Understanding a common challenge: Procrastination

Have you ever cleaned your entire home instead of tackling the one activity you truly wanted to do? Have you ever worked on something totally unimportant rather than the one task you really needed to focus on? If so, you might have also felt guilt, anger, panic or stress once the deadline for the task you delayed ‘suddenly’ became imminent?

If you have never experienced any of the above, congratulations! You are one of probably five lucky percent of people that do not procrastinate ever. For the rest of us, it probably feels common to occasionally or even regularly procrastinate at work, during studies or with personal quests.

Knowing the reasons for your procrastination will help shift your focus from coming up with delaying strategies to tackling meaningful tasks and utilizing your true potential better. Therefore, let’s look at what is going on inside of us that leads to putting things off. But before, let’s understand what procrastination is – and what it is not.

Some myths about procrastination

First things first, procrastination has nothing to do with laziness. Our home that is cleaner than ever or the tasks we ticked off our to do list (while not starting with the big one) are proof of that.

Even though sometimes Netflix might be our way of delaying an important task, we should not confuse procrastination with relaxation either. Feeling guilty after (for not having done what we intended to) doesn’t qualify as a way to recharge and energize.

Some people like to believe that time pressure brings out the best in us and putting off something important is helping us do better. I used to believe that myself for some time. But if we are truly honest with ourselves, when are we able to produce our best quality work: when we can schedule enough time for each step of the way – including breaks and check points – or when we need to rush it all and are deprived from sleep to meet a deadline?

I would also debate that time management tools are THE solution to overcoming procrastination. Let me get back to this point later and just say for now: it is just not that simple.

What all of these myths have in common is that believing them increases your stress level. You very likely beat yourself up when you think that you are lazy or have relaxed instead of giving that big task the attention it needs. Same goes when you feel that you are a lost cause when it comes to time management. And you will probably notice smaller or bigger mistakes when it is too late in those cases you performed an important task last minute.

What procrastination really does: keeping us from feeling fulfilled

Procrastination is a habit of delaying the starting or finishing of a task, even when we know it might have negative consequences. It is essentially a blocker, keeping us from accomplishing something we want or need to do. We act against better judgement, avoiding difficult to do’s and sometimes deliberately look for distractions.

Like any blocker, procrastination initially exists as an internal defense mechanism to protect us from ourselves. In this case, your brain might want to protect you from a tendency to perfectionism, fear of failure or judgement. Your brain might want you to avoid the task altogether and busies you with something else so you might forget.

Another ‘habit’ of our brain that can influence procrastination is that it values immediate rewards higher than future ones. It’s basically telling you that you can have a clean home today rather than say do some study related to a master’s degree you can only obtain in a year.

When we manage not to procrastinate and actually are productive regarding that one important task, that’s when we feel most accomplished and fulfilled. And if we do not delay things that matter the most to us, we might even accomplish our key goals in the foreseeable future and feel we are doing something meaningful.

So why do we procrastinate then?

The reasons for procrastination are as individual as it gets

It might help differentiating at this stage between tasks you procrastinate on that

1. you should do – e.g. if they are part of your work responsibilities or chores – anything that just has to be done
2. you want to do – e.g. to do your work more efficiently, that might influence your career progression or will teach you something new – anything that is linked to achieving personal or professional goals and growth.

The reasons for putting them off might be similar at times but can also differ widely. Knowing in which category the current victim of your procrastination falls into therefore might make it easier to figure out its cause.

Here are some common reasons to investigate for your case:

• the belief you won’t enjoy a task
• lack of motivation / understanding what you are doing it for
• fear that you won’t do it well or well enough
• underestimating the time required to complete the task
• the feeling to lack skills or knowledge to tackle it
• paralysis when it comes to where to start
• doubt if you really want to do it or if it will lead to your goal
• and many more

There is no one size fits all solution to overcoming your procrastination

Here we are back at the topic of time management. Time management tools promise to make us more productive and not procrastinate anymore. They might actually help in some areas of your life for some of the above reasons, yet, if the cause of your procrastination lies elsewhere, no time management tool can help you progress on that particular task rooted in a different issue.

If you look closely, the listed common reasons for procrastination are actually just the tip of the iceberg. They are often based on underlying beliefs, self-judgement or deeper fears we have. This is where coaching can help you understand better what is behind any of these. Your coach is trained to act as a thinking partner, asking powerful questions you might not ask yourself that will lead you to discover the deeper cause of your procrastination and ultimately guide you to overcome it.

Maybe the belief that keeps you procrastinating doesn’t serve you and you want to overwrite it with a belief that is actually true for you.

Maybe you need a boost of confidence to realize that you in fact have everything you need in order to accomplish what you aim for.

Maybe you aren’t clear on your true goals. That clarity could give you the motivation to take steps towards achieving them.

Particularly for tasks that you want rather than the shoulds, understanding yourself better and working on yourself – your confidence, your vision for yourself, your capability to not judge yourself – can help to truly overcome procrastination. Not just for one task at hand but to create a more meaningful future.

A life lead with purpose and determination is achievable. To know more, contact me at pia@ipseitycoaching.com.