Psychology in poker: How do we fight procrastination? Part 4.

Hi, Guys!

I wrote about procrastination in my last part about psychology in poker.

If you are a beginner player you can have a few problems with your discipline of the game. You may not play enough than is necessary for your practice. You can procrastinate or fear of loss. But you will still want to master the game.

Let's see what methods exist to fight procrastination. Let me remind you that I am currently reading a book on psychology. These methods are taken from this book. I have chosen the methods that can be applied to poker if you have a problem with procrastination.

The choice of each method depends on what kind of problem you have. You can apply these methods to other areas of your life.

Daily Activity Schedule

Problem

You feel disorganized. You don't know what to do.

How can it be manifested in poker?

You are a beginner player in poker. You have many ways to learn poker: books, articles, videos, learn through the game, etc. You sat down to study poker but you don't know what to do. You have so many ways to do this that you don't know where to start. At best, you will play again. But if you want to progress you need a more systematic approach to learning.

This is a simple tool to help yourself organize in your fight with procrastination. Every day you need to plan in advance what you are going to do. I will tell you how the author of the book suggests using this method in any area of your life.

Author suggest using the following table:

The schedule consists of two parts. In the Prospective column, write out an hour-by-hour plan for what you would like to accomplish each day. At the end of the day, fill out the Retrospective column. Record each time slot what you actually did during the day.

This may be the same as or different from what you actually planned. In addition, label each activity with the letter M for mastery or the letter P for pleasure. Mastery activities are those which represent some accomplishment.

The Pleasure mark can stand next to anything you did for pleasure. After you have written M or P for each activity, estimate the actual amount of pleasure, or the degree of difficulty in the task by using a zero to five rating.

What kind of Mastery or Pleasure can be in poker?

For example, if you read theoretical material about poker you can mark the degree of difficulty of it.

If you played today you can mark the degree of pleasure you received from the session.

Additionally, I would add the need to keep a list of all the materials that you want to study. These can be articles, books, videos about poker, themes that you want to study. When you will be to write your plan the next day you can choose what to do next. To make it easier for you to choose, learn to clearly formulate specific tasks.

Let me explain with an example:

I've started to keep a list of my materials for learning. I want to read a few books about poker. All of them were written out in a list of books to read. Today, I've chosen one of them. Now, in addition to the game, I will have the task of studying this book. Every day, I will add a task in my schedule to read a particular chapter from the book and do a synopsis from it. I will parse examples from the book in Flopzilla. I won't do anything else to study poker until I've read the entire book.

If you will plan tasks in your schedule you can fight with procrastination. You will not need to think about what to do directly at the moment when you should be doing something. You will have a plan of action.

I think that's enough for today. This post is big enough. Let's continue tomorrow. ))))

Don't procrastinate, but act!