Procrastination
“Never do today what you
can put off until tomorrow.” That is the motto of the procrastinator. We
all procrastinate to one degree or another. It becomes a major problem
in your work life when important tasks or responsibilities are left
undone or are completed in a slipshod manner because inadequate time was
left to complete the task properly. Procrastination lowers anxiety in
the short run due to the relief we feel from task avoidance. But it
greatly increases our stress in the long run as tasks pile up or time
runs short.
The main and most
direct cause for procrastination is low frustration tolerance (Ellis
& Knaus, 1977). You need to accept the fact that to receive future
rewards, you often need to undertake present discomfort. Low frustration
tolerance is based on the irrational notion that present pain or
discomfort is “too hard to bear.” This belief that you cannot stand
present pain for future gain invites and practically commands you to
continue your delay tactics. This can be a very debilitating cycle.
Again, everything hinges
upon what you tell yourself about the onerous task. To overcome a
tendency to procrastinate, you need to begin by learning to identify
your irrational thoughts (Ellis & Knaus, 1977) and then replacing
them with thoughts that promote productivity. If your frustration
tolerance is adequate, you will take the temporary discomfort in stride
and conclude that, indeed, the task may be aversive, boring, or
anxiety-provoking, but so what? Where was it decreed that you have to
like everything you do? After all, the task will not go on forever,
particularly if you start now. If you tell yourself that it may be
unpleasant, but so are many things that you easily survive, it will help
you to persevere. If you remind yourself that there actually may be
aspects of the task that will even intrigue you or benefit you, it can
give you the wherewithal to get started.
For example, if
you are avoiding beginning or completing a certain project at work or
school, it is likely that you are thinking (on either a conscious or
unconscious level) one or more of the following irrational and
ridiculous thoughts: (1) that you will be totally miserable the whole
time you are working on this task; (2) that you cannot possibly bear the
torture of this duty; (3) that it is entirely unfair and sadistic for
your boss or your teacher to foist such a terrible assignment upon you;
(4) that you cannot possibly enjoy any part of this project; (5) that
you are destined to fail horribly at this task; or (6) that if you rebel
you will get a hero's acclaim down the road. In place of these
self-sabotaging statements, you can choose to substitute the following:
(1) that you can choose not to be miserable; (2) that you certainly
won't die from working on this task, so of course you can
stand it (no doubt you have endured much worse); (3) your boss's goal
is not to ruin your life but to make the business succeed, and your
teacher's goal is to ensure that you learn; (4) perhaps some aspect of
the work will prove reasonably interesting; (5) there is no guarantee
you will fail, and, in the event that you do, it is not the end of the
world if you don't succeed in everything; and (6) the one you hurt the
most by delaying is yourself.
Many people believe that if they wait until they feel
more like doing the avoided task, then they will be able to finally get
moving. But actually, often the reverse is more true and certainly more
efficient. That is, if you wait around for your feelings to change, you
could wait forever. But if you change your behavior, your feelings will
change to match your new actions. This follows the tenet that “attitude
change follows behavior change.” When you behave differently you will
tend to feel different, as emotions tend to shift to fall in line with
your actions. Therefore, acting in a timely, efficient, and productive
manner (even when you don't feel like it) actually creates the
motivation to continue working and, in some cases, may even lead to
increased task enjoyment. At the very least, you can enjoy the fact that
you have completed the task and it no longer hangs over you.
Six Steps to Overcoming Procrastination
1. Use the Bits-and-Pieces Approach
One of the best
antidotes to procrastination is to break tasks or projects down into
doable chunks. Are you prone to letting tasks pile up until you feel
overwhelmed and/or indecisive as to where to begin or how to prioritize
the tasks? You might feel as though you need to accomplish an entire
task once you get started, and this can become an overwhelming prospect.
Giving yourself permission to do just one small piece can get you
started and provide the necessary momentum for completion of the whole
project in time. By using the bits-and-pieces approach, you can whittle
down unfinished tasks and finish parts of projects (and eventually the
whole project). Once you start a small part of a task and get into the
swing of it, you might discover that you feel like finishing the whole
thing, especially if it goes faster or smoother than you had
anticipated. Or you can use your energy to switch over to another
avoided task, which may prove to be easier once you have built up
positive momentum from the former, especially if the tasks are related.
2. Get Organized
Lack of
organization contributes to procrastination; when you approach your work
in a disorganized fashion, tasks feel more overwhelming and generally
take longer to accomplish. Experiment with the following tips for
improving your organization.
Things-to-do lists.
Making a list of things to do on a daily or weekly basis is an
excellent way of getting yourself organized and helping to remember
small items or tasks that are easily forgotten unless you take the time
to do a daily inventory. Post your list in a prominent place where you
will be likely to see it often, or keep it in your appointment book if
you refer to it regularly. Scratching items off your list once they are
finished becomes quite rewarding, leading to a sense of relief and
accomplishment each time an item is crossed off.
Create a realistic schedule.
Things-to-do lists are very useful, but they have their limits.
In particular, avoid getting caught in the trap of spending all your
time accomplishing unimportant items and scratching those off your list,
while ignoring important, more difficult and time-consuming tasks.
Without some sort of schedule, you can create stress by wasting time,
working inefficiently, and missing opportunities because you didn't plan
ahead. But overscheduling yourself is stressful as well. There is an
art to creating a workable daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. Start by
compiling a list of all you want and need to accomplish over a certain
time period, say a month. Begin your daily schedule by arranging time
for any appointments or meetings scheduled for that day. Then block out
chunks of at least an hour for high-priority projects that require
sustained work over time. The earlier in the day you can get to these,
the better you will feel. Next, build in time for medium-priority items.
Then complete your schedule with routine, quick, or easy tasks that
need to be completed that day.
Make
your schedule flexible. Build in time for interruptions, unexpected
events, problem solving, and travel time, as well as for breaks and
relaxation. If you can't finish everything (and this may occur often),
postpone the lowest-priority items. Following a schedule will not
guarantee that you always get everything done that day, but if you have
made progress on your high-priority goals you will feel more in control.
That feeling of control will lower your level of stress. Engaging in
this type of planning may seem time-consuming at first, but it will
actually increase your time in the long run.
Do it when you think of it.
Often just the sheer volume of tasks makes you want to delay.
By doing the task immediately, if possible, you can avoid the
inefficiency involved in relocating the necessary materials, which saves
time and effort. You also prevent yourself from forgetting to handle
it.
Modify your work environment.
Your work environment can be conducive to getting down to
business, or it can promote procrastination, depending on how you
arrange your workspace. Remove as many distractions as possible from
your work sphere. Take an hour to clean up your desk or workspace. Throw
out all unnecessary papers or paraphernalia.
Block off escape routes.
Unplug the telephone, close your door, and turn off the TV.
Arrange your work station so you have all the materials you need to get
started. That way you avoid getting up, and possibly getting distracted,
to get various items.
3. Use the Five-Minute Method
This technique can start a
wave of positive momentum. Pick that task or project that you have been
delaying starting and then agree to start and work on it for just five
minutes. At the end of the five minutes, you can stop or you can ask
yourself whether you are willing to invest another five minutes. Do this
as a nondemand procedure and follow your sincere inclinations. You do
not have to work beyond the first interval, but if you are like most
people, once you have gotten past the first five minutes (getting
started is often the hardest part), you will probably find that you can
easily continue. So you work for another five minutes, and perhaps
another, and before long you are working steadily. Many people find that
once they get started, the task is far less onerous or aversive than
they anticipated. Once a significant amount has been done, the drive for
completion kicks in as you desire to get the task finished and behind
you. Likewise, when you begin or complete one task it is often easier to
switch over to other long-postponed activities (particularly if related
to the first task), due to the buildup of positive momentum.
4. Don't Wait for Inspiration
Thomas Edison
said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”
People who procrastinate when faced with a creative endeavor at work or
school often delay in order to wait for that moment of “inspiration” to
overtake them before they begin. Instead of putting off your project,
use probability theory to help you begin. When you begin a project, with
or without any particular inspiration, you stand a good chance of
perhaps stumbling into a streak of spontaneous brilliance and producing
extremely good work. At the very least, you greatly increase your
chances of getting some very good ideas for that task or for future
projects. The more you produce, the greater the probability that some of
it will be very good.
But what if your work or
creation fails to live up to your standards? It is perfectly okay if
some of what you turn out is not very good. Do you really think that
every canvas turned out by Picasso was ready to hang in the Louvre? And
do you honestly believe that Mozart never wrote a sour note, or that
your favorite author doesn't have a wastebasket filled with crumpled,
rejected pages?
Playing the
probabilities also gives you the opportunity to hone your skills through
experience and practice. If your work requires creative projects or
writing, or if you are an artist, musician, or writer who is not
currently inspired, forcing yourself to work at the very least will
improve your level of expertise. So when inspiration does come, you will
be far better prepared to perform.
5. Reward Yourself
All human behavior
is motivated by reward or by the expectation of reward in the future. A
reward is anything that feels good, be it money, praise, awards, a new
car, a vacation, a back rub, and so on. Humans can often sustain
unrewarded behaviors for long periods of time as long as there is some
hope for reward down the line. Procrastination persists because it is
reinforced by the immediate reward of relief from task avoidance. Tasks
that you dread and delay may often have rewards associated with them,
but typically they are in the future or you need to wade through
discomfort first to get those rewards. Even though procrastination
carries with it many long-term punishments (including increasing your
stress level), the short-term rewards motivate you to keep delaying. To
counterbalance the rewarding aspects of procrastination, it is important
to find ways to make the dreaded task also rewarding in the short run.
Peruse the following suggestions for ways to reinforce yourself and see
which ones appeal to you. Try them out the next time you put something
off.
The Premack principle.
One way to build in rewards for getting it done is to use the Premack Principle,
postulated by David Premack, which states that if two behaviors differ
in their likelihood of occurrence (that is, you are more likely to do
one rather than the other), the less likely behavior can be reinforced
by using the more likely behavior as a reward (Premack, 1965). In
everyday terms, this strategy capitalizes on the fact that any activity
you find enjoyable can be used as a reward or incentive for working on a
task you tend to put off. You give yourself permission to engage in
rewarding activities contingent upon doing tasks you tend to put off
(for example, schedule a massage for yourself after finally completing
that report or watch that movie after finishing your reading).
The profit-penalty system.
Rewarding yourself works when you make the rewards meaningful
and present them only upon completion of the desired task (or chunk, if
you are using the bits-and-pieces approach). In general, punishment is a
very ineffective way of inspiring change. You have already been exposed
to the negative consequences of procrastination many times, and if that
worked you wouldn't continue to delay! Punishment as a way of modifying
behavior can be useful, however, when it is done strategically and in
combination with a reward system.
In the profit-penalty system,
you use both a reward and penalty in tandem. You start by breaking a
project into doable chunks and set up a reward contingent upon
successful completion of the piece. At the same time you can also
penalize yourself for noncompletion. In the double profit-penalty system,
you create a no-lose situation for yourself. You make a contract with
yourself where noncompletion of one specified task is linked with the
need to complete another avoided task. With such a plan you cannot lose,
for whenever you delay, you must compensate by being productive in
another area. Therefore, you “win if you do and win if you don't.”
6. View Mistakes as Feedback
Perhaps you
procrastinate for fear of making a mistake or doing something poorly.
However, it is quite irrational to think that leaving yourself even less
time to complete something will make you less likely to make mistakes.
And where is it written that it is catastrophic or even necessarily bad
to make a mistake? Mistakes are feedback, nothing more and nothing less.
Both forms of feedback, correct and incorrect, are equally vital for
the learning process. Without both, we learn more slowly.
Research reveals a
strong link between procrastination and perfectionism (Flett et al.,
1992). Perfectionism goes hand in hand with fear of failure. If you
maintain a perfectionistic attitude, you will be more prone to stall
until you can “do it right,” or you avoid the task because you fear that
you can never do it right. So what if you do it and part of it is
wrong? Is the world going to come to an end? If you delay, that is the
equivalent of doing it wrong anyhow. At least if you go ahead and
complete it, you stand a chance of getting part or all of it right. We
have no quarrel with striving for excellence, but that is not the same
as holding out for perfection.
You cannot achieve
excellence without making mistakes along the way or risking making other
errors. In short, making mistakes is an essential part of improving
yourself. What is necessary is to adopt a healthy attitude about being
in error. It means learning to laugh at yourself and not taking yourself
so seriously all the time. Often, what endears you to others are
memories of those times when you made a funny mistake. We recognize that
not all mistakes are funny, but the vast majority of errors are
harmless and ultimately can be humorous or neutral if viewed from the
proper perspective—that is, reframed appropriately.
