In short, procrastination is defined as a failure in self-regulation. The danger of procrastination lies in the fact that, over time, it can become a pattern of behavior. All the unfinished or procrastinating projects can cause a strong sense of guilt, and this further affects our productivity.
Although my clients in various professional fields often blame themselves for being lazy because they can’t find the resources to see their plans through, there are some differences between laziness and procrastination.
Lazy people, or rather unmotivated people, choose to do nothing, while procrastinators enthusiastically do other tasks, for example: cleaning, eating, or any other task to distract themselves. If the task is not ready on time, lazy people do not feel emotional discomfort, while procrastinators criticize themselves and their self-confidence suffers. Another difference is that when procrastinators manage to complete a task on time, they feel confidence, pride, and accomplishment, while demotivated individuals remain indifferent.
Procrastination is a component of a self-preservation instinct. When the brain chooses to conserve energy, we procrastinate. Procrastination can be of two types:
1. Local – related to daily life (I didn’t immediately wash the dishes and the buckwheat dried on them or play video games, although we have a report to deliver that is approaching the deadline).
2. Global – specific to students, when a lot is put off until the last week or when long-term goals are postponed, which can lead to states of blockage, helplessness and depression.
The psychological profile of a procrastinator
Procrastinators tend to be people with low self-confidence, often with authoritarian parents, who, checking him at every step and deciding everything for the child, affected his autonomy and, ultimately, the child did not have the framework to develop his ability to to plan tasks through organization and self-discipline.
Procrastinators replace completing tasks with other avoidant things: they read the news, watch YouTube videos and spend a lot of time on social media, check email, sharpen pencils, look out the window, tidy up, and the list goes on and on. .. They often get sick, have real symptoms of headaches or stomachaches. People who procrastinate may feel a strong fear of failure or doing things imperfectly, which can be a sign of anxiety or depression, and in this case, specialist help is needed.
Causes of postponement
1. A high level of stress
When we feel stressed each of us has an instinctive reaction of flight, fight or freeze. The brain of people who feel overwhelmed by many tasks is like an overloaded computer. Ultimately, these people choose to do anything else to distract themselves.
2. The desire to do things perfectly
Perfectionism is the biggest enemy of self-confidence and satisfaction. The recommendation is to replace perfectionism with exactism, which means that you set 3-5 criteria, which, once you meet them, you arrive at the “perfect in the imperfect”.
3. Too many tasks
The recommendation would be to check with the employer the list of responsibilities that corresponds to the job description and, possibly, to hire one more person, if the workload exceeds you. And entrepreneurs can delegate by establishing business processes, thus ensuring that the person doing the work will comply with the necessary requirements.
4. Fear
It differs from person to person – some are immobilized by the fear of being imperfect, others by the fear of being wrong, some are distressed by the thought of being criticized by others, etc. Thus, we choose to stay in the comfort zone. Fear is one of the basic emotions, which has the role of keeping us alive. Because of fear, we survived as a species. Here’s why, next time try to find an answer to the question: What can I do to feel safe, what would be plan B, that would help me do what I set out to do?
5. Fatigue
It can be in many forms: physical, emotional or mental. Depending on what type of fatigue we feel, a different kind of relaxation could contribute to regaining the energy needed to complete the actions.
The consequences of procrastination
Productivity and performance
In a meta-analysis on online procrastination, participants reported approximately 50% of time spent online (social media, online shopping) as procrastination with a negative impact on all domains.
Psychological well-being
Procrastination can cause certain negative mood states such as anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, distress. It is also associated with risky health behaviors such as poor diet and reduced physical activity. Procrastinators often fail to make positive lifestyle changes.
How do we manage procrastination?
In order to systematize the tasks, the recommendation is to divide the deferred tasks into three large groups:
1. Elephants
Here you can place the big projects that require a lot of time and effort. As a rule, these projects create a fear and uncertainty of where to start. But the only way to eat an elephant whole is to eat it piece by piece. That way, you can cut it to pieces and start with the “tastiest”, I mean what’s most interesting to you or what excites you the most. That way you will have the resources to work on all the other aspects, because you will already feel satisfaction.
2. Frogs
They are not big, but they are unpleasant and irritating, because they constantly rattle in our minds and remind us of an unpleasant and non-urgent call or a meeting that you do not want to go to. In such cases, it is recommended to do this as quickly as possible, swallow the frog and forget about it. It is important that such tasks do not constitute the main part of the work you do, because you risk losing a lot of emotional energy and over time demotivation appears.
3. Oranges
Relatively simple and important actions. To avoid them accumulating, it is recommended to do them regularly, for example, two such things daily.
To ensure that you do the planned tasks on time and without rushing to begin with, I encourage you to:
1. Make a list of all the accumulated tasks both current and future.
2. Prioritize and divide them into categories:
Important and urgent – tasks with an imminent deadline. For example, a life-threatening issue, accident, force majeure, an important project deadline.
Important and non-urgent – procrastination is common in this group of tasks.
Irrelevant and urgent – meetings, compliance with terms related to the calendar.
Irrelevant and non-urgent – this is where procrastination flourishes: discussions over tea, checking mail, social media, order on the table, usually they don’t bring results, but they take up a lot of your time.
3. Create circumstances that encourage you to complete the set tasks, block social networks, ask loved ones and colleagues not to disturb you for a certain period.
4. Make sure you have breaks every 90 minutes and alternate your activity time. If you have worked intellectually, try to do some physical activity for relaxation – a walk, a trip to the store, exercise.
5. Optimize the order in which you do things: do the most unpleasant things on the list immediately, so that you get rid of the mental noise of “frogs”. Then move on to the most enjoyable and interesting, and finally the least interesting. You can also get paid at the end of the day. It is desirable to avoid rewarding yourself with food. Instead, you can give yourself a hug, watch a movie, or buy yourself a book or a pair of shoes.
6. Our brain makes cognitive economy, that’s why it consumes maximum energy for the first two minutes of an action, where it offers maximum resistance. So you can challenge yourself to do something that only takes two minutes. For example: read a paragraph from the chapter, make a sound, reply to an email, etc.
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p class=”mb-8 px-6 md:px-0 font-bitter text-s17-l170 md:text-s18-l170 text-c121212″> 7. Research shows cognitive-behavioral techniques to be effective in managing and reducing procrastination. Through behavioral activation, exposure, cognitive restructuring, stimulus control, assertiveness management, in individual face-to-face sessions, both online and as group therapy, procrastination can be overcome.
