Bonus-- for the person with Asperger's. Chapter 9, "How to Get Stuff Done for Procrastinators."

Oh, this is the good life. You're sitting on your bed binge watching your favorite show on Netflix, sugary snacks are within reach, and you are content in the knowledge that you don't have to put on pants any time in the near future. Why, just 100 years ago, people would work their fingers to the bone every day for decades trying to reach the point in life where such luxury was possible. Why, then, do you feel so uneasy? Oh, right, you have that scary 10-page essay due tomorrow.

If the above description sounds familiar, then I already know two things about you. One, you have a tendency to procrastinate. Two, you're human. And let's face it, those two things are practically synonymous. It's human nature to want to avoid pain and seek out pleasure. It's how your brain is wired.

Well, more specifically, it's how the lower, more primitive regions of your brain are wired. That's your limbic system for you psychology nerds. This is a great system when it gets your hand off the hot stove and when it encourages you to seek out tasty food that will keep you alive. However, it's less than great when the pain you're instinctively trying to avoid is homework or exercise or that tricky conversation you know you need to have with your partner.

If you're like me, a hardcore procrastinator, then you probably don't end up doing what you need to do until you realize that the pain and consequences of not doing it actually exceed the pain and uncomfortableness of the task itself. In my personal experience, this realization usually wouldn't smack me upside the head until the day before the deadline, at which point I would sit up in a panic, realizing that I'm out of time, and that if I don't write this 10-page paper now and turn it in, I'll get an F and have to retake the class.

Suddenly, like magic, I would have all the motivation in the world. I would then pull an all-nighter and crash the next day. Since I spent most of my early years deep in defense mode, this is how I operated pretty much all of the time. It was pretty awful. This was a very costly, stressful, and exhausting way to live, and I've decided that I've had enough.

Nowadays, I'm waging war against procrastination. Do I always win? Heck no. But I never stop fighting, and I'm starting to win more and more often. I'm assuming that, because you're taking the time to read this and since you've made it this far, that you know first hand the costs of which I speak. You know how quickly and thoroughly procrastination can ruin your life and destroy the future that's become your present.

I'm also going to assume that at this point you're sick and tired of living your life in a constant state of stress, guilt, anxiety, and self-hatred. I'll bet that you're ready to do something about it, right? So let's do this thing.

My top three life hacks for overcoming procrastination-- one, the 5-second rule. No, this is not related to that food you dropped. Here's the thing. If you sit around and wait for motivation and boundless energy to suddenly strike, you're going to be waiting a very long time. Sadly, you're never going to be desperately excited to do your taxes. So you have to act even when you don't feel like it. Here's what that looks like.

You're sitting there, eating nachos, and you have that thought-- oh, I should probably get started on-- insert task here. According to motivational speaker Mel Robbins, from the moment you have that thought, you have about 5 seconds before your procrastinator brain is going to pull the emergency brake and say, whoa there, friend, that sounds scary and hard. You should just stay here, enjoy your nachos, and maybe take a 3-hour stroll through Facebook. What's the rush? You can always do it later.

The only way to avoid the paralyzing effect of the emergency brake is to act within that 5-second window. Move. Do something, anything. If you need to clean the bathroom, then as soon as you have that thought, immediately stand up and start walking towards the cleaning closet. If you need to write a 10-page paper, then use that precious 5 seconds to pull up the Word document and write the first sentence that comes to your head.

If you need to wake up and go to work, then immediately throw off the covers and put your feet on the floor. Once you've taken that first 5-second step towards your goal, then it's a million times easier to just keep going. Remember Newton's first law of motion? An object in motion will stay in motion. It's called inertia. Well, that's the goal here-- get some movement towards your goal, however small, and then let the inertia keep you moving forward from there.

Before you move on to hack number 2, there's one important caveat worth mentioning. The 5-second rule is only well suited for situations that consist of issues with motivation rather than those involving deeper psychological blocks. When something is a motivation-only issue, then it tends to be a lot of "that's uncomfortable" and "meh, I could do it, I just don't really want to."

If, instead, you find yourself in the kind of situation where the idea of taking action causes genuine fear and anxiety, then please don't use the 5-second rule. It's actually best to take some time to sit, check in with yourself, and gradually process through your thoughts and emotions. If you would like a more detailed explanation of emotional processing, I would recommend you check out the book In an Unspoken Voice by Peter Levine, PhD.

You may also want to consider finding a good therapist or mental health professional to assist in this process. Why? Think of it like this. Let's say that Johnny has an intense, gut-wrenching fear of needles. If he forces himself to stand up and go to the doctor's office for a shot, then that may be such an unpleasant and emotionally intense experience that he will be even less likely to go the next time he needs a shot.

If, however, Johnny works with his therapist for a few months to process through the trauma and fear he feels surrounding needles, moving at a slow, sustainable pace, then he might actually get to a point where he can look at a needle without feeling that strong aversion. In other words, if you use the 5-second rule to force yourself to do something you're terrified to do, then it can make things worse in the long run.

On the other hand, if you use the 5-second rule to create internal inertia towards something that is merely uncomfortable, then you will see your productivity soar. Check in with yourself and use your best judgment to decide if the task at hand is something you need to move through or sit with for a while.

Two, amphibians first, broccoli second, dessert last. There's a great book on procrastination written by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog. I highly recommend it. Here's the short and sweet version. Mark Twain once said eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

That's basically the premise of the whole book. Whatever the biggest, scariest thing on your to-do list is-- your frog-- do that first before anything else. If you don't, it will sit there looming over you for the rest of the day. The longer you wait, the more the knowledge that you have to do it eventually will drain you.

Even if you're working on other productive things during the day, that's still a form of procrastination because the most pressing, important thing isn't getting done. Eat your frog first, and then eating everything else on your plate becomes so much easier.

Three, burn your ships. According to historical folklore, there's a guy by the name of Hernando Cortez that landed on the shores of Mexico in 1519 with a small force of men-- about 600. He was coming to conquer the Aztec empire. Shortly after arriving, he unloaded all the men, horses, guns, et cetera from the ships. And then, to everyone's surprise, he ordered that all the ships be set on fire. He announced to his men that if they were going to go home, they would have to go home in the Aztec ships. They would conquer or die trying.

Failure and retreat was no longer an option, and it worked. He successfully conquered the entire empire with just that small force of highly motivated men. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying you should take your life savings to Las Vegas and put all your chips on one number. That would be stupid.

What I am saying is that if you're lacking motivation, then deliberately upping the stakes, limiting your easy escape routes, and changing your environment to work for you instead of against you is extremely powerful. It's a way of making a clear commitment and showing yourself and others that you mean it. For example, if you want to start exercising more consistently, then you can go spend hundreds of dollars to hire a personal trainer and set up appointments in advance for the next three months. The idea of hundreds of dollars going to waste tends to be a strong motivator for many people, so you're more likely to show up.

Alternatively, let's say you're at work and you remember that you've been meaning to call your grandma sometime. Immediately send a text to your buddy and say, I need someone to help me hold myself accountable. So if I haven't called my grandma by the end of this week, then I owe you a steak dinner. Deal?

Or if you're trying to quit-- insert addiction here-- then you can call up someone, or multiple someones, whose opinion of you you really care about, someone to whom you would really not like to admit failure, and tell them I commit to you that I will never do X again. Now you have a personal commitment to keep, and that's powerful motivation.

You get the idea. As long as the goal is reasonably achievable, then consciously building external systems that urge and direct you towards that goal can make the difference between failure and success. And obviously, course correct and troubleshoot as you go along. Most people won't get it exactly right the first time.

Get 'er done. When I was young, my dad sat me down and asked me a question. What do you and the most successful people in the world have in common? The answer-- you have the same 24 hours in a day. Well, technically, 16-ish hours after subtracting sleep. Self-care is important. How and where each of us chooses to use those 24 hours is what can make all the difference.

You know the work has to get done either way. And in theory, it will take the same amount of time, whether you're doing it now or in a panic at midnight. So wouldn't you rather just get it done sooner and then, when it's time to rest, be able to actually enjoy your Netflix, pantsless, and sugary snacks without that feeling of foreboding uneasiness? I promise you that the blissful world of deliberate and relaxed productivity really exists, and it's yours for the taking.

Well, there you have it. Now, as I recall, don't you have things to do? So stop reading this, stand up, and go get it done. PS, seriously, go.