4.5: Procrastination- The Enemy Within

Questions to consider:

• Why do we procrastinate?
• What are the effects of procrastination?
• How can we avoid procrastination?

Figure 4.10: We can think of many creative ways to procrastinate, but the outcome is often detrimental. (Credit: University of the Fraser Valley / Flickr / Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

Simply put, procrastination is the act of delaying some task that needs to be completed. It is something we all do to greater and lesser degrees. For most people, a little minor procrastination is not a cause for great concern. But there are situations where procrastination can become a serious problem with a lot of risk. These include: when it becomes a chronic habit, when there are a number of tasks to complete and little time, or when the task being avoided is very important.

Because we all procrastinate from time to time, we usually do not give it much thought, let alone think about its causes or effects. Ironically, many of the psychological reasons for why we avoid a given task also keep us from using critical thinking to understand why procrastination can be extremely detrimental, and in some cases difficult to overcome.

To succeed at time management, you must understand some of the hurdles that may stand in your way. Procrastination is often one of the biggest. What follows is an overview of procrastination with a few suggestions on how to avoid it.

The Reasons behind Procrastination

There are several reasons we procrastinate, and a few of them may be surprising. On the surface we often tell ourselves it is because the task is something we do not want to do, or we make excuses that there are other things more important to do first. In some cases this may be true, but there can be other contributors to procrastination that have their roots in our physical well-being or our own psychological motivations.

Lack of Energy

Sometimes we just do not feel up to a certain task. It might be due to discomfort, an illness, or just a lack of energy. If this is the case, it is important to identify the cause and remedy the situation. It could be something as simple as a lack of sleep or improper diet. Regardless, if a lack of energy is continually causing you to procrastinate to the point where you are beginning to feel stress over not getting things done, you should definitely assess the situation and address it.

Lack of Focus

Much like having low physical energy, a lack of mental focus can be a cause of procrastination. This can be due to mental fatigue, being disorganized, or allowing yourself to be distracted by other things. Again, like low physical energy, this is something that may have farther-reaching effects in your life that go beyond the act of simply avoiding a task. If it is something that is recurring, you should properly assess the situation.

Fear of Failure

This cause of procrastination is not one that many people are aware of, especially if they are the person avoiding tasks because of it. To put it in simple words, it is a bit of trickery we play on ourselves by avoiding a situation that makes us psychologically uncomfortable. Even though they may not be consciously aware of it, the person facing the task is afraid that they cannot do it or will not be able to do it well. If they fail at the task, it will make them appear incompetent to others or even to themselves. Where the self-trickery comes in is by avoiding the task. In the person’s mind, they can rationalize that the reason they failed at the task was because they ran out of time to complete it, not that they were incapable of doing it in the first place.

It is important to note that a fear of failure may not have anything to do with the actual ability of the person suffering from it. They could be quite capable of doing the task and performing well, but it is the fear that holds them back.

ANALYSIS QUESTION

Consider something right now that you may be procrastinating about. Are you able to identify the cause?

The Effects of Procrastination

In addition to the causes of procrastination, you must also consider what effects it can have. Again, many of these effects are obvious and commonly understood, but some may not be so obvious and may cause other issues.

Loss of Time

The loss of time as an effect of procrastination is the easiest to identify since the act of avoiding a task comes down to not using time wisely. Procrastination can be thought of as using the time you have to complete a task in ways that do not accomplish what needs to be done.

Loss of Goals

Another of the more obvious potentially adverse effects of procrastination is the loss of goals. Completing a task leads to achieving a goal. These can be large or small (e.g., from doing well on an assignment to being hired for a good job). Without goals you might do more than delay work on a task—you may not complete it at all. The risk for the loss of goals is something that is very impactful.

Loss of Self-Esteem

Often, when we procrastinate we become frustrated and disappointed in ourselves for not getting important tasks completed. If this continues to happen, we can begin to develop a low opinion of ourselves and our own abilities. We begin to suffer from low self-esteem and might even begin to feel like there is something wrong with us. This can lead to other increasingly negative mental factors such as anger and depression. As you can see, it is important for our own well-being to avoid this kind of procrastination effect.

Stress

Procrastination causes stress and anxiety, which may seem odd since the act of procrastination is often about avoiding a task we think will be stressful in itself! Anyone who has noticed that nagging feeling when they know there is something else they should be doing is familiar with this.

On the other hand, some students see that kind of stress as a boost of mental urgency. They put off a task until they feel that surge of motivation. While this may have worked in the past, they quickly learn that procrastinating when it comes to college work almost always includes an underestimation of the tasks to be completed— sometimes with disastrous results.

Strategies for Psyching Ourselves Out and Managing Procrastination

Now that you understand a few of the major problems procrastination can produce, let’s look at methods to manage procrastination and get you on to completing the tasks, no matter how unpleasant you think they might be.

Get Organized

Much of this chapter is dedicated to defining and explaining the nature of time management. The most effective way to combat procrastination is to use time and project management strategies such as schedules, goal setting, and other techniques to get tasks accomplished in a timely manner.

Put Aside Distractions

Several of the methods discussed in this chapter deal specifically with distractions. Distractions are time-killers and are the primary way people procrastinate. It is too easy to just play a video game a little while longer, check out social media, or finish watching a movie when we are avoiding a task. Putting aside distractions is one of the primary functions of setting priorities.

Reward Yourself

Rewarding yourself for the completion of tasks or meeting goals is a good way to avoid procrastination. An example of this would be rewarding yourself with the time to watch a movie you would enjoy after you have finished the things you need to do, rather than using the movie to keep yourself from getting things done.

Be Accountable—Tell Someone Else

A strong motivational tool is to hold ourselves accountable by telling someone else we are going to do something and when we are going to do it. This may not seem like it would be very effective, but on a psychological level we feel more compelled to do something if we tell someone else. It may be related to our need for approval from others, or it might just serve to set a level of commitment. Either way, it can help us stay on task and avoid procrastination—especially if we take our accountability to another person seriously enough to warrant contacting that person and apologizing for not doing what we said we were going to do.

Adapted from- University 101: Study, Strategize and Succeed by Kwantlen Polytechnic

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, the learner will:

• Understand what procrastination is and why we do it.
• Strategize how to deal with procrastination so that it does not impede progress toward set goals.

Escape the procrastination trap

What is procrastination?

Definition: To delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay (Steel, 2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.

Why do we procrastinate?

Procrastination is not a “one size fits all” problem. We procrastinate for a variety of different reasons. The first step in tackling procrastination is to do some detective work – to figure out – without judgment – why it might be that you procrastinate.

Reasons for Procrastination

People procrastinate for a variety of different reasons:

1. Not being sure of how to do the task at hand. If a task seems difficult, or if you’re not sure you know how to complete it, it is natural to avoid tackling it.
2. The task to be done doesn’t interest you, and it seems preferable to work on tasks (e.g. other courses) that are more in line with your personal interests. You may lack motivation to work on the task.
3. Fear of not doing well on the task. Trying hard at a task and failing might seem worse than failing because you didn’t try. Often a root cause of this type of procrastination is perfectionism.
4. Or, you might fear the opposite. Some people fear being too successful, because the result of this success is that people will expect more of you the next time.

Identifying the cause of procrastination can help you move towards a solution. Here are some suggested solutions for each of the four causes mentioned above:

Table

I’m not sure I know how to do it	Look for ways to develop your skills in the areas where you feel unsure of your ability to be successful. For example: Make an appointment with a math or accounting tutor to learn how to solve a difficult type of problem Make an appointment with a writing tutor to develop an outline for your paper Learn from library staff how to use the research tools that are available Make an appointment with a learning strategist to learn how to read more effectively Rather than procrastinating, you can empower yourself to be successful. The skills you gain will help you not only on one task, but on other related tasks in the future.
I’m not interested in this task/it isn’t motivating for me	Choose to “just do it”, and complete the task, allowing yourself guilt free time after it is done. Consider how continuing to dread the task might be taking away from future enjoyment of other things. Consider your attitude towards things that are uninteresting – is your attitude preventing you from finding the motivation you need? Is it realistic to expect that you will always have interesting or enjoyable tasks? Consider how the task at hand relates to your long-term goals. For example, perhaps the course is not interesting to you, but it will help you achieve your goal of finishing your degree, and obtaining employment in an area that interests you.
I’m afraid of failing/I’m afraid of what success might mean	Consider whether you have developed unrealistic standards for yourself. How can you set realistic goals for what it means to be successful?

Getting Started

The good news is that the approaches that do not work very well or do not really help in managing time do not get passed along very often. But others, those which people find of value, do. What follows here are three unique strategies that have become staples of time management. While not everyone will find that all three work for them in every situation, enough people have found them beneficial to pass them along with high recommendations.

Daily Top Three

The idea behind the daily top three approach is that you determine which three things are the most important to finish that day, and these become the tasks that you complete. It is a very simple technique that is effective because each day you are finishing tasks and removing them from your list. Even if you took one day off a week and completed no tasks on that particular day, a daily top three strategy would have you finishing 18 tasks in the course of a single week. That is a good amount of things crossed off your list.

analysis question

Analysis: Think about what would be your top three tasks for today? What would you have on the list tomorrow?

Pomodoro Technique

Figure 4.11: The Pomodoro Technique is named after a type of kitchen timer, but you can use any clock or countdown timer. (Marco Verch /Flickr / Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0))

The Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo. The basic concept is to use a timer to set work intervals that are followed by a short break. The intervals are usually about 25 minutes long and are called pomodoros, which comes from the Italian word for tomato because Cirillo used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to keep track of the intervals.

In the original technique there are six steps:

1. Decide on the task to be done.
2. Set the timer to the desired interval.
3. Work on the task.
4. When the timer goes off, put a check mark on a piece of paper.
5. If you have fewer than four check marks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to Step 1 or 2 (whichever is appropriate).
6. After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your check mark count to zero, and then go to Step 1 or 2.

Figure 4.12: The Pomodoro Technique contains five defined steps.

There are several reasons this technique is deemed effective for many people. One is the benefit that is derived from quick cycles of work and short breaks. This helps reduce mental fatigue and the lack of productivity caused by it. Another is that it tends to encourage practitioners to break tasks down to things that can be completed in about 25 minutes, which is something that is usually manageable from the perspective of time available. It is much easier to squeeze in three 25-minute sessions of work time during the day than it is to set aside a 75- minute block of time.

Eat the Frog

Of our three quick strategies, eat the frog probably has the strangest name and may not sound the most inviting. The name comes from a famous quote, attributed to Mark Twain: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Eat the Frog is also the title of a best-selling book by Brian Tracy that deals with time management and avoiding procrastination.

How this applies to time and task management is based on the concept that if a person takes care of the biggest or most unpleasant task first, everything else will be easier after that.

Although stated in a humorous way, there is a good deal of truth in this. First, we greatly underestimate how much worry can impact our performance. If you are continually distracted by anxiety over a task you are dreading, it can affect the task you are working on at the time. Second, not only will you have a sense of accomplishment and relief when the task you are concerned with is finished and out of the way, but other tasks will seem lighter and not as difficult.

Figure 4.13 Timer

A key aspect of overcoming procrastination is developing strategies to get started. Often, committing to complete one small task can be enough to begin moving ahead. For example, just taking out your laptop, creating a document, and typing the title can create some forward momentum.

A well-known technique for managing time that can help with procrastination is called the Pomodoro Technique. This technique is a method of managing procrastination by breaking down your work periods into small, manageable units. Here’s how it works:

1. Choose the task you want to accomplish.
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes- no interruptions are allowed!
3. Work until the timer rings.
4. Take a short break.
5. Do up to 4 Pomodoros and then take a longer break.

Why the Method Works

The Pomodoro technique can help you push past procrastination and create forward momentum because it requires you to commit to only a small, manageable period of work. In addition, it can help you discipline yourself to work without interruptions, and can create awareness of how much time individual tasks take. Lastly, this method allows you to reward yourself with frequent breaks, which maintains motivation.

Activity 3.2 Defeat procrastination

Take some concrete steps this week to defeat procrastination.

1. Of the reasons listed above, why do you tend to procrastinate? What is one step you will take this week to defeat procrastination?
2. Try the Pomodoro technique once this week. Do you find that it helps you get started and stay focused?