification monkey drive and just do fun stuff. Its not fun. You end up feeling all kinds of Guilt, dread, etc. TESTIFY!!

Panic Monster

Shows up in your mind when there are Deadlines or the possibility of public embarrassment,

There are 2 kinds of procrastination.

  1. Is where there are deadlines, which works because the panic monster gets involved. I’m starting, in this moment, to realize the power in what I’ve just started with the 100 day challenges. Micro deadlines.

2. No deadlines, eg. a career where you’re a self starter or artist. This might effect things like seeing your family, working on your health, avoiding depression, doing anything big that you can be proud of, etc, “Long Term procrastination has made people feel like spectators in their own lives” Long term procrastination has been one of the biggest negatives in my entire life .Hot damn this is hitting me right in the brain.

Long term procrastination has been one of the biggest negatives in my entire life. Ok wow.

Calendar of weeks in a 90 year life. He shows a picture with 450ish little blocks. All the weeks in a 90 year life. Showing it like that provides so much urgency! It goes back to the recurring theme about feeling and experiencing TIME differently now that I’ve started the 100 Day arcs and even started a 100 Week arcs w the Updates. I’m looking forward much more clearly already, and per the first post looking backwards over the week… its almost infinitely more rich. I did ALOT. And now there’s a record of the big important bits, and some reflection on improvement and progression. This changes everything. This just changed my whole life.

Wow indeed.

If you want to start your own 100 Day Challenge PLEASE join us over in the 100 Days FB Group and get after it!! Do it!! STOP PROCRASTINATING YOUR LIFE AWAY!!!

Like I was.

Ps. look out for the 100 MONTH arc coming soon.

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Hello! You’re still here???!! Cool.

Im making it a habit to make it as easy as I can to LET people support my work in whatever ways they can or want to. For more on this check out Day 3/100 Ted Talks where I watched and discussed Amanda Palmer’s Talk “The Art Of Asking”

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Corey Cottrell

Writing. FB Live. Podcasts. Experimenting. 100 Days of Gettin Healthy, 100 Days of Ted Talks to stave off depression.