How to Procrastinate Procrastination

Procrastination is the manifestation of a psychological trait that is intrinsically embedded in our nature. Every single person exhibits procrastination at a unique set of things from time to time, and at different levels. Although most of us see procrastination was an inexorable weakness in our nature that we should just surrender ourselves to, there are tactics that we can employ to develop good habits to counter its negative effects. But before we dive in, let’s take a deeper understanding of what exactly is procrastination.

From a psychological point of view, the main cause of procrastination is usually the irrational belief that there is more than sufficient time to do something in a later time, and so that it doesn’t justify the motive to have it completed right now at the cost of the current pleasure. The root of these irrational beliefs fall into two camps. One is that it is our defensive nature to postpone unpleasant or unenjoyable work in order to avoid it as long as we can, while the second one is due to the potential fears that we perceive while engaging certain tasks. For example, one may unconsciously procrastinate on an assignment because engaging on it would reveal certain facts that the person does not want to accept, such as that he or she lacks the competence at completing the task, how the task can have implications on other aspects of life, etc.

Knowing that procrastination is a natural psychological phenomenon does not mean total defeat. There are many ways and tactics to both minimize the frequency of procrastination and to lower the negative effects associated with it. Some are trivial efforts that be applied in our daily lives on a regular basis, while others are more professional approaches that require sophisticated intervention from the fields of psychology and physiology.

The most effective tactics, at least for myself, is to develop a set of habits that are deeply drilled in our daily routines that counter the effects of procrastination. These habits should be discovered by yourself over time during the course of combating procrastination, and should be deeply embedded in your daily lives. Below I’d like to share some of the habits that I have developed to remedy procrastination.

1. Try look at a certain task from another perspective

While we may often procrastinate at a certain set of things because they lack the ingredients of motivation and pleasure, it helps by making ourselves try to look at them from different perspectives. Before approaching to engage a certain task, we should expand our horizon at evaluating the values and benefits we get from performing that task. Often things that look or sound dull superficially might have profound impacts and benefits on us, but just well hidden below our perceptions.

2. Divide-and-conquer, again

Often we procrastinate because we are intimidated by the sheer size of the tasks that we are about to embark, and that fear is often the biggest contributor to demoralization and demotivation. However, if we can divide the task into separate and manageable pieces, and have reasonable planning on how to complete each one of those little pieces, that intimidation will be no more. On the contrary, we will feel more confident about ourselves because we can tackle the little tasks quicker and more efficiently, and that ultimately leads to greater motivation. Vala, a virtuous cycle!

3. Start small, but early

Similar to the divide-and-conquer approach, it often helps to set a tiny goal for yourself on a certain task at the beginning, and gradually increase your progress and expectations. This way you won’t be intimidated and will discover your ways of effectively tackling the task during the process.

4. You are not alone

Usually when you feel intimidated by the uncertainties and unknowns that lie within a task, or when you feel absolutely lost and surrounded by despair, try look outside the window and get all the helps you can from people that you know. It’s very rare that you are the only single person tackling a problem that nobody else have ever done or have zero experience in it. Ask questions, gather resources, inquire wisdom, borrow expertise, you will be surprised at how far you can get by asking for help.

5. Procrastinate to fresh your mind

Often you procrastinate because you are frustrated by the stagnant progress over certain task when you get stuck, and no matter how hard you scratch your head, you seem to be getting nowhere. In those cases, it helps to just allow yourself to procrastinate on that task for “a while”, and take this time to context switch to something else where your mind can be focused on, preferably something relaxing or work on something in a totally different domain. After you’ve done that, come back to that original problem and resume your progress, when you feel refreshed and rejuvenated, perhaps after a break or at the beginning of a day. You will feel better knowing that by procrastinate a little, you avoid procrastinate a lot more.

6. Take a moment to rethink the task in hand

When you really have the urge to procrastinate on a certain task, maybe it’s worthwhile to take a moment to rethink the task at hand, and ask yourself the following questions: does this task really fits my skills and interests? does doing this really benefit me at all? is it really worth doing at the cost of XXX? If you immediately have NO as an answer to any of those questions, then you want to take a break and to re-evaluate if you should really be engaged at the task at all. Sometimes we engage at a certain task simply because we do it as a convention or we are expected to do it by someone, but maybe we don’t really have to. Procrastination can serve as a mirror for you to re-examine yourself, and potentially avoid procrastination all together.

At the end of the day, there’s no holy grail on procrastination. Taken granted the fact that it is intrinsically part of our nature, we can help ourselves to minimize the negative impacts of it, or even take advantages of it that benefit ourselves.