10/09/2021
Struggling with Procrastination?
Be honest: Do you struggle in getting things started (or completed)?
Do you tell yourself, “I’ll get to it,” yet find yourself on Netflix watching an entire season or buried in social media? You're not alone.
Procrastination is a common human tendency. For the periodic offenders, finding the willpower to wrestle down and push through is usually enough to increase productivity and focus on accomplishing the task at hand.
According to Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University,
“Procrastination really has nothing to do with time management,” he says.
“As I tell people, to tell the chronic procrastinator to 'just do it' would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, ‘cheer up!’”
Psychologists have discovered that procrastination is not a time management problem but instead it is a coping mechanism.
But the shame and guilt of not doing what we should do can make us procrastinate even further, creating a vicious, self-defeating cycle. And what makes procrastination so harmful is that the tasks never goes away.
Eventually, you’re left with piles of tasks to complete. Then the negative emotions again, plus the added stress of a time constraint and the circle continues.
Like Ferrari, Pychyl agrees that procrastination isn’t a time management thing. “It’s about facing reality with our feelings. Emotional regulation, is the real story around procrastination because, to the extent that I can deal with my emotions, I can stay on task,” says Pychyl.
So what should a chronic procrastinator do? The next time you don’t feel like doing something, try these three tips:
1. Acknowledge why you’ve been avoiding it.
You’re not lazy; you're just scared. When we procrastinate, we’re avoiding the negative feelings that accompany the task at hand.
Therefore naturally, we avoid them at all costs. But when we try to get rid of the negative feelings by, say, scrolling our social media feeds, it’s only a temporary fix. By facing your emotions, you can begin to manage them.
2. Forgive yourself for procrastinating.
Pychyl and others found that people prone to procrastination are, overall, less forgiving to themselves.
One of the most effective things that procrastinators can do is to forgive themselves for procrastinating.
When you forgive yourself, you’ll feel better and reduce the guilt you feel about procrastinating, eliminating one of the primary triggers for procrastinating.
3. Just get started.
Pychyl says that most of us mistakenly believe that “our emotional state has to match the task at hand.” But the truth is that you’ll rarely feel like it, nor does it matter.
He recommends ignoring how you feel and focusing instead on what the next action should be. “Rather than telling yourself, ‘just do it,’ which can be overwhelming,” says Pychyl, “say, ‘just get started.’”
Pychyl suggests breaking down tasks into easily accomplishable bits. Completing a relatively small action will help you make progress and feel better about the task.
This increases your self-esteem, which in turn reduces the desire to procrastinate to make yourself feel better, he says. Plus, this simple swap shifts your attention from your emotions to action so you can finally finish what you started.
Next time you have a task to get done, get started immediately, break it down into tiny achievable goals and eat the damn frog! Don’t forget to forgive yourself when you don’t meet a goal. A failure is the one that remained down not the one that fell.
Hope you learnt something here.
To find out legitimate business opportunities you can do from the comfort of your home get started by clicking the WhatsApp link below.
Until next time, see ya!
