Procrastination is about emotions not productivity
We must realize that, at its foundation, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity. That means treatment doesn’t involve downloading the latest time management app, it has to do with managing our emotions in a new way.
Our brains are always looking for rewards. So if we’ve created a habit around procrastination but we haven’t found a better reward, our brain is just going to keep doing it over and over until we give it something better to do.
To rewire any habit, we have to give our brains what’s known as the Bigger Better Offer.
In the case of procrastination, we have to find a better reward than avoidance — one that can relieve our challenging feelings in the present moment without causing harm to our future selves. The difficulty with breaking the addiction to procrastination in particular is that there is an infinite number of potential substitute actions that would still be forms of procrastination. That’s why the solution to what we’re describing here has to be an internal one, and not dependent on anything but ourselves.
Self-forgiveness and self-compassion
One option is to forgive yourself in the moments you procrastinate. In a 2010 study, researchers found that students who were able to forgive themselves for procrastinating when studying for a first exam ended up procrastinating less when studying for their next exam. They concluded that self-forgiveness supported productivity by allowing “the individual to move past their maladaptive behaviour and focus on the upcoming examination without the burden of past acts.”
Another tactic is the related practice of self-compassion, which is treating ourselves with kindness and understanding in the face of our mistakes and failures. In a 2012 study examining the relationship between stress, self-compassion and procrastination, Dr. Sirois found that procrastinators tend to have high stress and low self-compassion, suggesting that self-compassion provides “a buffer against negative reactions to self-relevant events.”
In fact, several studies show that self-compassion supports motivation and personal growth. Not only does it decrease psychological distress, which we now know is a primary culprit for procrastination, it also actively boosts motivation, enhances feelings of self-worth and fosters positive emotions like optimism, wisdom, curiosity and personal initiative. Best of all, self-compassion doesn’t require anything external — just a commitment to meeting your challenges with greater acceptance and kindness rather than regret.
That may be easier said than done, but try to reframe the task by considering a positive aspect of it. You could remind yourself of a time you did something similar and it turned out fine. Or maybe think about the beneficial outcome of completing the task. What might your boss or spouse say when you show them your finished work?
How will you feel about yourself?
A-B-C procrastination tips
Why not try our A-B-C procrastination tips of managing those procrastination triggers:
Address the temptation: If you’re feeling tempted to procrastinate, bring your attention to the sensations arising in your mind and body. What feelings are causing your temptation? Where do you feel them in your body? What do they remind you of? What happens to the thought of procrastinating as you observe it? Does it intensify? Dissipate? Cause other emotions to arise? How are the sensations in your body shifting as you continue to rest your awareness on them?
Buffer zone the temptation: Make your temptations more inconvenient: It’s still easier to change our circumstances than ourselves, said Gretchen Rubin, author of “Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits.” According to Ms. Rubin, we can take what we know about procrastination and “use it to our advantage” by placing obstacles between ourselves and our temptations to induce a certain degree of frustration or anxiety. If you compulsively check social media, delete those apps from your phone or “give yourself a really complicated password with not just five digits, but 12,” Ms. Rubin said. By doing this, you’re adding friction to the procrastination cycle and making the reward value of your temptation less immediate.
On the other side of the coin, Ms. Rubin also suggests that we make the things we want to do as easy as possible for ourselves. If you want to go to the gym before work but you’re not a morning person, sleep in your exercise clothes. “Try to remove every, every, every roadblock,” Ms. Rubin says.
Consider the next action: This is different to the age-old advice to break up a task you’re tempted to avoid into bite-sized chunks. According to Dr. Pychyl, focusing only on the “next action” helps calm our nerves, and it allows for what Dr. Pychyl called “a layer of self-deception.” At the start of a given task, consider the next action as a mere possibility: “What’s the next action I’d take on this if I were going to do it, even though I’m not?” Maybe you would open your email. Or perhaps you would put the date at the top of your document. Don’t wait to be in the mood to do a certain task. “Motivation follows action. Get started, and you’ll find your motivation follows,” Dr. Pychyl said.
Self-honesty
Perhaps the most significant wake up call procrastination brings is that of honesty, not to others, but to ourselves. Procrastination is deeply personal, as it raises questions about how we want to spend our time as opposed to how we actually do, and if there’s a misalignment between the two, then we need to ask why?
Procrastination is a reminder of our common frailty — we’re all vulnerable to painful feelings, and most of us just want to be happy with the choices we make, but we can control it, rather than it controlling us.
Now go and make those drinks for you and your associates before it becomes your next procrastination temptation 🙂
Ruth
