Procrastination

I feel like there’s too much information out there about “time management” as a solution to procrastination, when in fact that’s no the issue. If just knowing what we should do from the practical point of view would have helped us not procrastinate, we would all be doing our tasks on time, all the time, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Why do we get stuck in this habit of procrastination?

Well, one reason is that we have a brain that is built to prefer immediate reward. Procrastination means our current self says “I prefer to feel good now”. However, this is just scratching the surface of the problem and doesn’t really give us anything to work with.

Another reason which weighs more is the fact that we try to avoid our negative feelings associated with the task.

Recent research shows that we procrastinate mostly because of the negative feelings we have when we think about doing something. When imagining doing a chore we have to do, we’re inundated with negativity. For example, we could anticipate the immense effort the task will take and start feeling some resistance to it, we could start beating ourselves up because we fear we might make a mistake, we could feel fear of not making it in the required time, we could beat ourselves up for postponing so much already.

Procrastination is in fact not a time management issues, but an emotion regulation one. Emotional regulation means we can delay our “feeling good now” and we can let go of the “negativity” associated with the task.

When we procrastinate, we try to put off those negative feelings. We try to either numb ourselves, dismiss the negative feelings, cover up with immediate positive feelings.

So the best way to stop procrastinating is to let go of the negative feelings that we have about the tasks. That’s easy to do, because letting go is a natural ability we all have. In therapy you can better understand your feelings, your avoidance mechanisms and let them go.

What negative feelings are you experiencing associated with what you need to do, or should be doing? Let me know :)