Is Procrastination Laziness or Anxiety?

Procrastination is very different from laziness. Procrastination is the deliberate or habitual postponement of tasks that should be completed today. It is about your emotions, and you are choosing to procrastinate even though there could be negative consequences. Laziness, on the other hand, is defined as an unwillingness to expend energy and inactivity.

Whys and Hows of Procrastination

Procrastination has been a favourite choice for many due to a lot of different reasons. The following are some essential picks:

The Future Failure

The fear of future failure is our lack of faith or confidence in our self-act and their consequences. This doubt factor drives us to exploit the human gift of imagination with negative amplification. The logic behind this is, no actions are taken, so there is no need to worry about the result or failure.

Remember, you have lost an opportunity to accomplish the task by taking actions. In simple words you let go ‘Success’.

The Past Failure

Tomorrow will be just like yesterday and yesterday was a failure. For many, learning from the past means avoiding getting into situations that ended up being failures, becoming overly cautious, and being frozen by your own armor of fear.

Learning from the past means, observe your past actions and reactions which lead to failure, be mindful, be cautious, assess the present situation and take actions confidently.

The Consequence

You procrastinate because you are aware of the consequence of your action and you feel it doesn’t worth doing the required. You hesitate to even share your thoughts with others, and you are being wrongly judged for not taking action.

But the thing to remember here is, you haven’t resolved the situation by taking action and facing the consequence. You have only delayed your action, and the situation will be back next time anyway, but more intense.

Instead, in the approach the being bold and do what you are supposed to do with confidence.

Being Perfect

Many procrastinate because they are waiting for the ‘perfect time’ or ‘perfect readiness’. Sometimes you procrastinate finishing what you've started because you can't achieve perfection.

What is the point of a perfect the meal without purpose?

Remember, perfection is subjective. You can avoid drowning in unnecessary analysis by making serving the purpose your first priority.

As we have learned many things throughout the reading, one main lesson is that "procrastination" is different from "laziness" and is a result of our own anxiety and imagination. We can get over it by practicing focusing, staying calm, taking a positive approach, and acting anyway.