I am willing to bet that you did not know that procrastination is not about time management, lack of will power or being lazy. If you sometimes (or often) procrastinate, understanding how it works may help.
According to multiple experts who study it, procrastination is about mood regulation. Something about the task in front of you makes you feel boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment or self-doubt and, because of that, you choose to do something else instead. Ironically, then you feel even worse because you recognize that you made a poor choice to procrastinate and--of course--you still have the task to do.
There are ways to combat this:
“Our brains are always looking for relative rewards. If we have a habit loop 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,” said psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Judson Brewer, Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center. He suggests that you try to focus on the positive—a time when you did something similar and it worked out alright or the benefits of getting it done or how you will feel about yourself when it is done.
Other tricks may help you, too:
Curiosity: When you find yourself ready to procrastinate, focus instead on WHY you are feeling that way. What is it about the task you want to avoid that creates negative feelings in you? What does it bring to the surface? And how does the urge to procrastinate change when you really observe it?
Fool yourself a bit: Consider the ‘next action’ after the first step as optional. So do the very first part of the task right away, thinking about the second part of it as a ‘maybe’. Consider that action as ‘what I might do next’. Action follows thought and you are likely to find yourself starting the task and then just continuing. But it is easier to start if you only commit to the very first part of the task.
Make it hard to delay: Put obstacles in your own path to procrastination. For example, if you tend to turn to your social media when avoiding a task, delete those apps. If that is impossible (LOL), make your password really long and complicated. This is creating ‘friction’ around the avoidance. If you distract yourself from necessary tasks in the evening by watching TV, unplug it. Just making it so you have to plug it in each night may change your behavior.
Make it easier to get it done: Try to remove ALL obstacles to getting the task done. For example, if you find it hard to head out to exercise first thing in the morning, wear your gym clothes to bed. Then you can roll out of bed and straight to your workout with as little effort as possible.
To rewire any habit, we have to give our brains what Dr. Brewer called the “Bigger Better Offer” or “B.B.O.” The problem with this solution is that many of the better rewards we promise ourselves are ALSO ways to procrastinate.
A better solution is self-compassion, which is treating ourselves with kindness and understanding in the face of our mistakes and failures. Self-compassion doesn’t require anything external — just a commitment to meeting your challenges with greater acceptance and kindness rather than rumination and regret.
Just understanding why we do what we do is a big step toward doing things differently-and better. If you find that you sometimes or often procrastinate, I hope these tips will make it easier for you.