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““Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving””
— Albert Einstein
Fighting Procrastination Effectively

Fighting Procrastination Effectively

Taya Bregant
Lifestyle

Procrastination is something that all of us face at some points, whether it is starting that big project for work or school or staying consistent with a passion project or habit. Because procrastination is such a common phenomenon in today's world, I wanted to take a look into why procrastination occurs to explain why it is so common, the different types of procrastination, and most importantly how to prevent and fight it.

Although I have written about this topic previously, I think it is valuable to do a refresh and it is hopefully a topic that will be of use to you as well.

I hope you can gain something useful out of today's post and please share it with anyone else if it has in some way helped you out.

WHY DO WE DO IT?

Procrastination is an interesting yet irrational phenomenon which is shared among all of us, because when we procrastinate we consciously do something else other than what we are supposed to, knowing that this avoidance is in the long term not good for us, yet we still do it.

So whats the real reason behind it?

Researchers (Lieberman, 2019) have suggested that procrastination occurs not because of our poor ability to manage our time but instead as a way of coping with challenging and negative emotions and moods in the moment that have been induced by certain tasks. Emotions which we like to ignore and instead use procrastination to cope with them include boredom, anxiety, frustration, self-doubts, insecurity, and resentment.

Therefore, to put it simply, procrastination is an issue grounded in emotional regulation rather than time management.

Researchers Dr. Pychyl and Dr. Sirois explained procrastination as “the primacy of short-term mood repair … over the longer-term pursuit of intended actions”, meaning that procrastination is about being focused on the immediate urgency of removing negative emotions and mood instead of actually doing the task.

Now you might be asking yourself where these negative feelings towards the task come from and why do they occur? Well, our aversion to the task at hand may be due to there being something inherently unpleasant about the task itself like cleaning a dirty bathroom or doing a task which seems very tedious and unpleasant to us. Additionally, a task can be aversive to us when the task at hand brings up negative feelings from within us such as self-doubt, a lack of self-esteem, or anxiety, which happens often, for example, when we are staring at a blank document and are wondering whether we have what it takes to produce the required piece of work.

What makes procrastination such a hard habit to break?

The catch is that when we procrastinate and eventually stop to return to the initial task at hand, we are faced with even more negative emotions than at the start, where we are likely to judge ourselves for procrastinating in the first place. This may further lower our mood and self-esteem while spiking our anxiety and stress, causing us to procrastinate more and more, since procrastination provides temporary relief from negative emotions.

Additionally, since procrastination provides that temporary time of relief, this relief is what makes the cycle especially vicious since it signals to your brain that you are being rewarded for procrastinating and delaying the task at hand. In behavioral biology and sciences, it is well-known that whatever causes us to feel good or get a sense of reward from doing it, we will do more of it, which is exactly why we fall into chronic loops of procrastination.

The present bias issue

Procrastination is also a great example of a phenomenon called the “present bias,” which is our hardwired human tendency to prioritize short-term needs over long-term ones. This is also what many social media algorithms exploit to keep us more addicted through instant gratification.

Although us humans have a large prefrontal cortex as opposed to other animals and mammals, we are still very much hardwired for prioritizing our needs in the present, which is something we need to be aware of and continuously aim to delay instant gratification.

Brain imaging studies have shown that on a neural level, “we perceive our future selves more like strangers than parts of ourselves,” meaning that when we procrastinate, it is the equivalent of thinking that the task we are putting off and all the accompanying negative feelings are somebody else's problem and not ours.

To further add to the issue, we are even less able to make sound and thoughtful future-oriented decisions when we are stressed, which occurs in the presence of needing to do challenging or aversive tasks. In these situations, we feel stressed, anxious, or insecure, where the emotional center in our brain, the amygdala, perceives all of these negative emotions as a genuine threat to our overall well-being or self-esteem. This causes the amygdala's number one priority in the present moment to reduce those negative emotions, which again is where procrastination falls perfectly into the puzzle. This phenomenon is called the “amygdala hijack.”

TYPES OF PROCRASTINATION

Believe it or not, there are actually many different types of procrastination, classified based on different reasons for why we put off doing things:

  • Avoidance: Here the idea is that you believe you are not good enough or skilled enough to complete the given task or activity at hand. Here there is also an intense fear of failure and of making mistakes, where this fear of being judged or making mistakes is strong enough to stop someone from doing the task.

  • Thrill-Seeking: Interestingly, some people procrastinate because they find enjoyment in leaving things to be done at the last minute, where this actually gives them some kind of adrenaline rush and a sense of excitement. Some people actually work best in this way.

  • Perfectionism: While having high expectations and standards is fine, this sense of obsession can be overdone to the extreme with perfectionism, where in this case, we might constantly be looking and double-checking that email that we wrote or the proposal, or running over the dialogue we will have with our boss. While all of these activities may seem productive in the moment, they are actually not helping us with completing the task but instead delaying it and procrastinating about it. Often times, done is better than perfect.

  • Distraction: This kind of procrastination occurs whenever our attention and focus are drawn away from the task at hand, towards something else more exciting and stimulating in our environment, such as responding to a notification or opening up a new computer tab to do some online shopping instead. We need to decide for ourselves what activities we are willing to tolerate both in our home and work environments and then decide which activities we consider as distractions, which are the activities we want to minimize.

  • Head in the Sand: This might be based on some sort of fear mechanism, but the head in the sand approach simply means that the person does not want to do the task at hand. Instead, they choose to ‘stick their head into the sand’ and pretend like the task doesn't exist or that it's someone else's responsibility.

HOW TO FIGHT IT

You have to foremostly realize that procrastination is, at its core, not an issue about being bad at time management or general productivity but instead about how we handle our emotions. This entails that productivity cannot be solved by downloading some productivity app or time management software alone but instead requires us to better understand and manage our emotions.

When it comes to habitual tasks, our brains are always looking for relative rewards, meaning that if we have developed a habit of procrastination and have not given our brain a better reward than procrastination itself (remember: it relieves negative emotions), then our brain will continue doing the habit over and over until we give it something better to do.

This is why, in order to rewire almost any bad habit, we have to give our brains a better reward than simple avoidance, more specifically a reward that can relieve our challenging feelings in the moment without causing harm to our future selves. The difficulty here is that with procrastination, there is an infinite number of potential substitute actions for avoidance, which could, in the end, still be considered a form of procrastination. This is why the solution has to come from within ourselves and be internal instead of being externally rooted.

As an example, if you are currently struggling with procrastination, an internal solution might be to motivate yourself to get started on the task by reminding yourself of how much relief and ease you will feel afterward once the task is done. This would likely work, as we are responsible for our own motivation and subsequent progress.

Practical Advice for Fighting Procrastination

Forgive Yourself for Procrastination:

  • In a 2010 study, scholars discovered that students who practiced self-forgiveness for procrastinating during their preparation for an initial exam demonstrated a reduced tendency to procrastinate when preparing for subsequent exams. The researchers inferred that embracing self-forgiveness facilitated increased productivity by enabling individuals to overcome maladaptive behaviors, allowing them to concentrate on forthcoming examinations unencumbered by the weight of past actions.

Cultivate Self-Compassion:

  • The practice of self-compassion involves treating oneself with kindness and understanding in the face of mistakes and failures. Dr. Sirois' 2012 study highlighted a correlation between stress, low self-compassion, and procrastination, emphasizing that self-compassion acts as a protective buffer against negative reactions to self-relevant events. Numerous studies indicate that self-compassion not only reduces psychological distress, a key contributor to procrastination, but also actively promotes motivation, enhances self-worth, and nurtures positive emotions such as optimism, wisdom, curiosity, and personal initiative. Importantly, self-compassion does not rely on external factors, requiring only a commitment to facing challenges with acceptance and kindness instead of dwelling on regret. Reframing tasks by considering positive aspects and envisioning successful outcomes can further contribute to cultivating self-compassion in addressing procrastination.

Increase Your Curiosity and Awareness:

  • Whenever you feel yourself being tempted to procrastinate, slow down for a little and become aware of what is causing those feelings or temptations to arise. Think about what tempts you to procrastinate and how you feel when you are about to procrastinate. What emotions are you trying to ignore?

Consider the Next Smallest Step You Can Do:

  • It is common advice to break down a large task into several smaller ones, which makes the whole task seem a lot less daunting and intimidating, ensuring that we follow through and get it done. Additionally, don’t wait to be in the mood or to be motivated to do a certain task. Instead, motivation is a result of action. Get started, and you’ll find your motivation follows.

Make Your Temptations More Inconvenient:

  • The point is to create more friction and less convenience towards tasks that tempt and distract us, ensuring that we do less of those and instead making tasks and habits that are beneficial for us as easy as possible to do and implement.

Create Accountability:

  • If you struggle with discipline or consistency, it might be helpful to think about some external sources of accountability, such as doing work together with a friend or tracking your focus or work/study progress with external software. Experiment with what works for you and what keeps you on track.

KEY IDEAS

In todays blog post we are discussing everything related to procrastination: Why it happens, the different types of procrastination as well as how to best combat it and prevent it in the future.

REFERENCES

Strengthening Your Immune System For This Winter Season

Strengthening Your Immune System For This Winter Season
On The Importance Of Self Care

On The Importance Of Self Care

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