The Desire-Minus-Aversion Procrastination Audit
Score a task against six aversion triggers to see why you're stalling and what to fix
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Bailey models motivation for any task as a simple subtraction: how much you actually care equals your desire minus your aversion, and when the result goes negative you procrastinate. Desire is largely a function of how aligned the task is with your values. Aversion is driven by six triggers a task can carry: boring, frustrating, unpleasant, far away in the future, unstructured, and meaningless. Because procrastination is emotional rather than logical, the audit is diagnostic — you score the stalling task against the six triggers to see which are firing, noting that an aversive task usually sets off several at once (taxes are boring, unstructured, frustrating, and unpleasant simultaneously). Each trigger has a matching lever: structure the unstructured, delegate what's delegatable, reframe the meaningless toward a real value, and add enjoyment or rewards to the boring and unpleasant. The lowest-hanging fruit is structure, because an unstructured task is the most cheaply solvable.
Origin
Bailey's synthesis of academic procrastination research into a desire-versus-aversion model with six task triggers, presented in 'Intentional'.
Core principles
- 01How much you want to do something equals desire minus aversion
- 02When aversion exceeds desire, the task goes negative and you procrastinate
- 03Aversion is driven by six identifiable, often overlapping triggers
- 04Most triggers are fixable by editing the task, not forcing willpower
How to run it
- 1
Frame the subtraction
Recognize that your willingness to act equals desire minus aversion, and a stalled task is one where aversion has won.
- 2
Score the six triggers
Rate the task against boring, frustrating, unpleasant, far away in the future, unstructured, and meaningless.
Pro tip Expect overlap — an aversive task typically fires several triggers at once.
- 3
Pull the matching lever
Structure an unstructured task, delegate what you can, add reward or enjoyment to the boring and unpleasant, and reframe the meaningless toward a value.
Pro tip Adding structure is the highest-leverage move because it is the cheapest trigger to solve.
- 4
Recheck the balance
After editing the task, re-assess whether desire now outweighs aversion. If it still doesn't and the goal isn't value-aligned, consider dropping it.
In the wild
Doing taxes fires four triggers at once — they're boring, unstructured, frustrating, and unpleasant — so aversion easily beats desire and the task gets kicked down the street. The audit points to the cheapest fixes first: add structure by breaking it into a checklist, or delegate the whole thing by hiring someone. Either move collapses several triggers simultaneously, tipping the desire-minus-aversion balance back toward action.
→ A chronically-postponed task becomes actionable once the specific triggers are named and matched to fixes.
Common mistakes
Treating procrastination as a willpower failure
Because procrastination is visceral and emotional, more discipline rarely helps — editing the task's triggers does.
Ignoring the meaningless trigger
If the only live trigger is meaninglessness, no amount of structure fixes it; the goal needs re-framing toward a value or dropping.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who repeatedly stalls on obligatory tasks and wants a systematic fix rather than guilt.
Not ideal for
Genuinely meaningless goals that should be dropped rather than de-frictioned.
From the transcript
“You have to subtract how much aversion you have to doing it from the amount of desire. And sometimes we end up in the negative.”
“Boring, frustrating, unpleasant, far away in the future, unstructured, and the final one is meaningless.”
From the episode
How to Wake Up Excited About Your Goals - Chris Bailey - #1077
Chris Bailey