Procrastination and Boredom
We’ve all had times where we push the work we aren’t motivated to do to the very last minute. Maybe it’s an essay, a project, or something else that just feels too mundane to do right away. You might believe you are procrastinating because you feel lazy and don’t know how to manage your time, but it is actually more than that. What causes us to procrastinate, and how can we overcome it?
One thing to understand is that procrastination can be a bigger problem for some people than others. According to Fuschia Sirois, a professor of psychology in Durham University in the UK, it is estimated that about 50% of college students procrastinate at a chronic level, while 80–90% of them procrastinate at least once to a less extreme measure, which is still a lot! Chronic procrastination among adults who now have jobs is estimated to be from 15–25%.
So why do we procrastinate? Well, the answer is pretty straightforward: we tend to procrastinate on the tasks which we do not enjoy. This task may just be boring, frustrating, or anxiety-provoking. People also procrastinate due to the fear of the unknown results of completing the task or lack of self esteem or confidence. How will other’s feel about it? What if it isn’t good enough? Procrastination is a “great” way for our brains to not have to deal with those negative emotions that are connected to that task, pushing and postponing it until the last minute.
But why do we find things unpleasant and boring in the first place?
Boring tasks can be explained by the lack of stimulation our brain gets from them. Our brain has a “reward system,” which consists of neurons in specific sections of the brain that use dopamine, a neurotransmitter responsible for the feelings of motivation, pleasure and reward, to communicate.
In the VTA, or the ventral tegmental area of the brain, dopamine neurons are found. These neurons are where the neurotransmitter is produced. After completing a rewarding or stimulating task, the neurons in the VTA produce the dopamine, which is then transmitted to the neurons in the nucleus accumbens, which is a part of the brain that is responsible for our motivation. When the dopamine gets released in this area, this is what motivates us to do the stimulating task again. Based on this, we can say that when a task is boring, it is less stimulating to our brain, consequently lowering the production of dopamine. Because of this low dopamine production, our brain won’t feel motivation to do the boring task and our brains want us to do something more stimulating, and therefore, we procrastinate.
How to stop procrastinating
- The first step in stopping procrastination is to understand why you are putting off that task in the first place? How does doing that task make you feel? As mentioned before, we procrastinate on tasks that make us feel negative emotions or thoughts. Recognizing these feelings can actually help minimize them and can provide more motivation to complete the task. Find “productive reasons” to do your task. This means find positive sounding reasons instead of, “I’m just doing this so I don’t fail my class and so my parents don’t get mad at me.” Find positive reasons that relate to you and your goals. This can reduce those negative feelings and increase motivation to actually do the task.
- Using techniques such as rewarding yourself after doing a task can also be a great way to find motivation. For example, you can say, “after I finish writing this essay, I will allow myself to play video games.” Doing less stimulating tasks before you do higher stimulating tasks has shown to be incredibly helpful in preventing procrastination.
- Another method you can use is setting mini goals throughout your time until you eventually finish the task. For example, instead of writing out your whole essay right then and there, you could just bullet point main ideas or do a very rough draft of it. The important part is to at least start your task, and maybe in the process, you could find the motivation to finish it.
Procrastination can be frustrating and demotivating and can affect some people more than others, but there are ways to prevent it. It is important to be educated on the reasons for procrastinating to make your life more productive and positive, and we don’t have to be stuck in the same cycle forever.
Sources:
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/procrastinate