Paying Interest on Misery
Why do we procrastinate?
Procrastination is an emotion coping mechanism for painful or unpleasant tasks. When we procrastinate, we avoid work that we feel we should be doing to protect ourselves. This is done to protect our ego when we think we’ll be judged harshly for our efforts on a task (by ourself or others). Or it can be done to delay working on a task that is intrinsically aversive. I’m looking at you filing taxes.
Lately, I’ve started doing this quite a bit at work. I felt like I would definitely fail. And that made it very difficult to do my best work (or put forth any amount of effort really). So, as an experienced procrastinated, I’ll give you my take on it.
The Immediate Payoff
Procrastination gives you an immediate payoff. Expense reports? Ha! Not today. And you would think that would make you feel good. Only it doesn’t. Whenever I pushed off work for an easier task, I didn’t relax. I spent all of my energy worrying about that no good, very horrible thing that I was actively avoiding. I felt guilty about dodging that task and sticking it on poor old future me.
I was building a habit. Whenever I thought about that task, then I immediately panicked and found shelter on YouTube or Reddit. Every time I reacted out of fear, I was telling myself to be afraid. That there was something worth fearing. And that running away was the sensible thing to do. Distractions became my panic room from life.
Finally Starting
After largely cowering from my chosen task for weeks, I finally mustered up the courage to start on it. I had been nibbling around the edges, but that more to assuage my guilt than to actually complete that work. And you know what? It didn’t feel all that bad. The terror that I’d created was a paper tiger.
The task was not pleasant to be sure. But it was not so terrible that it justified my fears. I had spent weeks suffering to avoid this? I felt like an idiot. Instead of just working on this, I had paid interest on my misery. For weeks! And not bank account interest either. That was credit card interest.
Never Again
So now that I properly understand how awful procrastination is, I’ll avoid it right? I mean why would I ever put myself through that again? Only I did. Ulg!
Fortunately I have another solution. Throw books at it. Drown it in knowledge. Here’s what I found.
I’ve also started to question my negative thoughts. Those were the source of this after all. Instead of just accepting that ‘everyone will think I’m a failure,’ if I don’t do something, I’ve started to challenge those thoughts. Who is everyone? Is this task important enough for them to judge me entirely by my results in this one area? How well am I actually doing on this?
Understanding that procrastination causes you pain is incredibly helpful. Instead of feeling tempted to put off tasks, I feel cautious. I look at every delay to my goals sideways.
I’ve thought about what tasks I tend to procrastinate on, and when I’m most prone to this. Then I made decisions about how I want myself to act in these situations. Having a script helps me follow through on my actions (because I know I will not feel like it in the moment).
I’ve upgraded my environment to support the pursuit of my goals. Mostly that means removing distractions and clutter. Any attention magnets (like my phone) are banished (to the next room).
What about you?
This change has been pretty dramatic for me. Partly that was because I was coming from a bad place. But what about you? What do you procrastinate on? How do you feel about it? What have you done about it?