This article on procrastination was originally scheduled to be published in January

You have a work due tomorrow morning, so you create a new Word document.

Staring at the blank page, you suddenly start to think: Is it time to sweep the floor at home? Is it time to wash the clothes? Have you not cut your nails for a long time? After cutting them, take a shower, wake up, and start right away! After drying your hair, you stay in bed and watch dozens of boring videos on TikTok.

I looked at the watch and it was almost 11 o'clock.

You think: go to bed early and finish your work tomorrow morning. But you know what the result will be the next morning without me telling you.

Image | giphy

Procrastination like this always happens again and again, and you may be wondering: Why is it that I know I can’t finish the work, but I still can’t control myself and keep procrastinating?

According to the traditional understanding of procrastination, psychologists would say that you have a problem with "time management": you don't have a clear understanding of how long it will take to complete the work to be delivered, and you don't strictly control the time wasted on other things.

The deadline is today, but I just don’t want to think about it | giphy

Most people think this when they procrastinate: My time management skills are terrible! Why can't I focus like others? It must be because I don't have enough willpower.

But the latest theory holds that procrastination is not a "time management" problem, but an "emotional regulation" problem. People who often procrastinate are more likely to choose to escape when they are in a bad mood.

Procrastination is to avoid the impending

Unpleasant emotions

A study found that the more students procrastinate, the lower their "psychological flexibility". Psychological flexibility refers to a person's ability to tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and moods. People with high psychological flexibility can persist in completing things that serve longer-term goals even when there are certain distractions. In other words, people who procrastinate are more likely to be dominated by psychological reactions such as frustration and worry.

The less flexible the students were, the more likely they were to agree with statements like “I’m afraid of my feelings” and “Painful experiences and memories make it hard for me to live a life that I want to live.” People who procrastinate often have a hard time staying motivated to work toward their goals, and they are more likely to agree with “If I feel frustrated or discouraged, I won’t be able to take care of my tasks.”

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Joseph Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in the United States, told the journal Psychological Science that procrastination generally occurs for two basic reasons:

(1) Procrastinators feel that their current mood is not suitable for completing the task

(2) Procrastinators believe that they will feel better after procrastinating

When we think "I'll sleep first, and then I'll be more focused", we are actually avoiding tasks that may make us feel unhappy, and instead choose to do something that can temporarily make us feel better. But this will not only fail to help us achieve our goals, but will instead put us into a vicious cycle of procrastination.

Don't use "my dog ​​won't let me get up" as an excuse, okay? | giphy

Procrastinating on completing an important task can make us feel anxious, guilty, or even ashamed, and in this state, we have less emotional and cognitive capacity to be productive. As a result, we are more likely to feel guilty, and our productivity becomes even lower, falling into a more frustrating cycle again and again.

This is why procrastination is, at its root, a faulty emotion-regulation strategy: Although it may provide you with short-term relief, problems only accumulate.

The first step to reducing procrastination is

Forgive and understand yourself

If we want to alleviate procrastination, we must realize that procrastination is an emotional problem rather than an efficiency problem. Downloading a time management app or learning new self-discipline skills will not fundamentally solve the problem. We must find a new way to manage our emotions.

Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) prefers to solve problems by directly challenging and changing unhealthy cognitions and behaviors. However, research shows that another type of therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), is more effective in the long term than CBT.

Accept your procrastination | giphy

ACT does not teach people how to better control and eliminate bad thoughts like CBT does, but it allows people to simply "observe" and try to accept and embrace all their current feelings, whether they are positive or not. Its core is to help people break away from themselves, observe and perceive the body and mind from a perspective outside of themselves, and thus improve psychological flexibility.

The core of ACT is to forgive, accept and understand yourself, which is the first important step to alleviate procrastination. You know, procrastination is a common phenomenon among almost everyone, and only a few people never procrastinate.

Ronald Leprohon, an Egyptologist at the University of Toronto, said that as early as 1400 B.C., the ancient Egyptians were plagued by procrastination, with some hieroglyphs reading: "Friends, stop delaying your work and let us go home early."

Douglas Adams, the talented author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, kept delaying the manuscript on deadline. His editor booked a hotel and watched him type every day, and Adams finally finished the manuscript after a few weeks.

Celebrities also procrastinate | giphy

The results of one study showed that 32% of college students are serious procrastinators, and only 1% said they never procrastinate.

In addition, there has been a lot of research in the field of psychology on the psychological reflection and self-blame that people experience after procrastination. Most studies have found that our obsession with procrastination can increase anxiety and stress, leading to further procrastination.

In a 2010 study, researchers found that students who were able to forgive themselves for procrastinating before a first test ended up procrastinating less before the next one. Instead of dwelling on the burden of past bad behavior, these students who were able to forgive themselves focused on the upcoming test and ultimately did well.

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In a 2012 study, Fuschia Sirois, a professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield, examined the relationship between stress, self-compassion, and procrastination. He found that procrastinators tended to be high in stress and low in self-compassion. Self-compassion is the ability to understand your own mistakes and failures and to treat yourself with kindness.

Next time your productivity lets you down, stop blaming yourself and try to understand yourself: remind yourself that as a human being, it’s normal to procrastinate, and everyone procrastinates sometimes, and then try to make some plans to let the work slowly catch up with your expectations.

There is still a way to save yourself from procrastination. There are two ways

Give it a try

Reduce distractions

In the early 21st century, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in the United States asked some subjects to read sad stories. After that, they found that the subjects who were in a bad mood did not immediately start preparing for the subsequent intelligence test, but began to procrastinate and play puzzles or games. And low mood will only cause procrastination when the subjects believe that these things can make them happy. In other words, if you don’t think playing puzzles or playing games will make you happy, you won’t procrastinate because of a bad mood.

Therefore, one way is to try to set up certain obstacles between us and the immediate temptations around us. If you often can't resist browsing social media, just delete these apps or set a particularly complex and long password for your phone. Add resistance to procrastination and make the rewards of these temptations no longer as immediate as before.

Piers Steel, a psychologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, and his team designed an app that adds a delay mechanism to the temptation on mobile phones: when you click on a game, the phone does not start the game directly, but displays a countdown and asks you, "Do you really want to play the game?"

This small delay is enough to prompt us to reconsider our choices.

Start with the simplest things, and it will get better.

The fundamental reason why procrastination is so difficult to overcome is that every time a procrastinator avoids a task and chooses another option that brings pleasure, he or she is given a quick, immediate reward; and every time we get such a reward, we are more likely to do it again.

Professor Ferrari said: "To tell a chronic procrastinator, 'Just do it now,' 'Get it done today,' is like telling a patient diagnosed with depression, 'Cheer up!'"

To solve this problem, we can first find a way to "cheat" the brain. A study found that when procrastinators do not regard a task as a job, they are more likely to complete it as soon as possible. In the study, students were asked to complete a puzzle, but before they finished, they all had a few minutes to choose to play Tetris first. Only when the researchers described the puzzle task as a cognitive test did the students who often procrastinated procrastinate. When the researchers described the puzzle task as a game, even the students who often procrastinated started as quickly as others.

Therefore, you might as well try to tell yourself: "I'm not really going to do this now, I'm just opening the file and taking some random notes." First "trick" your brain and turn the task into a game, an adventure, or a pastime. Start with the simplest first step and slowly get into the state.

Just ask yourself: What is the easiest next step?

As Dr. Pierce Steele said, doing a task is like jumping into a swimming pool with a slightly cold water temperature. The first few seconds may be a little scary, but the body will soon adapt. "Although I feel that I am not in good enough condition now, I will just start like this."

So if you are reading this, find a clear, simple, small action for yourself, and no matter how you feel, just give it a try!

Image | giphy

References

1. Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2016). Procrastination, health, and well-being . Academic Press.

2. Eisenbeck, N., Carreno, D., & Ucles-Juarez, R. (2019). From psychological distress to academic procrastination: Exploring the role of psychological inflexibility.(Report)(Author abstract). Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 13, 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2019.07.007

3. Wang, S., Zhou, Y., Yu, S., Ran, L., Liu, X., Chen, Y., Chan, C., & Holosko, M. (2017). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy as Treatments for Academic Procrastination: A Randomized Controlled Group Session. Research on Social Work Practice, 27(1), 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731515577890

4. Wohl, M., Pychyl, T., & Bennett, S. (2010). I forgive myself, now I can study: How self-forgiveness for procrastinating can reduce future procrastination. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(7), 803–808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.029

5. Sirois, F. (2014). Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-compassion. Self and Identity, 13(2), 128–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2013.763404

6. Sirois, F. and Pychyl, T. (2013) Procrastination and the Priority of Short-Term Mood Regulation: Consequences for Future Self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7 (2). 115 - 127. ISSN 1751-9004

7. The Procrastination Doom Loop—and How to Break It, DEREK THOMPSON, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/the-procrastination-loop-and-how-to-break-it/379142/

8. Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time, Christian Jarrett, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200121-why-procrastination-is-about-managing-emotions-not-time

9. Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control), Charlotte Lieberman, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html

10. Procrastinate Much? Manage Your Emotions, Not Your Time, Adam Grant, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/smarter-living/tips-to-stop-procrastinating.html

11. Why your brain loves procrastination, Susannah Locke, https://www.vox.com/2014/12/8/7352833/procrastination-psychology-help-stop

12. Confront your fears … and four other ways to stop procrastinating, Elle Hunt, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/16/five-ways-to-stop-procrastinating

13. Put off procrastinating… forever! Tips on how to be more productive, Graham Allcott, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jan/03/put-off-procrastinating-forever-tips-on-being-more-productive

Author: Carcosa

Editor: Yakumo

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