Procrastinating

Procrastination is a way of avoiding tackling a task that needs to be done consistently, promptly, and with relatively little stress. It involves putting off the task and doing other, less important things instead. Procrastination goes along with thoughts like:

  • I’ll wait until I’m in the right mood
  • I’ll start tomorrow
  • I have to do all these other things first
  • It’s too stressful
  • I don’t know where to start
  • These ongoing heart problems will go away on their own
  • I’m a thinker, not a doer
  • There’s plenty of time
  • Why did they assign so much work? It’s not fair
  • I work better under pressure anyway, so I’ll do it later
  • I just don’t feel like it

In general, this is spurred by a need to protect oneself and avoid feelings of reluctance. More specific causes include fear, especially fear of failure, but also fear of success; spite and anger; perfectionism; shame, dependency, and powerlessness; and feelings of inferiority. Students also procrastinate as a way of adapting to the academic setting, where punctuality and careful work are often not priorities and instead are viewed slightly mockingly as secondary virtues, or because successfully getting the job done at the last minute brings a feeling of relief that well-planned work simply does not.

In surveys conducted in the United States, 40% of respondents state that they have suffered disadvantages in the past due to procrastination, while 25% suffer helplessly from recurring procrastination. Some 70% of students are estimated to procrastinate at times, and 25% of them do so chronically and to a pronounced degree. What do we know about procrastinators? In general, procrastinators are often late, unprepared, and poorly organized, with poor relationships with work colleagues. They spend a lot of time on projects that fail anyway. They get in their own way, avoid making an honest accounting of their working style to themselves, and try instead to burnish their image. They are brusque in their treatment of colleagues who are also procrastinators. Students who procrastinate are most likely to do so with written work and preparing for exams. Their procrastination causes fear and has a negative impact on their quality of life and their grades.

Poor impulse control and lack of attention, poor time management, and underestimation of the need to be in alignment with important personal goals and one’s own motivation.

  • Procrastination is a learned bad habit reinforced by past rewards, particularly short-term releases of tension.

  • It can be a symptom of a deeper-seated neurotic problem relating to conflict.

  • This can also be a permanent personality trait or a reflection of a personality disorder.

  • It can also be an unsuccessful attempt to protect oneself from even worse consequences

How can you stop procrastinating?

Self-help:

  • Make a list of everything you need to do. Don’t forget things you find enjoyable, and be sure to include free time!
  • Cross off all the things you never really wanted to do anyway.
  • Identify your own goals, values, and priorities. Set realistic goals for yourself. Write it all down.
  • Identify your underlying conflicts, such as fear, anger, and/or perfectionism, along with your irrational views, like the idea that your tasks are too difficult, failure would be a disaster, and so on.
  • Fight your irrational views. Try to think more logically and ground your perspectives more firmly in the real world.
  • See whether you have a chance of successfully completing what you have set out to do in spite of your current conflicts and views. If not, get help in the form of psychotherapy.
  • Consider whether the things you have been postponing are sufficiently aligned with your goals and values. If not, focus only on the goals that are meaningful to you and let the other ones go.
  • Plan how you can achieve your goals in small steps and bits and pieces. Even Mount Everest can be broken down into a molehill. Estimate how much time it will take to complete your project and then double it.
  • Set a reward for yourself for when you succeed and reward yourself for every step.
  • Keep close tabs on yourself and write down your observations in a change log.

If you do not follow any of these suggestions even though you suffer from procrastination, or you do follow them, but find that they are not enough to help you with your problem, you may need professional help:

  • Attend a class on time management strategies.
  • Learn a relaxation method such as autogenic training.
  • Get pyschotherapy. You can approach this starting with behavior (behavioral therapy), your mental structures (cognitive therapy), or emotional conflicts (in-depth psychotherapy, psychoanalysis).
  • The Workshops and advising section presents points of contact where you can turn whenever you want personal advice and support, along with our workshop program, which can help you tackle specific issues.

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