A Method For Battling Procrastination

I discovered a technique that has helped me battle my own procrastination for getting tasks done. The procrastination most often happened when I had to write my pentest reports.

I found myself, often, avoiding the report and doing something else. Regardless of whatever reason I could come up with I knew it was a psychological reason I was not accomplishing this task. Rarely, if ever was there a concrete reason for holding off writing.

The trick I discovered was when I thought, "maybe I don't want to do it because it feels large and imposing. It feels like I couldn't accomplish it and so I don't even want to start". Thats when I started to break the task down...and down...and so far down that no person in the world could say "I can't do that".

So the last on my to-do list would simply say something like:

• Write <CLIENT> report

Anxiety/procrastination sets in, so I break it down:

• Write <CLIENT> report
• Write executive summary
• Write narrative
• Write findings

Nope, still got that procrastination, lets take it to the extreme:

• Write <CLIENT> report
• open the file
• change filename, dates and title
• Write executive summary
• summarize important findings
• etc
• Write narrative
• start with explaining pentest network position
• write recon perspective and returned ports/OSs
• start writing chronologically the attack timeline
• etc
• Write findings
• Write findings you remember from your notes
• Gather screenshots/evidence from logs
• Select the finding templates or make your own
• etc
• Send report to QA

Breaking it out this far helped my brain to feel that no matter how big this project is, all I had to do was focus on the singular next piece. No matter how much I wanted to procrastinate, I could at least open the file, I could at least change the dates.

Starting, I found, is the most important step. Motivation to complete something arises AFTER starting that something.

Good luck in life, I hope this technique can help you too.

PS.

This is a general technique, applicable to anything from pentest reports to woodwork projects to picking investments, apply liberally, rinse and repeat.