We all have experienced procrastination during sometime and at some stage of our lives. To put it simply, it’s the habit of putting things off until the very last minute or way past the deadline if it is ever going to be done. This is common and ordinary until the loop of procrastination starts to exert a detrimental influence on our work/school performance, relationships with others, self-image, achievements, etc. Research conducted in 2014 found twenty to twenty-five percent of adults worldwide are chronic procrastinators. This is linked to higher levels of depression, anxiety, attention deficiency, and poor self-esteem. Another study tracked the lives of more than three thousand students, comparing those with higher self-reported procrastination scales. There’s greater incidences of disabling pain in the shoulders and limbs, worse sleep quality, unhealthy lifestyle, and longer response time to physical health problems than lower rating students.
Procrastination can be caused by multiple factors simultaneously, from perfectionism to the fear of failure to the lack of energy. Nonetheless, stress was one of the fundamental perpetrators of this behavior. We face additional stress if we strive for perfection since it isn’t always attainable. We are stressed out when focusing on the possibility of failing, such as the mere thought of doing horrible on an exam. We are more anxious when we push off urgent tasks prior to the deadline because we feel lethargic then realizing there’s no way we can finish it before midnight. All such explanations of procrastination seem to be associated with stress in some camouflaged way.
There is a mutual relationship in between. Procrastination can cause stress and stress can exacerbate procrastination. Let’s imagine the hypothetical scenario of someone who is delayed in reviewing for an upcoming assessment happening tomorrow. This shortage of preparation time causes ample stress since now it’s more likely to bomb the test. In return, this stress makes it even harder to start studying and concentrating on the materials as procrastination-induced stress serves as a form of condemnation and distraction in the mind. People would opt for less demanding tasks like browsing social media which don’t require as much concentration and motivation, procrastinating even further or even surrendering to the idea of going to the test completely unprepared.
We also have the tendency to use procrastination as an ineffective emotion-regulation strategy. It’s pleasant to think that engaging in procrastinating activities (immersing ourselves online) would decrease the stress level we thought before we were to tackle the challenging, irksome task. But the reality is the longer we delay, the more stress we accumulate. Why? Doing activities completely detached from productivity essentially would not make us feel good about ourselves, especially at such a competitive age. Things like scrolling through Instagram only reduces stress temporarily while we are doing it because we postpone that stress by hiding behind the “peace of mind” offered by not thinking about the demanding task ahead of us. Once reality drags us back, that buried stress will surface with sevenfold intensity, because we eventually need to do the accumulation of tasks that we haven’t yet completed, plus the additional rush, negative emotions, and interpersonal conflicts that we might have to deal with to get it done in an insufficient timeframe.
In The War of Art by Steven Pressf, he made a famous quote explaining how procrastination works: “At some point, the pain of not doing it became greater than the pain of doing it.” Then why are we waiting to increase the pain to reach our threshold of motivation when we can reduce the pain by doing it right now, at this very moment? Here are some personally tested strategies to get you going immediately.
- Countdown from 3. When we know a looming task is getting more urgent by the second but couldn’t convince ourselves to begin, count three, two, one audible or inaudible, disregarding what we feel at the juncture. When we reach one, get up and move toward whatever task you are trying to accomplish. When we act fast enough (within the three second window), there’s no time for our brain to process and mull over the rather unpleasant task to raise any objections and justification for further postponements. As the brain realizes what happened, we have already started the task. Simon Sinek said, “The hardest part is starting. Get that out of the way and the journey is much easier. Trust me, after five to ten minutes of forced focus, the reminder of the hour drastically improves.
- Increase dopamine production. Like a vehicle running out of gas, when we feel dry, empty, lonely, or unhappy in general, we are least likely to stay productive. There’s a concept in health science that stated foods with high-glycemic index (a measurement of the speed of digestion of absorption) such as white bread, candy, chocolate, rice, high-sugar soft-drinks, etc, leads to a spike in blood sugar immediately after consumption as the broken down food source is quickly absorbed into our bloodstream, making our stomach growl again shortly afterwards. Similarly, if we replenish our dopamine secretion using procrastination activities whether it was binge-watching or engrossed in social media, the dopamine level spikes while we are at it, but dissipates as soon as we start doing something less pleasurable. It’s better to create a consistent, chronic dopamine stream with physical activities from taking a walk to eating a snack, and it will look different for everyone, which is comparably less enjoyable, but still refreshing enough to keep us on the hinge of staying motivated.
- Understanding the reason why we procrastinate. Stress expresses itself in distinctively different ways. Are we delaying a task because we are afraid of something or are we overwhelmed by the possibility of being unable to do it adequately to meet the expectation? There are countless other worries that prevent us from taking action. We can try completing the following sentences: “I am avoiding this task because...” or “I am avoiding this task because I am afraid of...” Identifying the obstacle blocking our progress is the first step of going around it.
- Search the pleasant from the unpleasant. We instinctively want to do the easier thing even if the harder thing is the right thing to do. Many times that we don’t dislike the entire part of the task could be the associated problem of being too time-consuming, complicated, and frustrating to get it done. For instance, writing an essay doesn’t sound like an extremely exciting business, but maybe we can focus on the fact that the earlier we start, the more time is left after to hang out with friends. Or the topic of the essay is rather interesting to learn, or even the rhythmic clattering of the keyboard is satisfying to hear as we type the essay as a document. Let’s adjust our attention to the positive sides of the present even if it’s a harder-to-see perspective than the negative side so we naturally eliminate the bad stress to fuel procrastination.
Undeniably, most tasks and assignments in our lives, we have to complete, even if it means passing the due date or the deadline. Except this habit might end up providing us additional consequences. There’s actually no use in making it more painful than it already is by postponement. There is a special type called “active procrastination” in which people purposefully delay tasks to feel “challenged and motivated” under higher pressure. However, this is not always the most recommended thing to do for most people. So, the major procrastination that we have experienced is passive and not at all helpful. It’s okay to put things off our plates and it’s not always necessary to take immediate action, but if the unrelenting cycle of stress and procrastination shows signs of interfering with our potential and our daily living, we should break free from the downward spiral. Anti-procrastination techniques have occupied a significant portion of our internet nowadays and it’s not only limited to the ones that we have mentioned here. Like every other coping mechanism, most won’t work for everyone, but there’s at least one to shatter the omnipresent cycle of stress-procrastination that’s compatible with each unique individual.
References:
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/procrastination https://neurosciencenews.com/procrastination-mental-physical-health-22317/
https://www.summahealth.org/flourish/entries/2021/01/stress-management-how-to-tell-the-difference-between- good-and-bad-stress
https://solvingprocrastination.com/stress/#:~:text=Stress%20can%20cause%20procrastination.,such%20as%2 0browsing%20social%20media. https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating/
https://www.usemotion.com/blog/stop-procrastinating?utm_source=google&utm_medium=20228218769&utm_ campaign=&utm_term=&utm_content=&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpvK4BhDUARIsADHt9sQi7jmhfJjw1l NQXxbDK9nQnez6Td3J05oL3AliAlDgU7WaqMvk9OgaAroAEALw_wcB
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vanessaloder/2016/04/15/10-scientifically-proven-tips-for-beating-procrastination/
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-procrastination-2795944#:~:text=Procrastination%20is%20th e%20act%20of,leads%20us%20to%20act%20irrationally.
