—What are the reasons behind it and how can we change our behaviour?
by Tracy-Ann Zahn
Why do we procrastinate? According to Psychologists, procrastination is a bit of a habit. And old habits that drag us down need to be replaced by new ones if we are to improve our behaviour.
Like any habit worth its nugget, procrastination is a slippery little sucker that likes to be elusive and yet promiscuous; rampant and decidedly cunning. It tricks us. It leads us into false deception. ‘Yea, though we walk through the valley of self-deception we may fear no success, for procrastination art with us; it’s justifications and lack of discipline comfort us…’
The habit of procrastination is one we say we wish to get rid of, or at the very least, manage, but somehow, we find it incessantly difficult to do either.
There are different approaches to procrastination, different behaviours for different personalities and different viewpoints as to why we procrastinate. Understanding why we procrastinate, may help us to change it.
Procrastination can best be understood by identifying emotions associated with the behaviour. We procrastinate to make our lives more pleasant—but wind up creating more stress and anxiety for ourselves because we end up with feelings of failure. And the more this occurs, the more the feelings of failure and imperfection are reinforced.
We want to achieve a goal— it’s something we value and respect.
But we delay it. And justify the reasons why.
We delay some more. We become self-critical. But still hide from the goal—we’re busy, we feel sick, our children are busy, our spouse is sick…
We delay still more until we can’t avoid doing it any longer. Our time has run out. We have to come up with the goods. But how good are the goods now that we’re in a rush?
We berate ourselves. “I should have done it sooner”. We swear we’ll never procrastinate again. OR we discount the importance of the task.
And then we repeat the process all over again.
So what are some of the reasons we may be caught in this trap?
Some people believe there are two different types of procrastinators. The relaxed type and the tense-afraid type.
The relaxed type of procrastinator often feels negatively about work and ‘forgets’ about it by playing. This is a denial based procrastinator. Things will work out ‘in the end’. This procrastinator avoids or disregards stress now in order to have a ‘happy life’ for the moment. She is easily frustrated and is self-indulgent. She can be addicted to people or preoccupied with meeting her basic emotional needs—attention or approval by loved ones, by peers; self esteem needs. Her thoughts may push her away from work. Long-range goals can take too much effort.
The tense-afraid type of procrastinator feels overwhelmed by pressures. She is unrealistic about time and uncertain about goals. She can be indecisive and blame others for her failures. She lacks confidence and can be a perfectionist. There is an underlying fear of failure with this type of procrastinator. She fears she’s lacking in ability; fearful of being imperfect and others thinking less of her. This type of procrastinator thinks her worth is determined by what she does which reflects on her performance and level of ability. She is afraid of being judged and found wanting.
We can probably all see certain aspects of ourselves in both types of procrastinator, but what are some of the reasons that we procrastinate?
False beliefs
Many procrastinators believe they work best under pressure. Apparently, studies show this generally isn’t true. We may decrease the time we take to do the job, and this may make us feel good, but it usually means our work isn’t as good as it could have been.
Fear of failure
We fall short because we don’t believe in ourselves. We don’t believe we have the talent or the skills to achieve the goal. Joseph Ferrari, Associate Professor of Psychology at Chicago’s DePaul University, says, “Procrastinators would rather be seen as lacking in effort than lacking in ability.” What if we try and we don’t succeed? What if we try and what we do is not good enough – it turns out we’re only average, when we wanted to believe we could be great? OR we may be scared of success. There’s a lot of responsibility that goes with being a success. “Procrastination is the fear of success… because success is heavy, it carries a responsibility with it. It is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.” (Denis Waitley).
Perfectionism
Perfectionists have anxiety performance. Maia Szalavitz, a freelance science writer and co-author of Recovery Options, says, “People who do their best because they want to win don’t procrastinate.” Perfectionists want to please others and feel they have to be perfect to do this. So they procrastinate. The fear of being found imperfect debilitates the best intentions and the maybe the best work. Szalavitz suggests perfectionism can be the death of a novel!
Self-Control
Impulsiveness and procrastination are problems of self-control. We get distracted easily.
Here’s a scenario for us NOT to role-play (I’m sure you’ve already done it—I know I have!) We’re writing. We break for coffee. Accidentally, we spill the coffee. We look at the filthy bench… oo, filthy cupboards… filthy stove, filthy microwave, filthy, filthy fridge… we grab a cloth and before we know it, we’re justifying the time spent to clean the kitchen. And still the computer waits. Patiently. The words are there, still buried in our brain… somewhere.
Punishing parenting
Children of authoritarian parents have a high tendency to procrastinate. Decisions are so often criticized that they postpone decisions—or the child may procrastinate as a form of rebellion.
Our environment shapes our behaviour. We may have picked up procrastination in our childhood but don’t know where or when or how. Thinking it through can shed some light on understanding why we procrastinate, which may help to change the behaviour.
Thrill-seeking
Maybe you’re an adrenaline junkie. Impossible, you say?
The thrill-seeker leaves things to the last minute until she just can’t leave it any longer. And finally, she makes a last ditch effort to get things done—in a mad rush. There’s always the chance she’ll miss the deadline (which a lot of procrastinators do and keep extending it) but is this how you want your life to be?
Task-related anxieties
Don’t we hate anything difficult or boring? So we put those difficult and boring things off. We want to put off our anxieties, so we think of something else we’d rather do—and then feel more anxious about what we’re putting off. But this doesn’t mean we don’t get anything done! No sir. John Perry, Philosophy Professor at Stamford University, says we can be a ‘structured procrastinator’. We have a list of things to do, in order of priority, and we never do the things at the top of the list. It’s a tool, you see. As soon as something more important comes along, we put that at the top of the list and, eventually, as things move down the list—et voila!—we get things done! It’s all a matter of prioritising your procrastination. Unfortunately, it’s all a matter of time as well.
Unclear Expectations
Ambiguity or vague priorities increase procrastination. As writers, especially if we’re unpublished writers with no external deadlines to meet, only our internal ones, it can be difficult to take ourselves seriously. (This would fall into the relaxed procrastinator type — we can always tell ourselves it’s not really that important; we’re in control; we can move the date if we like). Taking ourselves seriously and keeping clear goals is a start.
Depression
Depression can be a symptom as much as a result of procrastination and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Depressed people find it hard to feel pleasure in anything, so anything and everything — life — in fact, can seem pointless. It makes getting started a trial.
A depressed person needs to sit herself at the computer. Tell herself she’ll do just five minutes today. Usually, once she’s there, she’ll find she works for longer. As she builds up time, its likely her patterns of behaviour will change her attitude which will in turn, encourage her behaviour to further time spent achieving her goals. At last, her beliefs will change and she can acknowledge she really can do this. She doesn’t have to procrastinate. There is nothing to fear. And maybe she can even find pleasure in this again.
It’s not easy but learn to recognize diversions. Learn to recognize the self-defeating talk and rationalizations. Much of the time we create our own misery (which is different than depression) but everyone can find truths in this question. How does work become so disliked? We tell ourselves self-defeating scenarios. “It’s too hard.” “I can’t do it.” “I can’t cope with the stress.” “It’s a horrible job.” “I don’t know how.”
We need to build our own self-esteem or use rational-emotional imagery. “Where did we get the idea that life would always be easy and fun?” “Who said hard work is terrible?” Or “Who said we have to be the best?”
As a modern myth, it’s pretty destructive. Many times, we don’t think the situation through. A lot of the time we create our own emotional dislike, when really, there shouldn’t be a problem at all!
If our procrastination is quite chronic, it’s a good idea to observe and record the frequency and intensity of our behaviour. Then we can look at the pattern of our behaviour and think through ways we can develop changes to our behaviour.
What are some ways to combat our procrastination?>
Substitute an old response with a new response.
Are we cleaning when we should be writing? Are we surfing the net when we should be editing? Everyone needs to figure out a way to manage it that is right for them. Would it help to write for 10 minutes, then surf for 10 minutes, then write for 10 minutes, then surf for 10… Remember your self-talk—what are you justifying to yourself?
Goal set.
We set impossible goals to move around, which reinforces our feelings of failure.
Ask yourself:
What do I want to achieve by the end of the year?
What is realistic for me to achieve by the end of the year?
What about in two years time?
Break it down.
What are the things I’m going to have to do to achieve my goals?
Work out steps. Maybe you need more education first. Maybe you need to get into a consistent rhythm and build up discipline. Writing every day for five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour—an hour. Writing two pages. Editing five pages. Do what you can do, not what you think you ‘should’ be doing.
Self-evaluate and pace yourself.
Ask yourself: What can I manage—realistically?
Be easy on yourself at first and work your way up. Start with one goal a day and grow from there. Look at your performance over the week and see if you’ve improved. If you haven’t, ask yourself why. If you have—great! Add another goal to your list for the next week. Take things slowly and be good to yourself.
It’s possible many of us have just never learned to organize our time. Or maybe we’ve been rewarded for putting things off instead of finishing things (small rewards that make us feel good at the time can do this).
Ask yourself: What will the reward in itself be, if I achieve my aim?
Challenge attitudes of helplessness, of low self-concept.
Ask yourself: Where did I learn those attitudes?
Can I remember the first time I felt that way?
Challenge it and ask yourself why you still allow yourself to function that way.
Challenge your self-critic.
Ask yourself: Am I being too harsh on myself? OR
Am I being too easy on myself?
Challenge your resistance to change and develop positive expectations to change.
Nobody likes change. It can be scary and uncomfortable. You may not see the results straight away and then wonder why you had to bother. Try and remember the positive reasons you changed or want to change and remind yourself of those reasons.
Stop trying too hard.
Stop heaping more pressure on yourself when it’s only going to make you procrastinate more. Don’t beat yourself up when you trip up—just, remind yourself of your priorities and get back to it.
Most importantly, focus on your improvement and don’t compare yourself to others unless you know for sure, it fires you up instead of paralyses you. This is your life! This is about what you want to achieve in your lifetime. You may find some of your goals aren’t really that important to you after all. But some are, and you don’t want to regret not giving your all towards trying to make it happen.
If all else fails — Fantasise!
What would your heroine do? Fantasise your way into activity—just once or twice, don’t get into a habit about it—to get you swinging and show yourself that you can get down and do it.
Focus on the positive aspects of your task.
If you think you don’t want to do something or are afraid you won’t be able to come up with the goods, you’re not going to motivate yourself to do anything. What do you like about the task? What is it you’re wanting to achieve? What’s the goal you have in mind today? This week? This month? This year? Why do you want to do this task? Remind yourself of the reason.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” (Charles Kingsley)
This workshop was presented at the Auckland chapter meeting, August 2004. Information was researched from www.mentalhealth.com, a paper by Maia Szalavitz “Stand and Deliver”, www.psychologytoday.com, and a paper by Professor John Perry on Structured Procrastination, www.csli.stanford.edu.