Art of Procrastination

Etymologically, “procrastination” is derived from the Latin verb procrastinare — to put off until tomorrow.

Are procrastination and laziness the same thing?

If you’ve ever put off an important task by, say, writing a blog on procrastination, you know it wouldn’t be fair to describe yourself as lazy. After all, writing a blog requires research, focus, and effort — and hey, maybe you even went the extra mile to read dozens of articles to know how to present. And it’s not like you’re hanging out with friends or watching Netflix. You’re writing — something your parents would be proud of! This isn’t laziness or bad time management. This is procrastination.

But it’s more than just voluntarily delaying. Procrastination is also derived from the ancient Greek word akrasia — doing something against our better judgment.

Cycle of procrastination

Are you a Procrastinator?

A Procrastinator is someone who practices Procrastination knowingly or unknowingly. Everyone at some point or the other, practices procrastination but, some just have it as a chronic habit.

I consider myself the best example of a procrastinator. I have been planning to start writing blogs for over a year now but, I kept procrastinating it. Today, I am finally starting it, when I have more important tasks in my hand to complete.

After you procrastinate, there is self-awareness which is a key part of why procrastinating makes us feel so rotten. When we procrastinate, we’re not only aware that we’re avoiding the task in question, but also that doing so is probably a bad idea. And yet, we do it anyway.

The Guilt.

Procrastination is essentially irrational, it doesn’t make sense to do something you know is going to have negative consequences. People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.

Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.

In a 2013 study, Dr. Pychyl and Dr. Sirois found that procrastination can be understood as “the primacy of short-term mood repair … over the longer-term pursuit of intended actions.” Put simply, procrastination is about being more focused on “the immediate urgency of managing negative moods” than getting on with the task, Dr. Sirois said.

The particular nature of our aversion depends on the given task or situation. It may be due to something inherently unpleasant about the task itself. But it might also result from deeper feelings related to the task, such as self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety or insecurity.

But the momentary relief we feel when procrastinating, is actually what makes the cycle especially vicious. In the immediate present, putting off a task provides relief — “you’ve been rewarded for procrastinating”. And we know from basic behaviorism that when we’re rewarded for something, we tend to do it again. This is precisely why procrastination tends not to be a one-off behavior, but a cycle, one that easily becomes a chronic habit.

Over time, chronic procrastination has not only costs productivity but also, causes measurably destructive effects on our mental and physical health, including chronic stress, general psychological distress, and low life satisfaction, symptoms of depression and anxiety, poor health behaviors, chronic illness, and even hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

But I thought we procrastinate to feel better?

If it seems ironic that we procrastinate to avoid negative feelings, but end up feeling even worse, that’s because it is. And once again, we have evolution to thank. Procrastination is a perfect example of present bias, our hard-wired tendency to prioritize short-term needs ahead of long-term ones.

We weren’t designed to think ahead into the further future because we needed to focus on providing for ourselves in the here and now. We perceive our “future selves” more like strangers than as parts of ourselves. When we procrastinate, parts of our brains actually think that the tasks we’re putting off — and the accompanying negative feelings that await us on the other side — are somebody else’s problem.

Like Ted and Marshall from How I met your Mother say “let’s leave it to the future us. Ha!”

The Procrastination-Action Line

You cannot rely on long-term consequences and rewards to motivate the Present Self. Instead, you have to find a way to move future rewards and punishments into the present moment. You have to make future consequences become present consequences.

This is exactly what happens during the moment when we finally move beyond procrastination and take action. For example, let’s say you have a report to write. You’ve known about it for weeks and continued to put it off day after day. You experience a little bit of nagging pain and anxiety thinking about this paper you have to write, but not enough to do anything about it. Then, suddenly, the day before the deadline, the future consequences turn into present consequences, and you write that report hours before it is due. The pain of procrastinating finally escalated and you crossed the “Action Line.”

Procrastination-Action Line

There is something important to note here. As soon as you cross the Action Line, the pain begins to subside. Being in the middle of procrastination is often more painful than being in the middle of doing the work. Point A on the chart above is often more painful than Point B. The guilt, shame, and anxiety that you feel while procrastinating are usually worse than the effort and energy you have to put in while you’re working. The problem is not doing the work, it’s starting the work.

O.K. How to Stop Procrastinating Right Now

We must realize that, at its core, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity. The solution doesn’t involve downloading a time management app or learning new strategies for self-control. It has to do with managing our emotions in a new way.

Our brains are always looking for relative rewards. To rewire any habit, we have to give our brains what Dr. Brewer called the “Bigger Better Offer”.

Option 1: Make the Rewards of Taking Action More Immediate

Temptation bundling is a concept that came out of behavioral economics research performed by Katy Milkman at The University of Pennsylvania. Simply put, the strategy suggests that you bundle a behavior that is good for you in the long-run with a behavior that feels good in the short-run.

The basic format is: Only do [THINGS YOU LOVE] while doing [THINGS YOU PROCRASTINATE ON].

Here are a few common examples of temptation bundling:

• Only watch your favorite show while ironing or doing household chores.

• Only eat at your favorite restaurant when conducting your monthly meeting with a difficult colleague.

• Only listen to audiobooks or podcasts you love while exercising.

Option 2: Make the Consequences of Procrastination More Immediate

There are many ways to force you to pay the costs of procrastination sooner rather than later. For example, if you are exercising alone, skipping your workout next week won’t impact your life much at all. Your health won’t deteriorate immediately because you missed that one workout. The cost of procrastinating on exercise only becomes painful after weeks and months of lazy behavior. However, if you commit to working out with a friend at 7 a.m. next Monday, then the cost of skipping your workout becomes more immediate. Miss this one workout and you look like a jerk.

Option 3: Design Your Future Actions

One of the favorite tools psychologists use to overcome procrastination is called a “commitment device.” Commitment devices can help you stop procrastinating by designing your future actions ahead of time.

For example, you can curb your future eating habits by purchasing food in individual packages rather than in the bulk size. You can stop wasting time on your phone by deleting games or social media apps.

Conclusion

Life calendar of a 90-year-old

To understand this picture, have a look at the video Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | Tim Urban

In this TED Talk, internet writer Tim Urban explains what happens in the mind of a procrastinator — and why one specific form of waiting until the last minute leaves a lot of people feeling unfulfilled.

For procrastinators and non-procrastinators alike, both brains have a rational decision-maker in them, he says. It’s just that procrastinators fall prey to the instant gratification monkey, a feeling that encourages fun tasks over productive, sensible ones. Ultimately, he says rational decisions and instant gratification are both needed — just at the right times.

“That’s why there’s an overlap; sometimes they agree,” Urban says. “But other times it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant for the sake of the big picture, and that’s when we have a conflict.”

As deadlines approach, these conflicts play out in a place called the dark playground, where leisure activities take over — that is, until the panic monster arrives, and the procrastinator kicks into high gear.

Urban says that everyone procrastinates, but that deadline-driven procrastination differs from situational procrastination, like waiting to start a business. When there’s no real deadline, the panic monster doesn’t appear to give that extra push — which Urban says is the real source of some people’s frustration.

“It’s not that they’re cramming for some project; it’s that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator at times in their own lives,” Urban says. “The frustration is not that they couldn’t achieve their dreams; it’s that they weren’t even able to start chasing them.”

Look out for the instant gratification monkey. And try facing the task you have been procrastinating.

🎉🎉 Congratulations 🎉🎉

You have completed reading this article and if you were procrastinating, it’s time to get up and get the work done.

I have completed my blog on procrastination and I’ll move to do the more important task, what about you?