Introduction
Procrastination. Even the word sounds unpleasant, like an itchy skin disease. Many of us are guilty of putting off a challenging task or project. In fact, I had “draft blog post on procrastination” on my to-do list for several days before I started working on it. Quite ironic, isn’t it?
While procrastinating once in a while is not something to be concerned about, habitual procrastination can have serious consequences. Research shows that this habit can result in anxiety, low self-esteem, and even physical illness. Plus, procrastination can create a vicious cycle leading to even more procrastination.
In this blog post, we’ll explore what procrastination is, what the root causes are, and what you can do to conquer procrastination once and for all.
Ready to dive in? Don’t waste another moment!
Understanding Procrastination
Experts define procrastination as a self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term costs. Let’s say I was anxious about what I was going to write in this blog post. By putting it off, I might have experienced a sense of relief that I didn’t have to tackle it that day. This sense of relief produces dopamine, a feel-good chemical that we experience as a reward. We can train ourselves to procrastinate because the more a behavior is rewarded, the more likely we are to repeat it. The short-term benefit is the sense of relief. Unfortunately, it becomes a long-term cost when we become habitual procrastinators.
Let’s do a little thought experiment: How often do you put off doing something that you needed or wanted to do? If you were to guess what the causes were, what would you say? If you want to be rigorous about this, keep a "procrastination log" for a couple of weeks: What did I put off? What was the reason? If I finally got it done, what motivated me?
Chances are, your reasons for putting things off boiled down to one or more of the three primary causes of procrastination: fear, insufficient motivation, or ineffective time management.
In my case, it was insufficient motivation relative to other priorities (rather than anxiety). I had deadlines for a number of tasks whereas the deadline for publishing a blog post is flexible.
Let’s do a deeper dive into the role of fear in procrastination because this can undermine even the most effective strategies to overcome procrastination if not taken into account.
The Fear Factor
I once had a client who fervently wanted to organize her office. Let’s call her Teri (she’s a composite of several clients).
The office overflowed with stacks of paper, files, books, and mismatched furniture. She set a goal of clearing a foot high stack of paper on the left side of her desk as a starting point.
She was motivated to organize the office because she believed it would help with time management and enable her to be more present, focused, and productive.
At the time, clearing the stack of paper on her desk seemed like a manageable chunk of work and a way to make progress on organizing her office. She put it on her to-do list but a week later she hadn’t even started.
Where might fear come in? Well, when she thought about tackling the project, she had loads of questions: What’s in the pile? What if there are overdue bills? Reports she’d neglected? What to keep, what to throw out? Where to store the stuff she kept? Which of the papers were "official" ones that she needed to hold on to? For how long?
The uncertainty and confusion were overwhelming!
Before she could get any further, she decided she didn’t have time to take on such a complex undertaking that day.
That decision prompted a sigh of relief (the dopamine) that she’d avoided dealing with a complicated task that would involve so many difficult decisions.
At the same time, it was still something she wanted to do, so she put it on her reminder list to start the next day. Fast forward 24 hours. She eyes that pile, determined to get started. But nothing has changed as far as the questions, so she puts it off again. Another sign of relief. She is literally rewarding herself for procrastinating!
But she also feels bad. Her inner critic is saying, "You can’t even clean off a corner of your desk. How are you supposed to be a leader of people?"
And another fear is added.
Combat Procrastination with Progress
Have you ever experienced something like Teri’s conundrum? I know I have. That pesky inner critic has a tendency to amp up every misstep and turn it into a global indictment.
Luckily, there are many ways to work yourself out of this state. If you search for "procrastination" online, you'll find a plethora of helpful resources (about 78,600,000 results in 0.33 seconds).
In this post, I want to focus on one simple yet powerful strategy that can help you avoid developing the procrastination habit and lead you out of that negative spiral.
It’s called the Progress Loop, and the idea is that small progress can lead to big results. Based on research by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer on the conditions that contribute to motivation and drive, Amabile and Kramer worked with seven companies that consisted of 238 employees. These employees were asked to keep a daily diary describing one event that stood out in their minds for whatever reason. They then asked those employees a variety of questions relating to motivation and drive. They collected almost 12,000 entries over a period of weeks.
You can read more about the study and the findings here.
In summary, they found that the single best predictor of motivation and drive was the sense that people were making progress on meaningful work, no matter how small. “Meaningful” meant that people saw their work as contributing value to someone or something that mattered. And guess what? Instead of getting that hit of dopamine from procrastinating, they got that hit of dopamine from making progress on meaningful work!
So, what can you do to combat procrastination? Here are some suggestions to make progress:
Start your day with a small task that you know you can accomplish successfully to get yourself motivated. You may have to experiment a bit with what you consider “small.” In Teri’s case, what she initially thought was no big deal revealed a whole set of decisions she needed to make. She might have made progress the second time if she’d figured out a smaller step she could take to feel successful.
Sprinkle your day with small, doable tasks to maintain your dopamine levels and motivation.
If you're already in the negative spiral, redefine "success." For example, if you're procrastinating on starting a blog post, define success as "create a document with the title 'Procrastination Blog Post.'" Even a small step like this can help you get started!
You might think that these strategies are too simplistic, especially when you're trapped in the grip of the negative spiral. However, they can be highly effective in getting you out of your head and into action, ultimately defeating your inner critic.
Give these strategies a try and let me know what you learn by writing in the Comments below.
(I’d like to acknowledge Dr. Irena O’Brien, of the Neuroscience School for sharing much of this research and strategies. Her course is excellent!)
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