Start procrastinating (you read that right)

I had Sunday, 1 January, scheduled. It was planned for a while. It would be a quiet, productive start to the year. I was up early, ate too many pastries ('no pastry' 2023 got off to a strong start naturally) and sat at the desk by 8.30 am.?

Laptop open, my to-do list ready, and off I went to crush the first day of the year.?

I'm convinced there must've been a serious glitch in the Matrix because 4.30 pm came around, and there had been absolutely nothing of value done other than achieving an unreasonable about of XP points on Duolingo.?

If this doesn't sound familiar to you, I'm going to need you to skip to the bottom because, clearly, you are SUPERHUMAN.?

Alas, my fellow mortals, let's talk about procrastination and whether there is any value we can draw from it.?

Psychologically, there are many reasons why we procrastinate, including;?

• lack of motivation or interest in the task,?
• lack of confidence or self-esteem?
• fear of failure or success.?

These underlying issues can be so distracting to us (mostly unconscious) that we kick into overwhelm and enter into a form of freeze state.?

There are many ways you can identify this in your language and in your teams (check out this post for some insights on that), but despite what you may think there is a gift in here for us.?

Let me first start with what procrastination typically looks like:?

I'll do it later → distraction station → panic mode → all-nighter?

1. The?"I'll do it later"?stage, where you tell yourself you'll start that project or task later, but you're really just trying to avoid it. This stage is where you tell yourself that you will do it after you watch one episode of a series, knowing that you have never in the history of your life only watched one episode.?
2. Next, there's the?"Distraction Station"?stage, where you constantly check social media, watch videos or do anything to avoid starting the task at hand. This stage is like trying to avoid your responsibilities by watching cat videos on youtube.
3. Then there's the?"Panic Mode"?stage, where you realise you have a deadline approaching and you haven't even started. This stage is like realising you have a test tomorrow and have yet to study.
4. And finally, there's the?"All-Nighter" stage, where you're up late trying to finish the task at hand because you've procrastinated for so long. This stage is like trying to cram a year's worth of studying in one night.

Now, where can you find the gift I mentioned??

Well, we typically jump between these 'stages' with fear as our primary emotion. Underneath this lies shame and guilt. First, we feel guilty about how "unproductive we are", and then instead of doing something about it, we hide in a shame cycle and avoid it further.?

Procrastination itself is not the thing we should be examining; it's shame.

When we procrastinate, we have an obvious cue that there is something in the task/work we are doing that wants us to avoid it. We would rather be in a shame cycle than do the work.?

Why??

So let's interrupt stages one and two and ask that.?

What are we avoiding??

If we dug a little deeper, we could have direct access to the underlying emotions and thoughts that are so clearly trying to tell us something.?

If we had a process where we could add compassion, our outlook on procrastination could change, and we could eliminate the need to jump head-first into a shame cycle.?

That would look like this:?

I'll do it later →?awareness and?compassion interlude →?distraction station → task you were going to do.

It is not the quantity of procrastination but the quality of it. So make your distraction station a conscious decision and watch how the other stages' affect on you changes.?

Happy procrastinating,?

Tarina

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