The Simmonds Signal

Weekly insights for artists, writers, and storytellers to turn art into a fulfilling, sustainable career.

Today’s newsletter is a continuation of my jungle epiphanies.

When you spend 10 days journaling in solitude, without a single distraction, and communing with psychedelic plant spirits, you notice one or two of the destructive patterns ruining your life.

For me? It was procrastination.

I realized just how deep it had its hooks in me.

I couldn’t even get through 5 minutes of meditation without my monkey mind craving a hit of stimulation. And let’s just say that pattern shows up big time in my work life, too.

But here’s the thing: while meditating I found a productivity hack like nothing I’d tried before. No Pomodoro timer, no caffeine boost, no “write first thing” routine.

Nope, none of that.

This hack flips the psychology of procrastination on its head. Turning it from a vice into a virtue that leads to peak productivity.

If you want to know what it is, keep reading…

The Psychology of Procrastination

Picture this: in the jungle, I had zero distractions.

No phone, no books, no TV, no social media, and no friends to talk to.

Every day was the same:

- Sleep
- Stretch
- Meditate
- Bathe
- Write

No walks, no side activities—just pure solitude. And guess what? I was bored out of my damn mind.

When I say bored, I mean next-level bored.

Bored enough to fantasize about scrolling LinkedIn. And you know how desperate you’ve got to be to crave that content.

The more I sat in that boredom, the slower time dragged, and the more anxious I felt.

To avoid losing my mind, I needed a shift in perspective.

Thankfully, through active meditation, I found one…

I noticed that in the real world, my mind’s always looking for the easiest way out, any excuse not to do hard work.

But here in the jungle? My mind was begging for work. Literally anything to do.

The pain of procrastination became greater than the pain of being productive.

Suddenly, writing was no longer the thing I wanted to avoid. It became the thing I craved most.

It was my lifeline, my escape from endless boredom. The more I wrote, the more present I felt, and the more time passed without me noticing.

To stay sane, I needed to be engaged in the act of writing for as long as possible.

I used the psychology of procrastination to trick myself into doing this…

When you’re binge-watching a show or scrolling endlessly, what’s the thought that keeps you hooked?

Just one more episode. Just one more message. Just one more video.

This is the psychology of “just one more.”

Or “solo uno mas” for my Spanish speaking friends.

And in the jungle, I learned how to use it to achieve my goals… not distract myself from them.

I would say: Just one more sentence. Just one more idea. Just one more page of writing.

In those 10 days, I ended up writing 300 pages of aphorisms, journal entries, and essays.

That’s the same page count as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone!

I was so bored I even wrote an essay on darkness—just for fun. (Reply “darkness” if you want me to publish it).

So what's my point?

You’re already using peak performance psychology.

You’ve got the “just one more” mentality—now, apply it to what actually moves your life forward.

Don't use it to procrastinate. Use it to be productive.

Stack that momentum, and soon you won’t want to stop writing (or working).

Before you know it, you’ll be getting so much done, your friends will think you’ve gone superhuman.

-Taylin John Simmonds

PS. I’m still slowly finding my way back to regular working life.

I’m in Peru, writing and reading at a post-dieta center designed to help psychedelic travellers integrate back into the world after doing Ayahuasca.

While here, I’ve been reading Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being - it has become my bible.

And George Orwell’s Animal Farm—a brilliant allegorical on how society is slowly become corrupted. An allegorical so good, it’s only second to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

Lastly, a few Ayahuasca aphorisms from my time in the jungle:

1. Responsibility is a badge not a burden.

2. The opposite of free will is not determinism. It is addiction.

3. The act of journaling is to first become aware of a sensation you feel. Then to become aware of the meaning you attach to it and how useful that meaning is. If it is not serving you, rewrite it. This is how you rewrite the story of your life.