Procrastination is one of those terms which I have always found difficult to remember, to say, and write about; in English, of course. The word itself easily slips away from my mind the moment I think about the behavior of procrastinating and when I am actually procrastinating. So I think again and again, “what was that word that describes what I am doing now?” and the word does not come easy. Typing it is another challenge. As I am writing this, it is on rare occasions that I pause for a second to slow-type it not to miss spell it.
Enough about the word and more on the action it entails. What is procrastination, some of you may ask? The internet defines it as the behavior of putting things off until tomorrow, or later. For me, procrastination is a way of strategically avoiding the completion of a task that we are supposed to complete urgently, by starting another task that gives us more comfort.
From my experience, one thing is for sure that one rarely procrastinates when faced with a task that he or she enjoys doing. Procrastination is therefore all about tasks that give us bad feelings. Either the task is boring, is difficult, or we simply lack the self-confidence to complete it with the expected quality. So, we go around and around it, without addressing it. We face the task, open our computer, our files, and minutes later we find ourselves busy with another task, such as reading an article online or following up on current affairs.
The thing is the task has never really left our minds, always gnawing at our subconscious. That is reflected in our not-so-stable state of emotion when we are engaged in the replacement task, because we know deep down that the task will still be waiting for us once we are done with our replacement tasks.
When we finally finish the replacement task, we find ourselves in a state of emotion that is worse than the original state, when we first avoided it to start the replacement task. Why is that?
First, I believe it is because we feel guilt with the realization that we still have not completed the task and blame ourselves for not being productive enough. Second, we realize that time has flown by, while the task remains untouched. That depresses us even more because we now have a shorter time left to complete the task.
One thing that I have learned is that the likelihood of procrastination becomes less if you have started the task, even if it is in the slightest bit. One is less likely to procrastinate if he or she has taken the smallest steps to start the task. The smallest step taken is like a motivation to go further, a realization that it can be done. The challenge is in starting the task itself.
I believe that the key to challenging procrastination is to sit and think about all the negative consequences that will come out of it, if we practice it. The guilt from being unproductive, the delayed completion of assignments, the reprimands it will result from, should be well thought about. One should also realize that the task we are desperately avoiding and putting off for later or tomorrow is unavoidable. It does not go away just because we decided to avoid it.
So if that is the case, why expose ourselves to guilt and punishments that accompany it for something that is avoidable?
What I do is to force, literally force myself to make the tiniest step in starting the task. After that, it flows like a river. Just start something, anything, even if you think the initial step you took is a mediocre one. I have seen many times that things get easier from then on!!
