Procrastination Isn’t Laziness or Bad Time-Management. This Is How To Beat It.
Photo by Pedro da Silva on Unsplash
What if your procrastination wasn’t due to poor time-management or, worse, laziness? What if it was caused by something else?
According to an article from the NY Times, procrastination has nothing to do with laziness or time-management. Procrastination is an emotional problem. We get stuck in procrastination cycles because we can’t manage negative feelings around a task. So the easiest thing to do is avoid that task. Often I procrastinate by doing different work. That doesn’t sound like laziness.
A few years back, my lawnmower wouldn’t start. It had gas. So I primed the engine. It still wouldn’t start. So I primed it some more. I ended up flooding the engine. Then I realized that the spark plug was just disconnected. My efforts had been counterproductive.
If you think that you procrastinate from laziness, you might try to fix it by motivating yourself or raising the stakes (in other words, priming your engine). But if you can’t do the task because you’re worrying about it, raising the stakes could be counter productive. Instead, viewing it from an emotional model might give you the perspective to try something else (like self-compassion).
Why is it dangerous?
You’ve heard of Pavlov’s dog? By feeding dogs after ringing a bell, Pavlov trained them to salivate when the bell was rung - before any food was there.
When you procrastinate, you feel better in the moment. You are Pavlov with your productivity. You’re training yourself to procrastinate in the future. That’s not ideal.
Additionally, running away from feelings generally just makes those feelings stronger. So when you put off writing that work email, the job gets harder, not easier.
Another reason it’s important to manage your procrastination? Procrastination is an example of present-bias (when we prioritize short-term needs over long-term ones), and studies show that delayed gratification is one of the most effective personal traits of successful people.
I procrastinated writing this article!
How appropriate that I would procrastinate on an article on procrastination.
I delayed starting, and then I kept distracting myself. It’s not easy to reduce a lot of information into an accessible article. Even more, I worried that it wouldn’t be good and that it wouldn’t be useful for people. Obviously if I never completed the article, I could never be judged on it.
But understanding what was causing me to procrastinate helped me to get over it. I wrote this section of the article first in a bid to understand what was holding me back. It gave me insight into my feelings, which let me better manage my worry. It also gave me some momentum to plow forward and finish the rest of the article.
So what do you do about it?
I wonder - how many of you are procrastinating right now by reading this article?
Here are some of my recommendations:
Get to the root. What are you trying to avoid? What negative feelings are lurking just outside your peripheral vision. Is it worry? Fear? Sometimes simply naming it gives you freedom. Sometimes you’ll need to do more.
Leverage your autopilot. Do your task list, then turn off your distractions, and run through the list. Better yet, have your task list done from the night before, so you come in and roll right away. This builds momentum and somehow sidesteps a lot of my worries.
Put roadblocks in front of your temptations. Delete your apps. Make your passwords complicated and don’t leave yourself logged in. Make a rule that you need to do five pushups before you surf the net. Keep your browser closed so that you need to do an extra click before going to your favourite webpage. Or whatever works for you. You’d be surprised how much a little inconvenience can help.
Put roadblocks in front of your stressors. I happen to stress about my inbox. Turning off my outlook (it stops incoming messages) doubles and sometimes triples my productivity. Yes, turning off outlook can feel like Russian roulette and most people balk at the suggestion, but it’s been my experience that I do far more good than the harm I’m theoretically exposing myself to.
Work first. Reward later. I’ve never seen “just this once” stop at once. Do the task first. Reward yourself after.
And if you get caught in a cycle, forgive yourself and don’t be afraid to take a reset.
Tackle it early. I focus best earlier in the day, before my mind has had a chance to clutter up.
Is there anything else that works for you?
Unabashed Promotion
One other way to raise the stakes for yourself is to leverage your community and ramp up your accountability. I’m rolling out a mastermind starting in November.
If you’re a professional who:
lets busyness get in the way of your life (whether your career, your personal life, or your health),
procrastinates (or doesn’t do) the things that are important to you, and
is ready to do something about it,
Then check out the Create & Conquer Mastermind.