Procrastination: Tips to Identify and Overcome Procrastination
What was your first reaction to reading that word? A common initial reaction to simply seeing the word “procrastination” is “Ugh, I have something I need to do later…” or “It seems like I can’t get anything done.”
We hear a lot about procrastination, but what causes it and what can you do about it?
First, what is procrastination?
Procrastination is the act of delaying or postponing something.
It can look like:
Watching television instead of starting a homework assignment or sending a work email
Staring into space with awareness of tasks needing to be completed
Scrolling on social media
Telling yourself that you will “do it later”
Cleaning or completing chores while putting off other tasks
Delaying paying bills
Many, if not most of us, engage in procrastination to some degree and it may be annoying but not necessarily an issue. Procrastination becomes problematic when it begins to interfere with work, school, relationships and other responsibilities that are important to our well-being.
What Causes Procrastination?
Procrastination is often thought of as a time management issue. While this can be the case for some, the act of procrastinating can be more complicated. When thinking about times during which you have procrastinated, reflect on how you felt and what you were thinking. Feelings of anxiety about the task or a sense of overwhelm surrounding how much you have to do paired with having little energy were likely present.
This is because procrastination is an attempt to manage difficult emotions and not the task itself. Present bias, or the act of over-weighing short-term gains/goals compared to long-term gains/goals, is often a cause for procrastination and inaction. So, we engage in procrastination to avoid challenging emotions only to end up feeling them anyway when we have to complete the task.
A frequent consequence of avoiding these challenging emotions is our inner self-critic speaks up creating a dialogue such as “Why didn’t I just do the laundry earlier instead of now? I’m so lazy.” When avoiding completing the laundry, the avoidance likely feels better in the short-term even though you’re aware that you’ll have to complete it anyway. Although avoiding difficult emotions is understandable and common, this method of coping may cause a loop during which we unintentionally reward ourselves by procrastinating instead of rewarding ourselves for completing the task.
Ways to Challenge Procrastination
So what can be done to decrease procrastination?
Identify when and why you are procrastinating. This may seem pretty obvious, however, sometimes we don’t actually recognize when we are procrastinating. Try checking in with how you’re feeling when you have to complete a task. Does your heart begin to race when imagining the task? Do you feel depleted and overwhelmed at the thought of how much work needs to be done? Do you tend to have perfectionistic expectations and feel afraid of failure? A broad range of feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations may be experienced when procrastinating and these are only a few examples. In order to address the avoidance, an understanding of what you’re avoiding is necessary.
Adjust convenience. While procrastinating, we oftentimes turn to things that are convenient to us such as scrolling on our phones, watching television or starting an unrelated task. Additionally, we can also maintain these barriers to actually completing the task. A way to increase the likelihood of task completion could be creating a list. Additionally, reducing the convenience of our procrastination strategies, such as moving our phones away from us, can be effective.
Chunking. Breaking tasks down into smaller, manageable pieces can decrease feelings of overwhelm and intimidation.
Establish a reward system. Perhaps your go-to procrastination activity is listening to podcasts. Try utilizing your procrastination activity as a reward once you have completed the task. Another reward system example can be extrinsic motivation (motivation that comes outside of yourself.) This can look like cluing in your friends, family and social network for some external validation.
Habit stacking. It can sometimes feel daunting to begin a new task that needs incorporating into a daily routine. One way to alleviate the emotional burden is to add it on to an already existing habit/task. For example, if you need to start taking a new medication every day, try taking the medication every night after you brush your teeth.
We’re all human and the urge to avoid difficult emotions is common! The particular reasons and underlying emotions when avoiding, however, differs for everyone. If procrastinating is interfering with your daily life, psychotherapy can be an effective tool to begin taking a closer look at what lies beneath the surface.
