Procrastination. How to Tackle It Before It Tackles You!

by Loretta Mui

Procrastination is a common human experience, most of us have encountered it in our lives. You probably know it as the nagging feeling that comes when putting off that thing you know you should be doing. It amazes me when I find myself getting distracted by smaller tasks, like cleaning my room when I have a deadline (interesting how cleaning is less tiresome when we’re presented with an urgent task!). 

However, for some of us, procrastination can become a deeper experience: A stuckness that can erode our sense of self or even self respect over time. Anything that holds the slightest amount of pressure or importance begins to prompt procrastination and the cycle of delay, avoidance, and procrastination become all too familiar. Let’s look at the reasons for procrastination and explore some skills to reduce its influence. 

Why do we procrastinate? 

Interestingly, procrastination is not as tied to time management as commonly thought. It’s actually a lot more entwined with how we feel about the task at hand, the person, or the situation. The desire to procrastinate tends to visit when we are confronted with a task or situation that stirs uncomfortable emotions. There’s often some kind of pressure behind it. Or, perhaps we fear a particular outcome (hint: most of the time it’s a fear of being judged or a fear of failure). 

As the uncomfortable emotional stimuli increases (i.e anxiety increases), the brain steers you away from the activity causing discomfort in its attempt to keep you safe. This automatic function is attributed to the limbic system which is responsible for emotions and memory. This part of the brain, which is older and more dominant than the prefrontal cortex (responsible for conscious decision making), finds a way to regulate through “immediate mood repair”. This explains a lot as to why we reach for the phone to scroll social media or find ourselves distracted by smaller tasks! 

Other factors play a role in our tendency to procrastinate. Procrastination can be influenced by our home environment, a history of trauma, facing an intense pressure to succeed, what you’ve learned about managing tasks, neurodivergence and more. 

How to work with procrastination? 

Procrastination can wear us down, so what can we do about it? We can start by getting curious, noticing the procrastination when it is visiting us, and finding out what that may be. I encourage  this noticing and awareness development in therapy sessions because what we don’t notice, we can’t really address more proactively. 

I would like to encourage you or invite you to think of yourself as separate from procrastination. It is a behaviour, not who you are or your sense of identity. This mental untangling is known as externalizing, a narrative therapy technique which is handy for separating who we are from the ‘problem’ and gaining perspective on the ‘problem’. 

So I invite you to take a moment and ask yourself:

• Is there something I have been struggling to accomplish and putting off? 
• How do I feel towards this task/situation/person? Anxious? Frustrated? Fearful? Confused? 

Allow yourself to be curious as to what feelings come up for you and how procrastination shows up in your life. What are some signs of procrastination? Are there familiar ways it operates in your life? Then ask yourself these questions:

• What am I concerned about or fearful will happen?
• Am I fearful of judgment? Fearful of failure? Fearful of rejection? 

Naming the fear, the emotion underlying the behaviour, can help us learn how to work with procrastination. If you notice there is a fear of rejection, you’re aware of a fear of others’ reactions, that people might be mad or upset with you…Check in with yourself: Is this based in fact or assumption? If you have a fear of failure, are you basing your sense of self on how well you achieve? Am I anxious about perfection and therefore, I believe it’s better to lack initiative rather than make an attempt or take a risk? Getting curious about the stories we tell ourselves helps us to stay engaged with our emotions, reactions, and physical sensations. Being curious can help us shift out of stuck behaviour patterns so we’re less likely to give into procrastination. 

And finally, get curious if there is fear about letting go of procrastination. Are you fearful of losing something that has worked in the past? Might you feel lost without it? Ahhhh! That’s a reason that hits home for a lot of people. 

With these curiosity building exercises, it is my hope that it helps to normalize the experience of procrastination, and to validate that there are real reasons why us humans turn to these strategies. Listening to yourself and what is happening for you on a deeper level, can be the start of a very rewarding journey of changing your relationship to procrastination.

Source:

https://www.additudemag.com/why-do-i-procrastinate/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/procrastinate