PROCRASTINATION CRIPPLES THE WILLPOWER
Consider procrastination an end to the story before it has even begun. It is merely an act of reconsidering a planned task, second guessing the importance of doing it at scheduled time. The more a piece of work/chore is delayed, zeal to work on it eventually fades. And we hardly achieve the desired result when the action is finally taken. No intentions of fostering pessimism however the ugly truth is that we crave to face the music to learn a lesson.
I am not going to get into dictionary meaning of procrastination. To be honest before I started writing this blog, I went through a couple of blogs that have already been written on this topic, evidently there is sea of data on the internet about it. So, I realised that reiterating it all is going to help no one. Instead, I would be dilly-dallying with my readers.
One may wonder what led me to decide on this topic for my blog. Since I have been in the trenches with a nasty roadblock of stalling and a problem that has been stuck with me for several years, I figured I would be able to justify my content with some practical knowledge along with real time solutions.
We all have been procrastinating throughout our life, none of us have been immune to this thought-knot. If we carefully think about it, it’s basically a pretty silly mental block that persuade us to delay a task over some trivial reasons. Although as silly this may seem, it eventually leads to unexpected delays and sometimes failures in achieving a goal.
Why do we procrastinate?
This is a bit of a twisted question because everyone has different reasons to defer a task. The whole idea of postponing comes to an individual out of certain mental, emotional and physical factors at the given time.
- Fear of failure or success (Usually happens due to low self-esteem, lack of skill set and training, worry about negative results)
- Monotonous or tedious tasks
- Planning and Scheduling issues
- Health reasons
- Motivational concerns
- Personality traits
For instance, if it’s work related and we are postponing it…this may be either because I know that I can complete it quickly and it doesn’t need my immediate attention ( this is usually when we are confident or some of us have a tendency to work better under pressure) or simply because the task at hand is not a priority as of now and can be done later but what we forget to realise is that we cannot predict what would happen in the next hour. I could be given some other task in the meantime or some personal commitments may need my attention at the same time that I reserved for this work and so on.
“While procrastinating we often overlook other factors that may arise
and limit our ability to complete the piece of work as planned”.
I am confident enough that all my readers here would know why we all as individuals postpone our chores/tasks. Also, we all know how we have been affected by the negative impact of procrastinating. So, without wasting any more time on why it happens (because there have been studies and scientific explanations to it), I would quickly move on to some of the practical solutions to this glitch. And when I say solutions, it doesn’t mean that we would be able to eradicate the issue altogether. However, we can definitely find a workaround to minimise it. Believe you me, I still procrastinate at times but now I know for sure that the situation in which I have succumbed to this silly mental snag, is trivial.
Before postponing anything next time, ask yourself “Why not now”. And keep counter questioning your response till the time you get a definite answer. For this to work you got to ditch your conscious mind and listen to your subconscious mind. It is the perceptive mind that will try it’s best to give logical reasoning for everything you decide however your inner voice will give you the moment of truth. Our Subconscious mind identifies external deceit, it acts as a detector of lies than conscious thought. So as soon as you give a reason for delaying a given task, focus on what your subconscious mind says about that reason. Was there a conflict in the way you felt? Did your conscious mind try to knock off the inner voice? Well, that’s your clue.
Let me explain this with an example.
Let’s say I decided to go for a 30 minutes run every evening starting today. It’s Saturday, start of the weekend. My mind automatically goes into a lazy weekend mode but as of now I am positive that I will start running from today. The day is going by as it usually does but I keep an eye on the time every hour or so to see how much time is left for me to rest before I finally head for that run. The closer I get to the evening, my logical mind starts looking for excuses to avoid it for today and start from tomorrow. Now, this happens for different reasons for every individual. For someone who is not physically active, haven’t been to a gym. Never went for running, this procrastination will be happening because of lethargy or a routine that is already in place (which seems more important than this activity).
Alternatively for someone who is active in the gym but not into running, this act of delaying will most probably be because of the fact that there is already a substitute for this activity which is already in place (workout in the gym which includes cardio too). So the conscious mind will reason that since it’s a weekend, running can wait till the next day as I can cover today’s run in gym.
Now in the above example, only question I need to ask myself is “Why did I decide to go for running”. And remember – I need my subconscious mind to be active to answer that question. My inner voice will tell me the truth that I decided to do this because
- For the person who is physically inactive – The answer would be that running is a starting point for my journey toward a better health. This is the least I could do to get started.)
- For the person who is active in the gym – The response of inner voice will be that strength training and running each has its own importance. Running on a treadmill and running out in open are not the same and cannot be replaced. Strength training will help me build muscles but running will enhance cardiovascular health.
The bottom line is that once our subconscious mind clarifies the positive impact of doing the task now/or on the decided timeline, it smartly defeats the shallow reasoning of our conscious mind.
How to break this Procrastination cycle.
Start noticing your pattern. Make a list of tasks that usually falls into the category of being postponed. This will help you navigate the reasons of procrastination that suits best to your personality or situation. Once you know the root cause, it will be easier to address it.
Prepare a spreadsheet with all these tasks and sort a plan of action to avoid delaying these tasks next time onwards. We got to start being proactive specifically for these challenging ones.
Start making a To-Do list for everyday (it’s a game changer). It’s jaw-dropping how putting off a tick against every task completed gives that adrenaline rush and motivates us to keep at it.
Cut yourself some slack if it doesn’t work for the first few times, the only resort to get there is by staying persistent. Gradually we will lead to the finish line. But for that we need to get the ball rolling, right?
Next time you decide to go for a run, go for it even when your mind, body and soul says no. Just Go! Take my word for it, you will be proud of yourself when you come back from that run. There is no match to the gratification you will experience.
Have been planning to get your car spruced up? What are you waiting for, Christmas? Get moving!
Planning to take that vacation? Book the tickets now. Waiting for the right time will only keep you loop. The loop that never usually breaks instead it costs us our valuable time that never comes back.
This little snag is a psychological battle that we got to win. We are all in this together and each one of us has the capability to beat it. We are all blessed with some strengths and few weaknesses, all we have to do is find that one strength in us to help overcome this bug.
