Procrastination Can Hold You Back…Don’t Let It

I visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater several years ago. I had spoken at a conference in the region and had decided to make a special trip to see this architectural masterpiece. While I was an architectural student, I had studied Fallingwater. I admired it for years. As I walked through the surrounding lush forest of Bear Run towards the house in anticipation, I felt the vastness of nature that Wright’s design was in communication with. As I came face to face with Fallingwater, I paused in awe at its magnificent beauty. As I walked in, I felt the dampness of the building. The falls cascade under the house. I could see, hear, and feel the waterfall’s power. As I wiped the mist off my face, I marveled at Wright conceiving it and bringing it to shape. It is no wonder the Smithsonian names it as one of the top places to visit before you die.

While visiting Fallingwater, I was struggling to get started on a major project. I felt the pressure of wanting it to be perfectly executed and the weight of achieving it. I had taken this short trip to Fallingwater without knowing that Wright had major issues due to procrastination with this particular commission. He delayed his design work for over a year until the owner of the house, Edgar Jonas Kaufmann, demanded to see the plan. Wright’s procrastination is a notable example of the practice of putting off work.

Procrastination is a common issue that holds many people back. About 95% of all people claim that they often put off work that could be done immediately. While many of us find reasons to not tackle a task that we should be attending to, 1 in 5 of us allow procrastination to prevent our success. Up to 20% of U.S. adults are chronic procrastinators. In taking a long, hard look at the way we approach work – whether for our career or personal lives – we can better understand the roadblocks we’re placing in front of ourselves on our path to success.

While perfectionism and fear are two driving forces behind procrastination, there are other key reasons as well. Some of these include a belief that we work better under pressure, a lack of caring about the work itself, believing that we need to wait for the right moment, and not feeling in the mood to do the work. There are certain characteristics of tasks that also trigger procrastination. Work that is ambiguous may seem impossible to surmount. Work that is unstructured, difficult, or lacks personal meaning is likely to be postponed or avoided. If we do not think the work we’re doing has any meaning or offers any reward, we’ll begin to find ourselves procrastinating on a number of items.

That said, Adam Grant, a professor at Wharton School of Business, found in a study that ideas generated by procrastinators tend to be 28% more creative than the ideas from those who did not procrastinate on a particular task. Procrastination can actually encourage divergent thinking. This can lead to innovation. According to Grant, Steve Jobs was a chronic procrastinator. Frank Lloyd Wright procrastinated on Fallingwater, which became a monument to architectural design. Sometimes procrastination is actually beneficial if we are able to use it to sort through thoughts and come up with original solutions.  

That said, procrastination often holds us back. If you struggle with putting things off, here are some tips I’ve found useful:

• Break It Down: Large projects or tasks can seem impossible to complete. If you break them down into micro tasks and set yourself several of these per day, you’ll find that you’re completing the large project without feeling overwhelmed.
• Recognize Your Thoughts: If you often avoid starting or finishing a project, step back and recognize what thought processes are holding you back. Are you avoiding the work because you find it anxiety provoking? Does your avoidance diminish the anxiety or does it compound it? In noticing your thoughts, you can then start to shift them when it comes to the way you approach work.
• Communicate: If you need more time with the work because you are a divergent thinker, you must communicate how you work so that others do not see it as avoidance or delay. Many who procrastinate feel a sense of guilt or shame because they have not completed the task by the deadline, but they also do not communicate what they are struggling with or why they might need more time.
• Practice: Procrastination can stem from perfectionism. The way to counter perfectionism is to see everything you do as practice rather than as a final product. In approaching your work with this mindset you’ll find it easier to get started and understand that work is a process that requires revisions and re-takes. Nothing is perfect from the get-go.

Procrastination can become a serious problem for those who aren’t willing to address it. But with the right tweaks, you can overcome avoidance and move the procrastination roadblocks out of your way.