All Things Inspired

If you allow it, procrastination can have a profoundly negative impact on you!

In the previous article, we started the subject of procrastination and addressed the question of why we procrastinate. Are we just lazy and by our own nature put off doing things? While usually associated with laziness, it's not the same at all. We said that laziness tends to be associated with the lack of willingness or effort to act, while procrastination is triggered by certain negative thoughts or perceptions that we have.

If you allow it, procrastination can have a profoundly negative impact on you, physically and emotionally. And if not confronted and overcome, it can overtake your life. It doesn't have to be that way for you. You can overcome it. But to address the steps to take in overcoming it, we must first understand the probable causes of procrastination. Remember that people tend to procrastinate because their natural reaction is to delay tasks. This motive, while irrational, is stronger than their will to act.

The mind is a powerful center of control. So, let's start there and try to understand the system of thought in our brains. Dr. Evian Gordon, MD, PhD in the field of neuroscience wrote a paper on the topic of the four core brain systems. These depict an understanding of how procrastination works in our brain. I've added the bold italicized print to represent how the core systems relate to a procrastinator. The four core systems are:

Emotion - emotions drive feelings, cognition, and self-control. Your brain non-consciously processes risk versus reward. The procrastinator immediately processes that the reward is not worthy of the risk.
Feelings - are the subjective experience of your emotions and conscious awareness of changes in heart rate, breathing, and sweat in response to emotions. This is where the procrastinator begins to feel anxiety and stress in relation to the task at hand.
Cognition - is the conscious, rational processing and decision-making. Your brain rationalizes via snap judgments and biases triggered by your emotions and feelings. When the procrastinator begins to weigh the risk versus reward, and the feelings of anxiety set in based on the assessment of the task, they believe they are receiving a rational cognitive message from their brain. However, in the moment of these snap judgments, what is thought to be rational is in fact an irrational judgment, leading your brain to believe the sensible choice is to put off the task.
Self-control - is the regulation of all these functions in order to be as effective as you can. Combining emotion, feelings, and cognition, your self-control determines how you react. For the procrastinator, when any of these systems are skewed, what is thought to be a system of alignment with rational thinking, is in fact, irrational, as with procrastination.

With a better understanding of how your brain reacts to the conditions of procrastination, let's look at some of the basic causes of procrastination. For example, here are some general causes...

Lack of motivation - this is a gap between your vision of growth and understanding how your work connects to your goal.
The task will take effort and hard work - this is the risk versus reward. Do you see enough reward in completion of the task to take the risk that might come along with it?
Taking the easy path - this is working on the smaller, easy tasks first. Is this because you think you'll get gratification sooner?
Fear of failing - it's seeing that first step of the staircase and being willing to take just that first step. Movement is the greatest prevention of fear paralysis.
Perfectionism - the fear of making a mistake, when ironically, the mistake is waiting on perfection. If you wait for everything to fall in place, you will be the only thing that falls.

This is just a handful of causes for procrastination. Other causes might be avoidance of anything difficult (relationships, social settings, etc.), feeling overwhelmed, setting underwhelming goals, and time management.

Even with the best of intentions, wanting to do something is just not enough. You must avoid procrastination and act on completing the tasks. Consider the following five ways to avoid procrastination and then the five ways to take action.

Avoid procrastination:

Finish your day before it starts - the best decision you can make toward avoiding procrastination is to plan each day in advance. Make sure to focus on something doable . Figure out the very next physical action, no matter how small. Just take action to move something forward.
Control your environment - remove the cues that trigger your procrastination habits in the first place. If you can't work in public places because of the constant movement and noise, then find a quiet place to sit down and focus.
Recognize that you're procrastinating - maybe you've had to reprioritize your workload. If you're briefly delaying an important task for a genuinely good reason, then you aren't procrastinating. However, if you start to put things off indefinitely, or switch focus because you want to avoid doing something, then you are. Train the brain! Do versus don't do, every time!
Create anti-procrastination strategies - procrastination is a habit, a pattern of behavior. You won't break it overnight. Habits only cease being habits when you avoid practicing them. Find strategies that will give you the best chance of succeeding.
Create deadlines - if not for the last minute, nothing would get done. This is not a good strategy in your planning. Without deadlines, you are inviting procrastination.

Take Action:

Don't over complicate things - the "perfect time" doesn't exist. If you are waiting for one, you are never going to accomplish anything. Perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons for procrastination.
Eliminate excuses - you must eliminate all excuses for not taking action. You'll always be able to find a reason not to act. Remember Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best, "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step." Start building momentum from there.
Fail forward faster - don't let fear of failure keep you from taking the first step. You can plan on some amount of failure being inevitable. Welcome it! Prepare for it! Deal with it! Keep moving!
Reduce your stressors - take control of your action plan so it does not overload your calendar. Being strategic in your plan and working the plan intelligently is far more important.
Managing expectations - you may tend to set unrealistic expectations, especially when it comes to timelines for success. Accomplishing a big goal doesn't happen at breakneck speed. This level of expectation could lead to frustration if you don't see the progress of your efforts in a short period of time.

You may have heard the phrase, "good things come to those who wait". I would cast aside this advice quickly! President Abraham Lincoln had the perfect answer to that phrase when he said, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustle!"

This isn't difficult to understand. Procrastination is toxic. We've all been advised throughout our life to avoid toxic things. You might be thinking "yeah that sounds good, I'll start on that tomorrow". NO!!! Take action now! You don't have time to waste. Apply the principles a step at a time and soon you will climb the staircase to success!

Be inspired! Inspire others!