The Why of Procrastination
Putting things off is a habit. If you aren’t cautious, procrastination can cost you hours, cash, and a sense of calm. It’s an unhealthy investment that can be cracked. If you procrastinate, you are all too familiar with the feeling of leaving things until the last possible moment and then rushing around, frantically attempting to accomplish everything. The Mona Lisa was never finished by Leonardo da Vinci despite his nearly 16-year effort.
Despite the frequent use of the phrase procrastination, there can be significant variations in what people will say about it. A crucial distinction is drawn by psychotherapists like me who research this subject: indecision is a kind of pause, but not all delays are procrastination. It’s necessary to highlight these instances when you’re postponing a task without genuinely procrastinating before attempting to curb your procrastination.
For example, in this case, you may have to put off some tasks seeing as your circumstances unexpectedly changed or you can’t finish everything at once. In order to better fit your timetable, you might postpone an action. Psychologists would not classify these situations as boredom even though they involve delaying anything.
Procrastination is especially a “survival tactic that is emotion-focused to combat negative thoughts and feelings.” The process is as follows:
- To complete a task, we take a seat.
- We make predictions about how the task would then perceive in the long term.
- We anticipate that the task won’t feel enjoyable.
- Our feelings defense strategy engages to help us avoid this unpleasant sensation.
- We eschew doing it.
But still, the science behind people’s propensity for procrastination is sound. There are two steps to it.
- The instinctive reaction to put something off, as in “I’ll do something later today.” You tell yourself you’ll do it afterward when morning comes around, and so on.
- You can defer a task by giving yourself a justification, such as that it is too bland or challenging to begin right away. Individuals are caught in an endless loop of procrastination due to rationalization.
However, what if there existed a way to eliminate putting things off and start accomplishing things instead?
- Do not wait for encouragement.
Quit looking for encouragement. Do it right now. Simply begin. Make no excuses. Don’t wait until you’re “mostly in attitude.” The mood may never arrive! It’s both a clever pretense and a halting tactic. There won’t ever be a “correct” moment to begin if you do not even begin. You’ll simply put the task off until it would be too long to wait or too difficult, both of which are neither desirable consequences for several sorts of tasks.
- Begin at the finish.
Make your plans with the final goal in mind. Create a thorough to-do collection and prioritize your duties. Then, starting with the deadline, reverse the process, enumerating each step required to finish the task and assigning timings correspondingly.
Please Do Not Break That Cycle! Use an easy fix, put post-it notes on your screen, or jot down your timelines in a diary that you hold with you wherever you go so they reassure you of what must be accomplished every moment you view them!
Procrastination is the conduct of delaying important tasks out of anxiousness, personality, and overwhelming feelings. You feel powerless to take action right away, so you put it off or, worst, never do it. But consider this: It takes thoughts and feelings to procrastinate.
Several research has revealed that when we put off doing something, we’re letting our thoughts and feelings take control of our lives. It is an expression of poisonous feelings when we talk ourselves out of tasks since the notion of just doing them overpowers us. We can inhale and critically think when sentimentality is not a factor.
- Divide large tasks into smaller ones.
Your task will be simpler to complete and less intimidating if you divide it up into smaller, more bite-sized pieces. The correct method to accomplish this is to put all the actions that must be taken to finish the bigger task in writing. After that, specify sensible due dates for each phase. You won’t have quite enough time among steps to finish them appropriately if your deadlines are too near together or too distant apart.
- Practice
After reading a blog post regarding how to stop slacking, you can’t just go back to your old habits. You need to get in the habit of finishing the things you start. Consider it to be similar to acquiring a brand-new skill: you need to practice to get nicer at it. You must sit and practice playing the keyboard in order to become proficient; the fact that you’ve read a great deal concerning how to perform the musical instruments doesn’t imply you’ll be capable of performing a string quartet after only having read one book on the topic.
- Praise yourself when you complete tasks.
Giving yourself dessert as a recompense for accomplishing a task is a good idea if you don’t know how the process will take or the amount of hard work it will necessitate.
Several of the most effective slackers are those who overthink things. Why? because they allowed their opinions to sap their energy. Thoughtful preparation for work, such as strategizing, is a good idea, but excessive thinking can turn an assertive thought into a paralyzing facade of passivity.
Be aware of your overanalysis. Let your work take precedence over your nervousness as you lose yourself in it. Tear each goal down into more manageable, less intimidating tasks if the thought of beginning a big project tends to make your memory race. How is a whole building built? piece by piece.
Compassion and procrastination
The term “willpower” is ambiguous. Some scientists think it doesn’t exist in reality. Some people think it exists but in limited quantities. Others choose a middle ground.
Intensity, non-judgment, and serenity are among the guided meditation abilities that can be taught. The study has shown that emotional wellness plays an important part in lowering distraction and improving efficiency.
Therefore, mindfulness could indeed assist us in keeping our composure and lack of judgment in the face of workplace stress, which improves our ability to focus on the responsibilities at hand and reduces our stress levels—a feedforward circuit.
Be kind to yourself
An attuned slacker is more probable to be harsh and critical of themselves if procrastination frequently involves deleterious and strenuous feelings. While activity and ego are required, repentance is indeed the foundation of the remedy. You should be able to forgive yourself for all of your procrastination—past, present, and future—as well as for any hiccups or errors you may have made along the way.
There are numerous opportunities to restart on the following day. Be kind and recognize yourself at all times. By impartially recognizing your lethargy, you can stop doing it. Be diligent in realizing your inner strength and potential. No one needs to wait for your excellence.
Figure out what you’re ignoring
Avoiding something out of existential anguish is known as procrastination. Every person has different habit triggers. While breaking terrible news can be challenging for anyone, for some it also involves the requirement to purchase a gift or contact a friend.
Try journaling every day for a week or over to help you get more and more conscious of what motivates your procrastination if you’re not sure what it is. Our feelings aren’t always conscientious to us. You can use your diary to pinpoint the precise moments when you feel guilty. You might recognize a pattern in the kinds of duties and activities that tend to cause you to put things off.
A variety of factors can lead to uncomfortable feelings, such as the worry that you’ll disappoint someone, the concern that an action will take up all of your time and prevent you from needing any fun, or even discontent that you have to finish something that was somebody else’s responsibility.
To ascertain what it means to you specifically. If you notice a sequence, you might be able to take practical action. For instance, it may be possible to transfer the duty you descended to another person, arrange specific events, or enlist the assistance of others. Instead of wanting to avoid it, perhaps you can come up with a workable plan to carry out this task.
PURRRR method
To PURRRR, which can be used as a catchphrase for all of one’s tasks, is among the most efficient tactics that intend to tackle the problem at hand, identify things that contribute to procrastination, and contest those opinions.
Consider what is standing in the way of you finishing your task as you approach it. People frequently procrastinate without giving it much consideration. Utilize: Once you’ve determined what makes you put things off, figure out how to make the most of the time you do have. In this step, you should reflect and pinpoint the thoughts and emotions that give you the urge to put off things.
