Procrastination is the action of putting something off until a later time, and for that, there are negative consequences. Many people do it and most of them do it on a daily basis without even realizing it.
Procrastination occurs when a person is motivated to complete a task but delays the initiation phase. The delay may be from days to years or indefinitely, which can result in stress and low self-confidence.
Procrastination is one of the most common and harmful habits among workaholics. It may seem like procrastination is a trivial issue, but this is not entirely true because procrastination can lead to the loss of productivity, performance, and excellence in academic classes, careers, and even in one’s personal relationships.
However, there are ways how you can overcome your habit of procrastination. These ways can help you reduce or prevent procrastination from happening. It can be very hard to control but there are ways you can control it.
Is procrastination a psychological issue?
While chronic procrastination is not a mental disorder, it can be a symptom of other challenges. Procrastination has been associated with numerous mental disorders like anxiety, depression, and ADHD. procrastination is connected to negative functioning and risks to mental health. People who procrastinate tend to have high levels of anxiety as well as poor impulse control. Procrastination is even linked to physical illness.
Understanding why we procrastinate
is the first step in moving forward.
Why do we procrastinate?
For many people, getting things done on a daily basis might feel like an uphill battle. People who suffer from chronic procrastination frequently find themselves in this situation all the time and watch as their life progressively disintegrates. Nevertheless, with the aid of qualified mental health specialists and powerful support networks, chronic procrastination may be overcome.
Most procrastinators strive for perfection, are afraid of performing poorly, or are just too disorganized with their time and resources.
The following are some of the most typical demotivating and impedimental elements when it comes to particular reasons why individuals procrastinate
- Abstract goals
- Rewards that are far in the future
- A disconnect from our future self
- A focus on future options
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Indecisiveness
- Optimism about the future
- Fear of failure
- Task aversion
- Anxiety
- A feeling of being out of control
- Perfectionism
- Depression
- Insufficient motivation
- Weak in energy
- Fear of evaluation or negative feedback
How to Stop Procrastinating.
We all procrastinate. We feel guilt, criticize ourselves, and vow not to do it again. And yet we repeat the behavior time and time again…
In order to effectively deal with your procrastination, you must identify the causes of your procrastination and the ways in which it keeps you from achieving your goals. Then, you can create a clear plan of action based on effective anti-procrastination techniques that will help you address your cause of procrastination.
Let’s do it … NOW!
- Determine your goals first. When doing this, be sure to define your goals as precisely as you can and to make sure they are both large enough to allow you to make meaningful progress and are realistically achievable.
- Determine the precise nature of your procrastination issue next. This can be accomplished by recalling instances in which you procrastinated and then pinpointing the when, how, and why.
- Make a plan of action next. This strategy should include a variety of effective anti-procrastination methods that will help you deal with circumstances in which your procrastination issue is getting in the way of reaching your goals.
- Finally, carry out your strategy. Keep track of your success as time goes on and hone this strategy by changing or eliminating anti-procrastination strategies based on how well they work for you and adding new ones if you believe they could be beneficial.
Anti-procrastination techniques.
The following are some pertinent examples of anti-procrastination tactics that you can use:
- Determine the order of importance for your tasks.
Divide up big, intimidating jobs into manageable, little bits. - Start chores by promising to just work on them for a short period of time.
- Eliminate any distractions from your workspace.
- Determine your peak and lowest productivity periods and plan your assignments accordingly.
- On your path to achieving your ultimate objectives, give yourself interim deadlines.
- Make a daily objective and record the streaks of days when you succeed in achieving it.
- When you successfully carry out your plan of action, treat yourself.
- Instead of concentrating on the activities you need to finish, think about your goals.
- Imagine yourself in the future taking in the results of your efforts.
- Prior to giving in to the urge to put anything off, count to ten.
- Accept that there will be some mistakes in your work to avoid having a perfectionist attitude.
- Become confident that you can successfully overcome your procrastination.
Summary:
- While our incentive to be rewarded for our work can frequently give our self-control a useful boost, we rely mostly on our self-control to complete tasks in a timely manner.
- Demotivating influences include things like anxiety, fear of failure, perfectionism, task aversion, and others that work against our motivation by increasing our propensity to put off tasks.
- In addition, there are other impediments that directly affect our motivation and self-control, increasing our propensity to procrastinate.
- Examples of these include abstract aspirations, long-term objectives, and a gap between our present and future selves.
