Psyche Behind PROCRASTINATION

" Procrastination is something far more than simply putting off things till tomorrow". In the past 20 yrs the behavior of procrastination has received an empirical outburst .True Procrastination is a complicated failure of self- regulation . In other words we can even term it as lacking self discipline .Experts define it as a voluntary delay of some important task that we intend to do despite knowing we will suffer as a result. John Perry, author of "The Art of Procrastination" has argued that people can dawdle to their advantage by restructuring their to-do lists . But psychologists, do not go by this view. They argue that it conflates beneficial, proactive behavior like (pondering- attempt to solve a problem) or prioritizing ( which organizes a set of problems) with the detrimental, self defeating habit of genuine procrastination.Its a mal adaptive life style.

Researchers call procrastination the "quintessential" breakdown of self control. You know what you ought to do and you are not being able to bring yourself to do it .Its the gap between INTENTION & ACTION. Let us now ,try to understand what leads us to procrastinate ??? Actually nothing, I do feel when a task is being delegated to me there are two outputs of the same - DONE OR NOT DONE . Yes, there are eventually various rational and irrational reasons behind the task completion. But if I need to avoid Procrastination - either I complete the work or I compete the work (as if it needs , external intervention then extra efforts are required to complete it ) . Otherwise , it directly hits the regulatory issues of our character .

There are various procrastinators but I prefer to divide them into two types chronic and situational . Chronic for me , are those people who have no solid reason to procrastinate and they are habitual in the same . Anything and everything you delegate to them, they can invent reasons of why the work is not being completed , and they seem to be highly convicted to influence their environment as well . Whereas, the situational ones are those people who are not regular procrastinators but they have a self regulatory and disciplinary issues . They feel differently in terms of responding under different situations , so they, to me are more anxious to situations . Plenty of Time procrastination is a very common behavior where we do not set a target to a task . Our thought process centers around tasks as only a part of professional bucket but a simple act of getting 1 kg of potato, and the five minutes we buy every day while trying to leave the bed in the morning is also a practice of procrastination . Why does this happen? As we have not set a target to the same , we feel that we have time left over and we can use it as per our own benefit.

To overcome procrastination , is an act of expertise , as that needs a huge practice of being disciplined , and strong will power to follow them . What I do if I face that I am getting into procrastination-

1. I , ponder on the subject and try to understand the importance and why am i delegated the task and what is expected out of me .
2. Then I prioritize , the action plan activities as part of the intention of the task as I need to complete .
3. If I need a support I start my follow ups so that I can get the external sources responsible to complete if required
4. If I am unable to address the solution , I inform the same to the concerned authority thus stating the inconvenience occurred , and if any exploration starts I treat it as a new learning methodology.

In my next article I would frame the behavioral attributes which can give us few inputs about how and when attributes change the situation.