Do you struggle with procrastination? We all procrastinate sometimes! It is a fairly typical behaviour, so remember that you are not alone in this experience. Procrastination becomes problematic when it takes over and the negative consequences of procrastination start to interfere with your life. If you’re interested in how to manage and reduce procrastination habits to be more productive, then this article is for you!
What is Procrastination?
Procrastination occurs when we make a decision without a valid reason, to delay or not complete a task that we have committed. Instead, we do something less important, despite awareness of the negative consequences that will follow as a result of not following through on the initial task.
Typically, we will substitute an important task with something that is not a priority at the time and does not cause us discomfort. Procrastination activities often include pleasurable tasks such as TV, video games, reading, shopping and scrolling through social media. Other common diversions include socializing, distractions, low priority tasks and daydreaming. We all need pleasurable and low stress tasks in our lives, so these activities are not bad per se, but become a problem when they are used to substitute for something important that needs to be done.
Although procrastination is commonly associated with school tasks such as meeting deadlines, completing homework and assignments, and studying for exams, procrastination can impact many areas of our lives. It may get in our way of completing household chores and errands. Procrastination may impact your ability to meet financial obligations including paying bills and budgeting. It may affect your relationships as well, from replying to invitations to attending get togethers.
Why Do We Procrastinate?
When we have a task or goal that needs to be accomplished but we do not want to do it, we activate unhelpful rules and assumptions to avoid engaging in the task. These rules and assumptions often relate to needing to be in charge, pleasure seeking, fear of uncertainty or catastrophe, low self-confidence, depleted energy and fear of failure. Once activated, these rules and assumptions start to guide how we think and feel about doing the task. This makes the task appear aversive and subsequently causes anxiety. The discomfort generated from thinking about approaching the task itself creates an urge to avoid the task by procrastinating.
We often feel guilty for delaying important tasks. To help us move forward, we will excuse the procrastination by justifying it in some way. Some common examples include “I’m too tired, I’ll do it tomorrow”, “I won’t get much done, so I'll leave it for now” and “I have plenty of time, so I can do it later”. This leads to procrastination activities.
The positive feelings that procrastination activities instill, reinforce the likelihood of future procrastination. For example, procrastination activities often relieve discomfort by avoiding the activity that is going to make us feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, procrastination activities often create pleasure. This relief and pleasure is going to make us more likely to engage in procrastination activities next time we are faced with a challenging task or goal. Once this cycle starts, it can be difficult to break out of it.
The Consequences of Procrastination
Procrastination can increase discomfort because we might feel more guilt and shame for putting the task off. We also feel more anxiety and overwhelm as procrastination allows tasks to pile up and creates time pressures. These negative consequences result in self-criticism as we tell ourselves that we are “lazy” and “should be able to do this”. This harsh approach only demotivates us further.
Furthermore, procrastination can result in punishment. For example, if you get a bad mark on an assignment, this can make it harder to keep going and follow through. All of these negative consequences of procrastination make the task more aversive and increase the likelihood of procrastinating further.
How Do We Change Procrastination Habits
Changing procrastination habits is simple in theory, but will take patience and consistency overtime to establish effective and sustainable new habits. Let's unpack 9 tips to help you stop procrastinating:
1.Prioritize & Grade Tasks Using a “To-Do” List
Write a “To-Do” list of the tasks and goals you need to work on. You may have more than one list, for example a short-term list for the day and a long-term list for the month depending on your situation.
Prioritize your tasks for the day from highest priority to lowest priority. Start with the most urgent and important task first. Before you start each task, grade it by breaking it down into small steps or chunks. This can help with motivation and reduce feelings of overwhelm when faced with larger tasks. When you cannot break the task down into small chunks, this indicates a smaller task that will be less overwhelming. When you complete a task, check it off as a way of monitoring your progress and increasing motivation.
To learn more about time management strategies, check out Steven Covey's Time Management Matrix from his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This technique categorizes tasks based on high and low importance and urgency, similar to the tip mentioned above.
2.Use Timers & Intervals
Try breaking your work time into intervals. It can be motivating for us to set a timer to work for a certain period of time and then have a short break. For example, we can work for 25 minutes and then take a 5 minute break or work for 50 minutes and then take a 10 minute break. This approach is called the Pomodoro technique and intervals can be adjusted based on personal preference.
If the larger time intervals seem too daunting at first, plan to spend just 5 minutes on a task. Since it’s such a small amount of time, you feel like you can tolerate it. At the end, reassess and see if you can spend another 5 minutes on the task.
This technique has been proven highly effective for people who struggle with ADHD to help improve focus on various tasks.
3.Plan Rewards
Choose some pleasurable activities to use as rewards for completing tasks. The more you plan regular rewards for your achievements, the less you will feel like you are missing out, and then you will in turn be less likely to procrastinate. Let these rewards feel guilt-free by pre-planning them and fitting them in around the work that needs to be done. Rewards, leisure and pleasure help replenish energy!
4.Embrace Structure & Routine
It can be helpful to structure your daily routine using a schedule. This helps create predictability for transitioning between tasks. Start by scheduling existing routines and commitments into the week. Once your existing commitments are in the schedule leave the other time as work blocks that you can devote to tasks and goals when these times come up. You can fill in the blocks if you have specific tasks you know you want to work on at those times.
5.Create a Prime Workspace
Choose an environment where you get more done, with minimal distractions. For some people, this means going to the library to avoid household distractions. For others, this means staying home away from social distractions. Find what works best for you!
Decide what time of day works best for you to get tasks done. Are you more productive in the morning, afternoon or evening? Attempt tasks when you are at your optimum.
6.Practice Mindfulness
It is important for us to learn how to tolerate discomfort. If you can’t stand discomfort, you are more likely to procrastinate. If you learn to tolerate discomfort you will be less tempted to procrastinate as a way to stop discomfort. When you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious, incorporate mindfulness practices.
7.Dismiss Procrastination Excuses
It is important to challenge our procrastination excuses. They often ignore the fact that if we take a small step forward towards completing the task, the desire to do that task will often increase and result in some valuable work. By taking action first, other things often fall into place and then we feel capable to continue moving forward and get the task done.
Another common unhelpful conclusion is that tomorrow will somehow suddenly be a better time to be productive. The truth is, if we wait for a time when we feel rested, motivated, have no distractions and have everything else done, we will be waiting for a very long time.
No time is probably ideal to do something we don’t feel like doing, therefore now is just as good as any other time to get started.
8.Improve Self-Talk
When you criticize yourself for procrastinating, you make it harder on yourself to get started. Instead of self-critical self-talk, try motivational self-talk.
Motivational self-talk separates your procrastination behaviour from who you are as a person. It focuses on what can be done moving forward, rather than dwelling on the past.
Try speaking to yourself as you would to a friend in the same situation, as we tend to be more encouraging and less critical towards others.
9.Seek Professional Support
Do you feel that you should do things perfectly? That if you mess up, others will think poorly of you? That you can’t do things when you are stressed or tired? That you are incapable of completing a task?
These are some common unhelpful rules and assumptions that many people who procrastinate hold about themselves and the world. These assumptions often generate discomfort about engaging in the task at hand, resulting in procrastination to avoid the discomfort. To help stop procrastination we need to adjust these unhelpful rules.
It can be beneficial to collaborate with a therapist. Using CBT skills, they can help you challenge these unhelpful assumptions and create more balanced assumptions. Alongside this, they can implement strategies and behavioural interventions to help support you along the way.
Bonus Tips to Help You Stop Procrastinating
If you try following some of the tips we mentioned above to help stop procrastinating, you'll be off to a great start! There are so many tips and tricks- it's important to find what works best for you and be open to trying new things. So here are a few more bonus tips to help you stop procrastinating:
Worst- First: Knock out the worst task first! If there is a task you are dreading, get it over with and then the other tasks will seem like a breeze.
Use Momentum: Conversely, start by doing a task that you like, and that energizes you, and then without a break, switch to the task you have been putting off. This idea uses momentum and motivation to help you complete the task.
Tell Someone: Tell someone you trust that you are aiming to complete certain tasks or goals. This creates commitment, motivation, accountability and support.
The Bottom Line
Let’s face it, life can be overwhelming and we do not always want to do everything we need to do. Your awareness of your procrastination is the first step towards breaking the cycle and making the choice to do things differently! By embracing effective strategies that increase motivation and harness your energy you can achieve great things.
Remember that changing your procrastination habit will take time, practice and persistence. There will be ups and downs throughout this process. If it feels too overwhelming to tackle this on your own, our compassionate therapists at Inner Growth are here to help you get started and support you on your journey!
Our team of online and in-person counsellors and psychotherapists in Barrie provide quality and effective mental health counselling services near you in Barrie and virtually across Ontario to individuals (6+), couples and families. We also offer an Affordable Therapy Program that provides counselling services in Barrie to individuals (12+) who are facing financial challenges that need mental health support.
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