Do You Really Want To Overcome Your Procrastination Habit?

It’s Sunday afternoon and I planned to write an important article but I ended up organizing my wardrobe.

It wouldn’t be fair to describe myself as lazy. After all, organizing a wardrobe requires effort and focus. Decluttering clothes by category, cleaning closet, organizing it as per the requirement. And it’s not like I was hanging out with friends or watching Netflix. I was doing work.

Sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone!

This isn’t laziness or bad time management. Then what is it?

This is Procrastination.

What Is Procrastination?

It is the act of delaying the task and doing something else despite knowing what you should be doing. When you procrastinate instead of doing an important task you end up doing trivial activities. It is the force that prevents you from following through on what you set out to do.

So, this is clear what procrastination means and we all do it every now and then.

But now the question arises, why you procrastinate? Let’s find out the answer.

“You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again.” -Benjamin Franklin

Why Do We Procrastinate?

According to behavioural psychology research, time inconsistency is the main reason for procrastination. What is time inconsistency? It is a situation in which a decision maker’s preferences change over time so that a preference can become inconsistent at another point in time. In short, the human brain tends to value immediate rewards more than future rewards.

For better understanding let me connect it with my example. I knew writing an article was important for me but I preferred organizing my wardrobe. The reward for article writing I will get in the future when it will be published. But organizing the wardrobe will give me an immediate reward. I will be happy and relaxed to see my organized wardrobe. I will get my organized stuff immediately.

So, to satisfy the present self you delay the future rewards tasks and get into the immediate rewarding tasks.

But, when you delay the task you experience anxiety of knowing what you should be doing but can’t do anything about it. You feel guilt and shame while procrastinating and this is the worse feeling than the effort and hard work you have to put in while working.

There can be many reasons for your procrastination. For example, you may find the task boring or unpleasant to do, poor organization skills, poor decision making, etc. Surprisingly, perfectionists are often procrastinators. They tend to wait until the thing is perfect – which holds them back from starting or completing a task.

Well, we all procrastinate most of the time. That means, we have to overcome this habit but how?

Read the full article here: How to Stop Procrastination?