How often did we decide to change something in our lives? How often do we swear to ourselves that we will start a new life from the beginning of a new week/month/year? How often do our dreams remain dreams? How often do intentions to finally quit bad habits or start a healthy lifestyle remain plans?
Procrastination - this is what this problem is called in psychology. Modern psychology has not been able to identify any apparent reasons for procrastination. It is important not to confuse procrastination with those cases when a person is overtaken by chronic laziness or if he continues to be inactive due to complexes, phobias, or self-doubt. Let's try to figure out what procrastination is.
- Procrastination - a habit to put off until later.
- The reasons for procrastination are low self-esteem, perfectionism, fear of success, nihilism, distorted perception of time, lack of motivation, distracting factors.
- Three steps to combat procrastination: time limit, strong motivation, elimination of distractions.
Consider the phenomenon of procrastination; try to understand its possible causes and possible solutions to this problem.
What is procrastination
If we talk about procrastination in simple words, then it turns out that it is a steady habit to postpone essential matters. The person is aware of the importance of these matters, and their completion has been planned.
For example, a person decided to go in for morning runs. He realizes that this is important to him. Health allows him to do this. But he always finds a reason to postpone the implementation of his plan. And even more than that - at first glance, these reasons are entirely objective and justified. And everything would be great if the delay in jogging did not occur systematically.
Let's try to consider the leading causes of procrastination.
- The first reason is low self-esteem. This reason is somewhat similar to the phenomenon of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a condition of a person in which, under the influence of past negative experience, he continues to remain inactive in similar situations, explaining this by the fact that "I will not succeed." And it is for this reason that procrastination can occur - chronic procrastination of an essential matter for later.
- The second reason for procrastination is perfectionism. Perfectionism is a condition of a person in which he fanatically strives to achieve perfection in everything. This is also called "excellent student syndrome," when a person prefers not to do one or another thing at all than to do it imperfectly. And this can also cause habits to be postponed - a person thinks, ponders, and plans on how to complete the task as correctly as possible. As a result, it does not perform at all.
- The third reason for procrastination maybe, paradoxically, the reluctance of success. In such a situation, a person is afraid to stand out from the crowd and show himself in something unique, special, and so on. Most often, this state itself is not recognized by a person, and in this case, a subconscious mindset acts that blocks the ability to act so that, God forbid, not achieve success and attract attention.
- Another rather curious reason for procrastination may be the spirit of rebellion. Sounds funny, but it is. The state of procrastination is often subject to nihilists in the extreme form of their denial of generally accepted norms, rules, life goals. No, to some extent, this is correct - a person should have an opinion, not imposed by society, and should not do anything just because someone told him that he should do it or because it's written in a smart little book. But here we are talking about a kind of teenage form of denial of everything and everything and the absence of any reasonable and adequate alternative. Wanting to demonstrate to society their position of aggressive denial, such people can simply cease to act at all: they quit their jobs, study, and lose their social adaptation. All of this is justified - a protest against society. Such nihilists do not recognize any authority and do not accept a single principle on faith. And if such a person does not seek an alternative to generally accepted and universally recognized concepts and values, he falls into a state of procrastination - the unwillingness to do anything at all.
- The fifth reason for procrastination may be a distorted perception of time. It can often be noted that if a person does not have any specific timelines for the task, he can delay the task. For example, the law gives two months to stick a photograph into a passport, after which a penalty is prescribed. And few will drag out this issue because nobody wants to pay the fine. Now imagine that the law does not provide any time limit. To be honest, most of us will go with a passport with an old photo for years. And this is a vivid example of procrastination. The reason for this is that there is no specific time frame for the task. And this reason is one of the most common. According to one of the latest studies on this issue (journals.sagepub.com), setting time limits for completing a task improves procrastinator productivity results by 40%.
- The sixth possible reason for procrastination is lack of motivation. Our brain is designed to clearly understand the likelihood of success when striving for a particular goal. If the possibility of completing a task is questionable or even not explicit, how exactly success can be achieved, then this creates the preconditions for procrastination. This often happens with some complex and time-consuming tasks, where achieving success is seen only in the distant and very vague future. And if the procrastinator does not see a high probability of success or sufficient proximity of the goal, then this leads to a permanent postponement for later. In this case, the procrastinator should see the "reward" for the work performed, at a minimum - the feeling that the task is completed. And if its implementation is stretched for months and years, then the motivation is lost.
- The seventh reason for procrastination is distractions. The most striking example is social networks. If you need to do some work on the computer, but the browser always clicks messages on some social network, then the job done in an hour can stretch all day. And so in everything. There is a good Russian proverb: "I did the thing - take courage." And it is better to follow this advice in the sense that all distracting factors are eliminated for the time the task is completed, and, having already completed the task, you can relax.
How to deal with procrastination
Procrastination is a refusal to perform every day and objectively necessary tasks under the influence of various factors. And to exclude those main factors of the occurrence of procrastination, which we examined above, we should resort to a simple technique for overcoming procrastination.
- The first step is to set a specific time frame for completing the task, the so-called deadline. For example, "prepare for the exam in a week." And the week does not start on Monday, but right tomorrow. When a specific time frame is set, it will be more challenging to justify oneself. And most importantly - try to logically explain to yourself why this task needs to be completed in this time frame. Understanding that there is simply no extra time will not allow you to postpone the task.
- Step two - seek motivation. We are talking about the fact that the success of the task must be clearly defined. If the task is voluminous, and its implementation can be extended to months or even years, break it into several small tasks and determine for yourself several goals - they should be within reach very shortly. This will allow you never to lose motivation and solve the problem in stages. The pleasure that you are slowly but surely moving step by step towards the goal will create a pretty strong motivation to move on.
- Step Three - Avoid Distractions. As one famous coach said: "To become a champion, you must sacrifice everything." And according to this principle, the performance of any task works. Concentration is one of the components of success. Lamplight is scattered throughout the room, and concentrated laser light burns through the surface. To complete a task, you need to focus on it completely, discarding everything else. This certain proportion of healthy fanaticism will allow us to act efficiently and effectively.
These are the three main recommendations for overcoming procrastination. It is worth noting that there can be many reasons for procrastination. This state is easily confused, for example, with sociophobia, when the reluctance to do something stems from the reluctance just to leave the house and make contact with people. By the way, a common reason for putting things off for later.
Therefore, before combating procrastination, one should differentiate this state from many similar ones. It often happens that a person puts things off for later because of banal laziness. Still, negligence is a slightly different problem that works on a somewhat different principle than procrastination. In the case of inactivity, a person often does not see the point in completing a task and therefore refuses to complete it. In the case of procrastination, the importance of completing the task is recognized, and they don't deny the goal, but simply postpone it.
It is also easy to confuse procrastination with complexes, fears, and phobias. The reasons can lie much more profound - it may be children's psychological trauma, negative attitudes, and so on. To solve the problem, it may not be enough just to find the motivation or eliminate distracting factors. To eradicate such obstacles, you will need a deep introspection or, for example, meditation, which allows you to get a deeper understanding of your inner world and understand the causes of certain unfavorable conditions.
As for procrastination, the above three steps can be quite effective and help solve the problem or, at least, significantly alleviate the condition.
