Procrastinate
🏷️ Tào lao
A: Why do I keep procrastinating even when I know it’s bad for me?
B: To be clear, putting something off isn’t always procrastinating. Responsible time management requires deciding which tasks are important and which ones can wait. Procrastination is when you avoid a task you said you would do for no good reason, despite expecting your behavior to bring negative consequences. Obviously, it’s irrational to do something you expect to harm you. But ironically, procrastination is the result of our bodies trying to protect us, specifically by avoiding a task you see as threatening
A: Why can procrastination even protect us?
B: When you realize you need to complete a task, your brain responds like it would to any incoming threat. In the midst of this fight, flight, or freeze response, you decide to handle the threat by avoiding it in favor of some less stressful tasks
A: That’s weird
B: Yes, this response might seem extreme. After all, it’s just a deadline, not a bear attack. But you are most likely to procrastinate tasks that evoke negative feelings, such as dread, incompetence, and insecurity
A: Why do some people can overcome their procrastination while others can’t?
B: Because procrastination is motivated by our negative feelings, some individuals are more susceptible to it than others. People who have difficulty regulating their emotions, and those who struggle with low self-esteem are much more likely to procrastinate, regardless of how good they are at time management
A: So all procrastinators are lazy, right?
B: That is a common misconception. In the body and brain, laziness is marked by no energy and general apathy. When you are feeling lazy, you are more likely to sit around doing nothing and distract yourself with unimportant tasks. Maybe you procrastinate because you care too much. Procrastinators often report a high fear of failure, putting things off because they are afraid their work won’t live up to their high standard
A: How does procrastination affect me?
B: Whatever the reason for procrastination, the results are often the same. Frequent procrastinators are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, ongoing feelings of shame, higher stress levels, and physical ailments associated with high stress. Worse of all, while procrastination hurts you in the long run, it does temporarily reduce your stress level, reinforcing it as a bodily response for coping with stressful tasks
A: How can I break the cycle of procrastination? Do I have to cultivate discipline or practice strict time management?
B: It’s the opposite. Being too hard on yourself can layer additional bad emotions onto a task, making the threat even more intense. To short-circuit this threat response, we need to address and reduce these negative emotions. Some simple strategies include breaking a task into smaller elements or journaling about why it’s stressing you out and addressing those underlined concerns. Try removing nearby distractions that make it easy to impulsively procrastinate. More than anything, it helps to cultivate an attitude of self-compassion forgiving yourself, and make a plan to do better next time