I don’t think it’s because we’re lazy even though sometimes we are. We’re procrastinating only when we see something negative in the things we do. Doing those things would lower our current state of mind and we want to keep it “high” as long as we can.
The interesting part is that we’re not keeping our state that high because only the thought that we have to do something that we don’t like lowers our current state so instead of a big drop, it’s a small steady lowering and we start doing those things, the big drop comes. And that’s normal. We’re all procrastinating from time to time.
In my opinion, procrastination doesn’t help at all. We’re only being worrying about what we have to do which has a negative impact on us. So if we’re have to feel something negative, we might as well go do that sh*t.
“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” – Benjamin Franklin
I propose two strategies to lower the procrastination rate:
- Try to find something positive in the sh*t you need to do.
- If you can’t apply the first strategy, try to find something positive to do after you do the sh*t and you’ll be motivated by that.
There is another strategy that Mel Robbins proposes in her book The 5 Second Rule as a way to bypass the brain’s stressful response to that particular situation and it’s as simple as it sounds. The idea is that whenever you have trouble taking an action, start counting from 5 to 1 and then just start doing it. This strategy will activate the fast acting part of the brain and it will also influence the slow acting part of the brain and this way you’ll do sh*t faster.
Whatever your strategy is to stop procrastinating, just remember that the action you want to postpone will keep manifest it’s influence over you even if you’re not doing it. The more you postpone, the harder it will be to start, but you know you can’t dodge it. So instead of procrastinating and partially ruining your time before the action itself, I suggest you go and get sh*t done!
What do you do to stop procrastinating?
Hey DM,
Good post. I like the 5 second technique. I’m going to try that. Another thing that works is scheduling a time to do stuff that I don’t particularly want to do. The thing is that we can’t get too down on ourselves for procrastinating, or we’ll start rebelling against ourselves even more!
Thanks! I think that scheduling can be a great strategy to bypass procrastination. And yes, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for procrastinating.
Using rewards could be another technique. “I’ll do this now, but I get to do this later.” I have to admit I am a procrastinator, but not as much as I used to be. Being stubborn hasn’t been helping haha.
That’s what my second strategy is all about. The problem with this is that we’re using an external reward which is not going to change our internal view about the things we need to do, but we need to start from somewhere, right?
Very true. It can help at first, but relying on it wouldn’t be a very good long term strategy. Procrastination, the psychology behind it, and possible solutions are definitely worth thinking about 🙂
I like that post! And I like those strategies.
I’m glad you like it. I’m trying to bring different views to problems we all face and maybe someone can have that “click” and his/hers life gets better.
Well I make a list and try to have something good on the list. I was once told I procrastinate because I am a perfectionist who was trained at an early age, ‘If you can’t do it right don’t bother doing it all.’ Sometimes I get overwhelmed with the thought I can’t finish this so I won’t start it, but usually just getting started is enough to get me moving to finish what I need to.
Getting started is the biggest step! Just do it, take risks, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. It’s the only way to evolve. Thomas Edison had 1000+ failures before he created the light bulb (some say that he had 10.000 failures). Where would we be now if he stopped trying?
Oh wow! I needed to see this today! I am the absolute worst for procrastinating in doing something that will hurt someone or stir up conflict even though it is the best thing to do and the longer I put it off the worse I feel in anxiety and stress! Thank you for this 🙂
Thank you for reading and for sharing your thoughts! I really hope that this will help you lower your procrastination rate! 🙂