3rd November 2025
Someday I’ll write that book.
Someday I’ll start that business. Someday I’ll find that partner.
Someday I’ll take that leap of faith.
Someday, I will start exercising.
Someday, I will call that estranged friend.
Someday I will start sharing.
We all keep procrastibating & suffer from the ‘Someday Syndrome’
Some time ago, I came across this wonderful philosophy to avoid this ‘Someday syndrome.
In 1789, philosopher Jeremy Bentham mused on the two forces that control our lives:
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.”
His argument, in simple terms, is that human behavior is driven by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
This general idea is the basis for the most useful productivity framework you’ve probably never heard of: It’s called Skinner’s Law which says that to get yourself to do something, you need to either:
Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it, or
Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it.
It’s a very simple way of hacking your motivation when you find yourself procrastinating on or avoiding something important.
When I was writing my book, I kept saying it was my top priority, but days would pass without meaningful progress.
Why? Ultimately, it was because of a pleasure-pain mismatch.
My Son’s 21st birthday was the target date for me and given how far out the deadline was, it was much easier (higher pleasure, lower pain) to skip writing on any given day than to sit down and force myself to write.
So, I applied Skinner’s Law:
I made a rule that I wasn’t allowed to have breakfast until I penned 500 words.
I wrote it down and put it on my desk.
Suddenly, the pain of not doing it (hunger) was greater than the pain of doing it (wrestling with the words).
Some days the 500 words came easy. Others not so much. But as I engaged in the behavior consistently, it all started to flow.
And Lo & behold, I was able to present the book, ‘Dear Son, Life lessons from a father’ to my son on his 21st birthday.
Small things become big things…
There are some simple ways we can all adapt and use Skinner’s Law to create movement on our big, scary projects:
1) Make a public declaration of your intention.
If you publicly state that you are going to do [X] each day, you’ve manipulated both pain and pleasure. It will be painful to renege on your word, and pleasurable to tell people you stuck to it.
2) Tie a reward to completing the daily action. Give yourself a reward after completing the desired action. It could be your favorite coffee, a leisurely walk, a relaxing bath, whatever. Remember the feeling of the reward so that you can use it to get started.
3) Plan a working session with a friend. If your work is tied to another person, you won’t want the pain of letting them down.
Make a friendly bet. I know of a few friends who engaged in a body fat loss competition recently. While only one person won, they all improved their physical condition. The desire to win (and avoid the pain of the loser’s punishment) was significant in motivating action.
4) Tie a punishment to failing to complete the daily action. I know of friends who go for a morning walk together and in case someone does not turn up for no valid reason, he needs to treat the others to a dinner/ meal out etc. thereby ensuring everyone shows up and is on time.
Skinner’s Law is a core tool in your fight against ‘Someday syndrome’ we all suffer from.
Someday is the enemy.
Stop saying someday.
Make someday today & stay blessed forever.