Overview
Procrastination is putting something off until later, either due to carelessness or habitual
laziness. Everyone does it, including you.
We seek out what makes us feel good and attempt to avoid the things that annoy or bother us. Consciously determining why you procrastinate will go a long way in helping you change your behavior.
What is Procrastination?
Everyone does it, including you. You have things to do, important things or mundane things, and you put off doing them until the last minute. If Procrastination were an Olympic event you might be in the running for a gold medal, you’re that good at it. You make jokes about being a world class procrastinator with your friends, telling them that sure, you could finish that project right now if you wanted to but (yawn) you’re just going to do it tomorrow.
Procrastination is putting something off until later, either due to carelessness or habitual laziness. It’s putting off till tomorrow what you just as easily could have finished up today. A procrastinator postpones or needlessly delays accomplishing something –just because.
Students are notorious for engaging in this behavior. Papers need to be researched and written, tests must be studied for but none of this is done or even started until the very last minute. Students who procrastinate generally spend a great deal of time pulling all –nighters in order to catch up to where they need to be or to cram for the big test in the morning.
A person who is habitually late to everything, from weddings to dates, is someone who procrastinates getting ready to leave. Maybe they don’t start getting ready until it’s nearly time to leave or they move so slowly that by the time they should leave for the event, they’re still way behind schedule.
Why do we let things slide until we’re in a time crunch and the deadline is looming and we’re not even CLOSE to being finished? Why do we procrastinate?
Why Do You Do It?
The behavior of procrastination affects almost everyone at one time or another in their life. For some it is a continuous habit, part of who they are, a not-so-endearing character trait; for others it may be a situational thing and doesn’t affect too many events in their life. For whatever reason, people put off things they don’t want to do.
Because You Are Afraid. No one likes to admit that they fear something, but fear might just be the reason you put off doing what you know you should do. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, it’s still fear. Fear is a paralyzing emotion. It has the ability to stop us in our tracks-literally. Some writers fear failure so they never write that epic novel they have churning around inside of them; some fear success and the result is the same. If you procrastinate compulsively, and who doesn’t enjoy doing that, then you may fear that once you’re successful at something you’ll suffer the compulsion to continually be successful. This will require you to work and finish what you’ve started and that will cut into your compulsion to procrastinate. It’s a never ending cycle. Fear can cause us to procrastinate.
Because You Don’t Think it’s Important Enough. You don’t place a high enough priority on the task at hand, it’s not vital and so it’s not worthy of you beginning it.
You know the task needs to be done and you may already have decided that you’re the one who must do it. However, there is always something else more important on your to-do list that keeps bumping that particular job back to the bottom. Let’s say you know that that the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. You’ll get to it later, after you go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping is more important because if you don’t have food you’ll starve to death. Besides, no one can see that the dishwasher is full of clean dishes. After grocery shopping you need to eat, because you’re hungry. Besides, you can just take a plate out of the dishwasher and use that. That’s sort of unloading it, isn’t it? Unloading the dishwasher isn’t a priority and that’s why you procrastinate doing it.
You Don’t Know Enough to do the Task. You may procrastinate beginning a project because you simply don’t know everything you need to know in order to complete the task. You may not have consciously admitted this to yourself, but deep down you know it and it’s coming out as an aversion to starting the project. You need to determine whether or not this is because you haven’t collected all the data on what you have to do, or simply because you want to stall for more time.
Because You’re Too Busy. Life is busy...
laziness. Everyone does it, including you.
We seek out what makes us feel good and attempt to avoid the things that annoy or bother us. Consciously determining why you procrastinate will go a long way in helping you change your behavior.
What is Procrastination?
Everyone does it, including you. You have things to do, important things or mundane things, and you put off doing them until the last minute. If Procrastination were an Olympic event you might be in the running for a gold medal, you’re that good at it. You make jokes about being a world class procrastinator with your friends, telling them that sure, you could finish that project right now if you wanted to but (yawn) you’re just going to do it tomorrow.
Procrastination is putting something off until later, either due to carelessness or habitual laziness. It’s putting off till tomorrow what you just as easily could have finished up today. A procrastinator postpones or needlessly delays accomplishing something –just because.
Students are notorious for engaging in this behavior. Papers need to be researched and written, tests must be studied for but none of this is done or even started until the very last minute. Students who procrastinate generally spend a great deal of time pulling all –nighters in order to catch up to where they need to be or to cram for the big test in the morning.
A person who is habitually late to everything, from weddings to dates, is someone who procrastinates getting ready to leave. Maybe they don’t start getting ready until it’s nearly time to leave or they move so slowly that by the time they should leave for the event, they’re still way behind schedule.
Why do we let things slide until we’re in a time crunch and the deadline is looming and we’re not even CLOSE to being finished? Why do we procrastinate?
Why Do You Do It?
The behavior of procrastination affects almost everyone at one time or another in their life. For some it is a continuous habit, part of who they are, a not-so-endearing character trait; for others it may be a situational thing and doesn’t affect too many events in their life. For whatever reason, people put off things they don’t want to do.
Because You Are Afraid. No one likes to admit that they fear something, but fear might just be the reason you put off doing what you know you should do. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, it’s still fear. Fear is a paralyzing emotion. It has the ability to stop us in our tracks-literally. Some writers fear failure so they never write that epic novel they have churning around inside of them; some fear success and the result is the same. If you procrastinate compulsively, and who doesn’t enjoy doing that, then you may fear that once you’re successful at something you’ll suffer the compulsion to continually be successful. This will require you to work and finish what you’ve started and that will cut into your compulsion to procrastinate. It’s a never ending cycle. Fear can cause us to procrastinate.
Because You Don’t Think it’s Important Enough. You don’t place a high enough priority on the task at hand, it’s not vital and so it’s not worthy of you beginning it.
You know the task needs to be done and you may already have decided that you’re the one who must do it. However, there is always something else more important on your to-do list that keeps bumping that particular job back to the bottom. Let’s say you know that that the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. You’ll get to it later, after you go grocery shopping. Grocery shopping is more important because if you don’t have food you’ll starve to death. Besides, no one can see that the dishwasher is full of clean dishes. After grocery shopping you need to eat, because you’re hungry. Besides, you can just take a plate out of the dishwasher and use that. That’s sort of unloading it, isn’t it? Unloading the dishwasher isn’t a priority and that’s why you procrastinate doing it.
You Don’t Know Enough to do the Task. You may procrastinate beginning a project because you simply don’t know everything you need to know in order to complete the task. You may not have consciously admitted this to yourself, but deep down you know it and it’s coming out as an aversion to starting the project. You need to determine whether or not this is because you haven’t collected all the data on what you have to do, or simply because you want to stall for more time.
Because You’re Too Busy. Life is busy...
