Why do we procrastinate?
Sheryl Garratt
Coach helping creative professionals build the success and the life they want, making work they love
Procrastination is the biggest creative block of all.?
It’s the boss level. And to defeat a boss, we need to practice, build up our skills – and get to know the enemy. So here’s a definition:?
Procrastination is the habit of voluntarily and unnecessarily putting off important tasks you need to do, even when you have time to do them. You know that avoiding these tasks will probably cause you problems in the future. Yet you do it anyway, to avoid feeling bad in the present.
Procrastination is a form of self-harm.
We all know this. But this awareness doesn’t stop us giving in to it.?
In his useful and blessedly short book?Solving The Procrastination Puzzle , scientist and long-term procrastination researcher Dr Tim Pychyl identifies the song of the procrastinator.?
Perhaps that sounds familiar?
Procrastination is a master of disguise.?
Its song has many different lyrics and hooks, endless variations on the themes above.?
You can be perfectly alert and awake until you turn to an aversive task. Then the fog descends, and you suddenly feel exhausted. Procrastination will tell you to rest now. To take a nap, have an early night, relax by playing a computer game, or scrolling. Because you’ll do it better tomorrow (or the day after that).
“Wait until later,” it urges, promising that then you’ll somehow then have all the energy, knowledge, skill, confidence you need. (Spoiler alert: you won't.)
It persuades you to delay starting the task at hand while you just clear the decks, empty your in-box, research or prepare a bit more, tidy your office, declutter a cupboard, then watch Netflix to recover.
It whispers cunningly: “Just this one more thing before you start…” Or, “Why don’t you have a quick look at Instagram?”?
Once it’s wasted your day, it repeats its tired old promise. You can start fresh in the morning. Tomorrow, you’ll be less anxious/in a better mood/more able to cope with the work.
Except tomorrow never comes. When you wake up, it’s just today again. And Future You? It’s turns out to be the same old you, only more stressed. Because you’re one day closer to your deadline. Or you’ve lost a precious day that you could have spent working on a project that was important to you.
All humans procrastinate.
As we will see, it’s in our nature. There are strong evolutionary reasons why all of us procrastinate occasionally.?
But some procrastinate more than others. Research indicates that 15-25% of us are habitual, chronic procrastinators. And that’s when it gets truly harmful.?
Chronic procrastination is bad for your health, your happiness, your career prospects, your bank balance, your friendships.
You put off exercise; you eat badly (you’ll start that diet tomorrow); you put off getting medical check-ups, or support for your mental health.
You end up paying interest on bills and fines on your tax because you put off dealing with financial matters. As for that big creative project, or the qualification you need to get a promotion? You’ve put off working on that for months on end.
You’re seen as unreliable at work, and by friends. People stop trusting you to do the things you say you’ll do. Even worse,?you stop trusting yourself.?
The resulting guilt and shame simply creates more unpleasant feelings. Which makes us even more likely to procrastinate, escaping into numbing or distracting activities.?
Creatives are especially prone to this.?
I’ve found no scientific studies to back this up, but I’m willing to bet that a disproportionate number of chronic procrastinators are self-employed, work in a creative field, and have self-directed projects they’re struggling to start or finish.?Why??
There are four stages in any creative project , and all have their own procrastination traps.?It’s also true that a lot of creative work doesn’t look like work from the outside. Sometimes, you’re the only one who knows if you’re procrastinating, or doing essential dreaming, exploring and thinking .
Common triggers for procrastination
We don’t procrastinate on doing things we genuinely enjoy, or that we find easy. We only avoid tasks that are aversive to us in some way. The more of these triggers a task has, the more likely we are to procrastinate:
领英推荐
Why we procrastinate: the science
Procrastination occurs when two different parts of your brain go to war with each other.
The limbic system?is the emotional, instinctive part of your brain, including the pleasure centre. It’s your dinosaur brain, the most ancient part of our thinking process. A small, walnut-sized area called the amygdala assesses danger and triggers your fight-flight-freeze response. If you spot a tiger, the amygdala instantly overrides everything else your brain is doing, so that you immediately run, fight, hide – or do whatever else you need to do to stay alive.
The prefrontal vortex?is the more recent and logical ‘executive’ section of the brain. In charge of planning, decision-making, control and social behaviour, it wants you to do unpleasant things to further long-term goals. If you live in a place where tigers might attack, this is the part of the brain that will urge you to design strong fences to keep you safe, and invent better weapons to defend yourself with.?
Dinosaurs don’t play well with technology.
Our brain evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. It hasn’t had time to adjust to the modern world, where life-threatening incidents are mercifully rare for the vast majority of us.?
When faced with the stress of a task that makes us feel anxious or insecure, the amygdala still perceives it as a existential threat, and swings into action. It can’t tell the difference between a tiger attack and a work deadline; a threat to your life and something that threatens your self-esteem.?
Your dinosaur brain is concerned only with the present, and getting you to back to comfort and safety now. It’s not bothered about your plans and goals, your deadlines, your Future Self. Its only job is making sure you?have?a future, by getting your out of danger.?
Scientists call this “amygdala hijack”, an instinctive response that overrides the more rational parts of our mind. The rest of us call this having a full day to work on an important project, yet somehow spending it watching cat videos, answering email, or making an especially complex dinner involving hours of shopping for esoteric ingredients, chopping and simmering. (Or is that just me?)
Procrastination is giving in to feel good.?
You avoid the unpleasant, uncomfortable feelings associated with the task at hand by instead opting for adrenalin rush of ticking easy things off your to-do list. You get engrossed in busywork that feels productive, but actually moves nothing important forward.?
Or you escape into watching video clips, scrolling social media, playing computer games – all distracting activities that have been?designed?to be addictive, by giving you regular, unpredictable little hits of pleasure-giving dopamine.?
We know this relief is temporary. Later on, we’ll feel even worse. We understand that we’re creating problems for our Future Self. If we’re honest, and ask ourselves how we’re?really?feeling, procrastination rarely feels good, even in the moment.?
Yet we do it anyway.?And for chronic procrastinators, this becomes an ingrained habit.
It’s a short-term fix.
Procrastination is a strangely joyless drug with a hideous hangover. By giving in to it, we deny ourselves of slower, gentler, but more lasting pleasures. The satisfaction of solving a difficult problem. The confidence that comes with knowing you can do hard things.?And the fulfilment you get from building up a substantial body of work.
So procrastination isn’t about being lazy, lacking discipline. It’s not about motivation, or will-power. Beating yourself up only makes it worse, giving you more unpleasant feelings to run away from.
Procrastination is about learning to manage unpleasant emotions: fear and uncertainty, guilt and shame, feeling inadequate or worried that you won’t be able to save your idea well.
To overcome it, we have to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Everything else is dealing with the symptoms, not the cause.?
It’s all about emotions.
Emotions are rarely rational. But they’re powerful. Understand this, and procrastination becomes easier to deal with.
If you?expect?to encounter resistance every time you start creative work, you can prepare for it. And decide in advance how to respond.?What you’ll choose to tell your panicked dinosaur brain, how you’ll soothe your amygdala and put your pre-frontal cortex back in the driving seat.
Most of all, you can decide that you’ll notice when the siren song of procrastination begins, and choose to ignore it. To just get going on the task you need to do, even if you don’t feel like it.
Begin, and it’s rarely as bad as you imagined.
Remember that the conditions don’t have to be perfect. Motivation follows action, not the other way round. It doesn’t matter if your muse doesn’t show up, so long as you do. You don’t have to be in the right mood or mindset. You just need to begin.?
Procrastination will always be there.
It will keep changing its tune, coming back in new and clever disguises. But when you expect this, it’s easier to see it for what it is.?And to finally beat it.
Sheryl Garratt is a writer, and a coach helping creative professionals get the success they want, making work they truly love. Get The Creative Companion , my bi-weekly email packed with articles, links and resources for creative professionals. (Or those who want to be.) It's free!