How To Beat Procrastination

Procrastination is one of those things that just happens. No matter how hard you try, there’s always something you could be doing, but you’re putting it off, even it’s in favour of a different task. For example, I’m totally procrastinating right now by working on my blog. What I should be doing is more revision, but I just don’t want to. Plus, that leads me nicely onto the reason why we procrastinate so much.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

Before we work on trying to stop procrastinating, it’s important to understand why we are procrastinating. There’s multiple influences on how we behave every single day, and you may procrastinate for completely different reasons from one day to the next

Lack of Motivation

A main cause for procrastination is a lack of motivation or incentive to get the task done. Both intrinsic motivation, which is your internal motivational rewards such as personal pride or interest in the subject at hand, and extrinsic motivation, which is external to you like bonuses at work or a good grade from your teacher, are vital to how your perform tasks.

If you lack motivation, it’s often a struggle to self-insert benefits or negatives which will make you motivated towards the task at hand. However, it isn’t impossible to get over this hurdle. If it’s a reward you need, like with revision, tell yourself you can have a chocolate after every page you read or write to encourage yourself. When your task doesn’t seem important, sit down and write out exactly what will happen if you do finish the task, and if you don’t finish the task and reassess whether it’s truly unimportant.

If you’re truly not interested, try a different perspective or a different way of getting the task done that may be a bit easier for you. For example, I hate writing revision notes, so every so often I take a break from notes, and draw a mind map and colour code items, and I make it more interesting than just writing lines. It’s a really basic change, and it doesn’t actually make revision more fun, but it changes the task up that little bit which gives me an extra push.

Disconnect Between Present and Future

A common cause of procrastination is a disconnect between your present and future self. The human mind automatically wants that instant gratification, and so when you’re procrastinating, you’re often doing something that is easier or more pleasant for yourself than the task you’re supposed to be doing. This is because your mind is not looking for the long-term gratification that you’ll get from that task.

This disconnect will naturally start to fade as you get closer to your deadline however, which is why many people actually work better when they’re close to a deadline. A part of your brain is signalling the time pressure you have which gives you negative motivation to finish the task.

Decision Fatigue

Have you ever decided that you’re going to spend a whole day working on projects and getting stuff done? And then you get to the day, and by the end you’re exhausted and the last 3 hours have been a complete write-off? Yeah… that’s due to decision fatigue. When you constantly work on tasks, and you’re not taking breaks your brains decision making process will start to automatically drift towards the easiest answer. Which are often the smaller, less necessary tasks and you’ll often fall prey to avoiding the bigger tasks that you’re unmotivated for, even if they’re important. Remember that you need to take breaks for your brain to work to its full capacity.

Fear of Success and Failure

So many people fall for the last cause of procrastination. Whether it’s failure or success, the fear you feel may be immobilising you to the point where your work never gets done. Fear of failure may help force you into action in order to succeed, however fear is the only cause that is rarely helped by time pressure.

In order to tackle ‘The Fear’ it’s usually best to plan out for every possible contingency. If you do fail, what will you do? If you succeed, then what? This is a time where you need to really overthink and analyse possible situations, which may seem like procrastination but it’s in order to get over procrastinating.

Benefits of Procrastinating

Although there’s a lot of negatives of procrastinating, and it’s often looked at with disdain and judgement (have you ever been the friend trying to annoy others in the library to talk to you? Just me? Okaay…), there are some benefits for my fellow procrastinators.

Know When to Take a Break

Firsty, procrastination can often be a clear indicator from your brain that it needs a break. This is especially the case if you’re getting decision fatigue a lot, but it also happens even if you’re minimising your decisions during your tasks. Plain old fatigue and burnout often occur and make you want to focus on different tasks.

Despite procrastinating, people often want to continue working even if it’s not productive anymore and refuse to take breaks. So instead of taking a 5 or 10 minute break which will revitalise you, people tend to keep doing the minimal tasks on their to-do list like checking emails which often waste time and reduce productivity way more than having a break. This is often because they want to stay in their work ‘flow’, but actually taking that break will keep you more motivated in the long-run, which helps with flow.

Your brain is the most vital and complex organ in your body, if it’s telling you it needs some selfcare, then listen to it like your would your muscles after a workout or your stomach if it’s hungry. Look after it, and it will be able to look after you!

Know Which Tasks Interest You

Next is that when you procrastinate, you’re often moving to do tasks that you actually find interesting and enjoy. Working on tasks you find interesting will then logically produce better results than you forcing yourself to do something you hate. The extra motivation will help produce higher quality work.

On the other hand, forcing yourself to do tasks that you really don’t want to do will give less than perfect results. If you’ve ever forced yourself through a task and found only average results you’ll know what I mean.

Basically, procrastination can lead you to doing more work that you’re interested in, and therefore have more work that has amazing results than forcing yourself to do something you don’t like. Unfortunately this is the real world, so some of those less interesting tasks may need to be done as well, but being able to show your manager some fantastic results may give you a bit of leeway when your average task comes to the table.

Also if you keep finding that you’re completely uninterested in tasks from one area of your life. Whether it’s work, or studying or a hobby which you’ve always done… this could be the nudge towards reassessing your life. Do you really want to do these things, or is there something else that would interest you more? And how can you get there?

Shows Your Priorities

Procrastinating can help to show you which tasks are a priority as you go to do them first, and which tasks can afford to wait a while. It may also show you which tasks could be dropped entirely. And so, you can prioritise your tasks better on a weekly or monthly basis.

Also, by putting of tasks that don’t need to be done straight away, it may actually be more productive in the long run. If something doesn’t need to be completed for two weeks, that’s two whole weeks where other people involved can make decisions to change what is needed or what is involved. If you were to complete it immediately, it may need to be edited multiple times, which will actually take even more of your time away.

Also, the time pressure can help you work on tasks as it helps to focus you. On the other hand though, you will be able to see even more of the tasks that you find important to you when prioritising tasks. If a task doesn’t even have a deadline, but you’re doing it, you can tell that you do truly love it and it’s not an obligation.

Time Pressure Equals Focus

I’ve talked a lot about time pressure… and it’s a pretty important benefit of procrastination. A lot of people actually work their best under pressure, and so procrastinating can actually lead you to producing great work. You’ll often work at your full capacity in order to meet the deadline (this is sometimes called crunch time).

However this one is not for everyone, and if time pressure actually gives you ‘The Fear’ maybe try to avoid procrastinating that long. There may also be a drawback of risking burnout if you leave it to crunch time for every single task and they all come at one time. This may create a vicious cycle which leaves you even less motivated for similar tasks in the future.

Negatives of Procrastination

Whilst you can argue there’s quite a few positives that come out of procrastination, especially if you’re the kind of person who can deal with the extra pressure, there’s also huge drawbacks that you need to be careful of.

Stress

Even if you work well under pressure, stress is never a good thing. The way your body and mind reacts to stress is different for everyone, but a lot of the time it negatively impacts you. It can affect your moods, your health and it can also cause physical changes such as hair loss and skin problems.

So obviously if you’re constantly putting yourself under pressure and stress, it may help in the short term to get shit done, but in the long term it can be overwhelming. If you let too many tasks build up then you may get overloaded, and decision fatigue may get worse which causes even more procrastination.

Stress can be a cyclical problem and you may fall into it and struggle to get back out because of constant procrastination and crunch time that starts to become habitual. Give yourself time pressure when it helps, but only in moderation or you’ll end up with burnout.

Important Tasks Delayed

Another problem with procrastination is that all of those tasks that you’re avoiding for better and more interesting tasks may actually be important. Maybe not to you personally, but that task from work may be important to larger plan that maybe you don’t know all about, but someone is depending on you.

If important work is being put off, that you can strain your relationships with those you’re working with, and can negatively impact what people perceive of you in your role.  But, if you’re smart enough to get everything done still despite procrastination, you may be able to bypass this one.

Instead of leaving these tasks too long, you should change your perceptions of that tasks to understand their importance. Give them a proper deadline if they’re not time sensitive or chat with the project leader about what this adds to it to find importance to drive you.  

Being Too Busy

When you’re procrastinating, you often work on the smaller more manageable tasks, those ones that have less decisions and don’t take up as much mental strain. However once these are all done you’re left with a large project that you’ve spent no time on. Now what happens when in the small amount of time you’ve left yourself you start to get even more small tasks to add to your to-do list?

Most people like to finish the small tasks – because it makes you feel productive! But continuously clearing your small task list, means you’ll never have the time to tackle those big projects. This creates even more stress and pressure on you, and can push you into a cycle of procrastination.

Therefore, prioritising your task list is super important, don’t get too worked up about the small tasks before you’ve started your big project. Maybe breaking down your project into many smaller tasks and prioritising them will help, maybe just getting into a flow state of work will. But there’s emphasis on changing your perception to make the task seem easier to complete in order to motivate yourself to start and stop procrastinating.

What happens when you procrastinate for too long?

So there’s positives and negatives to procrastination, however getting a balance right to gain the positives without feeling the burn of the negatives can be complicated. I mentioned above about getting into a habit, and getting stuck in a vicious cycle and this is exactly what happens when you procrastinate too much.

Because procrastination is often giving you instant gratification, you often get used to the pressure and you end up performing worse at all tasks due to stress on your health and mind.

So… How To Beat Procrastination?

Understand What Kind Of Procrastination You’re Doing

Not every way to beat procrastination will work every time, and that’s because of the different types of procrastination mentioned above. Decision fatigue will mean taking a rest of some sort, removing yourself from making decisions for just a little while, whereas with motivation procrastination you’ll be able to do work, but it needs to be something that gives you a reward you’re happy with.

Be Nice To Yourself

If you are suffering through procrastination, and you think it could be decision fatigue or the Fear then make sure you’re being nice to yourself. Give yourself that break or write about how you’re feeling. Make contingency plans to calm your fears and make sure you’re actively looking after yourself.

If you’re constantly putting more stress on yourself after procrastination, then you won’t be able to perform at your best once you do start on your work! So remember to take steps to be healthy and happy, both mentally and physically.

Give Yourself the Justifications

If you’ve got a task to do that you just aren’t motivated to do, give yourself some justifications as to why it will be beneficial, or why not doing it will cause problems. Take a break and write down exactly why that task is important, and the benefits it brings.

If you really can’t think of anything for this step, go talk to someone who gave you the task and talk about why this is vital to your job. If it’s a personal task, ask yourself why was it on your to-do list if there’s really no importance assigned to it? Did someone tell you about it – maybe talk to them. If not… it may be a case that you can scrap it and not worry.

Break Down the Big Tasks

If you’re happier with small tasks, make one of your tasks to break down your large projects into smaller more manageable tasks. Then prioritise each of these tasks. This will make your perception of the project as a whole easier, as you know you can manage with these small tasks little and often rather than all in one go.

Start with Parts That Will Get You Into The Flow

After you’ve broken down the tasks – you can then choose specific tasks which you know you’ll be motivated to do to get you into the flow. Once you’re in the flow with the project, you’ll be able to to move through the tasks with high intrinsic motivations and you’ll be extra productive.

Make Your Own Deadlines

Maybe deadlines and time pressure are something that helps you, then make your own deadlines. If a task doesn’t have one, set one. If the deadline is a long time away but you need to do multiple things in that time, split the task up and set deadlines for each section. Make yourself pressured to your own schedule to produce your best work.

Find a Creative Way

Sometimes you just need to find a different way of completing the task. If you have the skills, maybe you can create a way for that task to be automated or easier for every day/week/month tasks. For example, I hated the trackers at work – so I created a new tracker all in one spreadsheet that automated formulations, sums and a cover sheet for easy viewability. This meant when I was doing that task, it was so much faster and I didn’t put it off as much.

Be Accountable

Often people lack motivation when they’re not accountable for their actions. If they’re not worried about not doing a task, then they won’t do it. However you can make yourself accountable by telling other people, having someone call you out and asking for help. Just going to library helps keep me accountable when doing uni work because I know other people can see me, and they can see when I’m not working. Therefore I work more for longer than I do when I’m home alone.  

Make Your Own Rewards

If you’re not gaining anything from a task physically, like revision, it can sometimes remove motivation. However you can make your own rewards for yourself, such as a chocolate when you finish a page, or you’ll get takeout on Friday if you finish all of your flashcards. Give yourself goals to meet, and then reward yourself accordingly. This also gives you something to look forward too.

If you’re a competitive person and the task is something you do multiple times a month, you could try making it into a competition with yourself. For example, time yourself and the faster you get, the better you are. Just be careful you’re keeping a high standard of work though!

So overall procrastination is a balancing act – it can be good and bad, but there’s plenty of ways to beat it. What’s your preferred method of getting rid of procrastination?