Why Do We Procrastinate & How To Stop it?

I have been postponing to write a blog post for almost 2 weeks until the panic and urgency inside me pushed me to write it and hence got intrigued to find out why do we procrastinate.

‘I’ll do this work the other day’
‘I will definitely do this tomorrow’

I have so much to do so I would probably watch a Youtube video and get back to work again.

We all have been there.

Well! All of us have postponed our work until the deadline at some point.

From slamming the alarm to snoozing, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram at work, to doing things at the last moment, we all have been there.

What does Procrastination mean?

Procrastinating is the action of delaying or postponing something.

That’s procrastination.

That is exactly how procrastination is like.

You have something planned to complete but keep putting it off a little later and then a little while later till you are pushed to compulsorily

In a blog post of jameslear.com, the author defines procrastination as the act of delaying or postponing a task or set of tasks.

So, whether you refer to it as procrastination or akrasia or something else, it is the force that prevents you from following through on what you set out to do.

Once hours of time go with doing any work then we condemn ourselves up and end up promising ourselves to get it done right the next time

Why do we procrastinate?

If the why is clear then we can arrive at the solution easily.

In simple words, you procrastinate because you are either too stressed and intimated about that job or just too bored to even begin it.

Is laziness a reason too?, you may ask.

If you are not excited or interested enough to do something then you tend to get lazy.

It is important to note that your passion, and willingness is important to do any work.

Of course, there are some other factors like your fitness levels which might be the reason you are lazy and eventually make you procrastinate. A physically obese person many tend to be lazy more and procrastinate more than an average person.

So why do we procrastinate?

There are some core reasons why we procrastinate.

• The Work is too hard or challenging.

Most people procrastinate because they are too stressed about the work that they are so lousy to even begin it.

Like MS Dhoni, the former captain of the Indian Cricket Team said in an interview — ‘Focus on the process and not the result. Because the result is what makes us afraid’

It is because we focus on the result and the stress of thus huge work to get it done to reach the result that makes us procrastinate.

If the work is too tough or challenging then your mind finds a way to escape it and hence pushes to do something else which gives you more pleasure and ease.

Melanie Robbins, an American Author and Television Host says that

“You do this (procrastination) because you are probably stressed about the work and tend to watch that video to get a sense of relief from that stress of completing that work.

Before you start your work, you have this whole load of stress on your head to do that work that overwhelms you and thus when you watch that video or television show, you are probably making yourself a little away from that stress of that work”

This is the reason why we even tend to put off our plan to exercise.

We know we should be out there doing our workout but we keep postponing it for later.

Your mind craves for that instant gratification to bust off that stress to workout by simply saying that ‘I’ll get it done after some time’ but in reality we end up doing nothing.

The other reason to procrastinate is that the work could be too boring to even begin with.

• The Work is too boring

Let’s take an example

I once had a whole day to organize my room and make it neat.

My cupboard was to be re-organized before I could start packing and honestly packing stuff is boring and takes a lot of time and effort.

I thought to myself , ‘Why not just watch a video before getting started’

Here, what I did was I sub-consciously perceived this task of organizing my room to be not so exciting to do. I found it too boring to even begin with and hence kept putting it off by doing something that kept my mind occupied by watching a video on YouTube.

On the contrary, we never procrastinate to watch a series that was just released hot on Netflix.

Steven Kotler, the best-selling author of the book — ‘The Rise of Superman’, says in an interview that

“ You probably procrastinate because either the work is too hard or too easy.”

It is only little difficult to begin but when we get into the work flow then our mind does not procrastinate but rather get involved more into the work.”

It is the flow point we should aim for.

• You are probably distracted.

In a world filled with hustle and bustle, you constantly get distracted throughout your day.

In a research conducted by Gloria Mark of Harvard, in partnership with Microsoft found out that

‘The average person is distracted or interrupted every 40 seconds when working in front of a computer’

So,

What distracts us continuously, in your case?

Most of the time, it’s the thing that we have with us all the time — The Smartphone.

The constant notifications, and messages from the phone keeps us distracted throughout the day.

For students, this is almost a nightmare.

It is important for you to understand that like every business out there trying different attractive strategies to sell out their products, the same is with the social media companies. They are competing to get your attention and keep you scrolling and engaged for long hours.

So everytime you push up yourself to get into the work, but then these distractions keep coming, making it difficult for you to focus back again

And hence causing you to procrastinate.

So how to stop procrastinating?

Since we have figured out the reason for procrastination then it is easier to come up with a solution.

Genuinely, it all starts with the perspective and belief within.

We have been so delusional about the task or work that needs to be done and believe subconsciously that the work is tough.

Here are some ways you could get rid of the procrastination:

• Break down the tension into bits

Like I said before, if the work is too hard then you get this stress on your head.

That is when your mind automatically finds something else to occupy to get away from this stress.

Do not focus on the mountain top. Just simply start taking baby steps without worrying about the mountain top.

Also, if the work is too easy and boring then you start postponing at a later date.

Matt D’Avella, Youtube and Film-maker says that

‘Break down your work into small attainable bits. By doing this, you are breaking down your stress into small bits‘

Let’s take our previous example of organizing the room for better understanding.

Previously, the task was simply this way:

1. Write a blog post

This made to feel the work was too simple and easy hence boring to start off immediately.

But instead, break down the work into small attainable steps. Like in this picture:

I divided my task into many sub-tasks and I noticed that immediately I felt a sense of urgency to start right away.

I felt I had so many to do and start right away.

But also do not add so many work at a time that you feel so overwhelmed to even start the work.

That’s the thing.

Neither too hard nor too easy.

I had spoken more in detail about this in my other blog post as to how you can approach better goal setting.

• Just Get Started

It is the first few minutes or hours of the work that you need to go through. Start off slowly without any pressure or stress about the amount of work you still have to get through.

According to a research by BBC on procrastination, If your mind is dominated by feelings like stress, worry or frustration, boredom or discouraged, you tend to slid away from your commitments

Steven Kotler, author and public speaker, has been researching the flow state of mind for almost two decades.

He says that “If you are past the first 30 minutes of your work then things will get into the flow. It is the first few times where we need to avoid distractions to get into the state where you are into the flow of the work”

Like it is said “The Beginning is the toughest”, and it seems it was said for a reason.

In simple words, Just get started.

• Cut off the distractions

Lastly, cut off all that distracts you during your work.

Here are some facts suggested by a research which might help you:

An average of 2.1 hours are lost daily as a result of distractions

The average time spent on a task before we get distracted is 11 minutes

That is how much this world is distracted.

If you have a smartphone, you can set limits to your screen time and notifications using many apps that are available.

Or you can keep your phone in the other room where you are not working.

You can also try out different apps available that helps you control your media consumption but it would be better if you learn the way to tame your beast.

Keeping your phone in the other room during work time has helped many people.

Or you can set regular timers with regular intervals. After each task, you can take a short break away from the work as reward for completing the task.

PS: Make sure the break is really short.

You can give a read to my other blog to know how social media works and how you can use it more intelligently.

Honestly…

It all begins with you. It is all in your mind.

Like I said we keep delaying and procrastinating that work until the time before the deadline.

What if there are no deadlines?

But often in life we do not have deadlines for some things.

Like your goal to start a blog, plan to travel to a favorite place, goal to reduce weight, beginning a start-up, etc

Goals like these have no deadlines.

It’s totally up to our choice.

Since these have no deadlines, we do not have any sense of urgency to start doing these things.

And hence we keep making silly excuses as to why we don’t have time and we are super busy.

That is the reason we just keep postponing these things until we realize we could have done it earlier and it’s too late now.

You either die with dreams or die with memories

We all mess up and tend to fail at times. Get back stronger.

Keep hustling!