If you procrastinate, you are not alone my friend. Many people suffer from it to some extent. And knowing why you procrastinate will go a long way in helping you to overcome it.
Ever happened to you that you kept on putting off doing a task till you start seeing the deadline in the vicinity? It has happened a lot of times to me and resulted in a lot of unnecessary stress and average work.
So why do you procrastinate in the first place?
Do you recall preparing for your exam only the night before often pulling off an all-nighter? You knew it was coming days or weeks ago and had plenty of time to easily complete the syllabus. But instead, you procrastinated.
And then, on the night before the exam, you somehow mustered up the power to take on a long period of stress because you had to.
This shows that procrastination is not a time management issue or you put off things because you are lazy as it is often believed. There is usually one of the two culprits that trigger procrastination – either you or the task.
That is why I will divide these reasons of procrastination into two categories to help you better find and address the issue. Here are 8 reasons why you procrastinate: –
Self-oriented reasons of procrastination
1. Perfectionism
We often set for ourselves too high a standard to achieve right from the beginning. We imagine our perfect blog post before starting to write or our perfect presentation before starting to prepare. But the problem is “Perfect is vague and overwhelming.”
There is nothing wrong with setting high standards of work. But many a time we want to jump directly to “perfect” without first sustaining the struggle of mediocrity and slowly working our way up to a masterpiece.
So what happens? Our desire to achieve perfection and its unfair demands on us clash, resulting in us taking the easy way out – in other words, procrastination.
2. A bad state of mind
Your state of mind at the moment plays a major role in whether the task will be put on hold or not. Are you feeling a lack of motivation? Are you feeling disinterested? Are you experiencing fatigue?
Let’s say that you had a grueling day at work and you are exhausted. You are likely to say no to almost anything that demands any effort.
Similarly, if you are in a state of restlessness where you aren’t able to concentrate, you will have a hard time making even the slightest progress. Instead, you may opt to wait till you regain your mojo.
3. Fear of what others will think
We live in a competitive world. From school to the office, everyone judges us by how we perform and set an image of our competency. Due to this, often early in childhood, sets in us a fear of failure.
What if I put in my best but still others find it to be average? What if I don’t meet my boss’ expectations? All these questions start bombarding, demoralizing us before we even set the first foot out. This leads to self-doubt.
And how can we perform anything for which we question our own ability and have fear over others’ remarks? Hence, procrastination wins.
4. Low tolerance level
With the growing simplicity of technology and availability of instant pleasure-filled distractions, our tolerance level has taken a dip. How easy it is to operate a phone or surf on social media? They have been designed that way to make you inclined towards them.
But life often demands from us to solve complexity – to make sense of a report and extract concrete information out of it, for example. The tasks we have at hand usually are more complex to perform than carefully simplified distractions around us.
That is why you may see yourself fighting the urge to check your phone even when you have just barely begun doing a complex task.
5. Overconfidence or low confidence
Having these both are detrimental for anyone as they keep us far from reality. Overconfidence leads to undermining the complexity of the task. Whereas lack of it leads to making even a simple task seem as hard as cutting a stone with a butter knife.
What may seem too easy for you to do may turn out to be more sophisticated when you actually do it. What may seem hard to you may turn out to be not as difficult as you were thinking.
But both – overconfidence and low confidence – justify putting off tasks to a later time, at least to you.
Task-oriented reasons of procrastination
1. The vagueness of the task
The more unclear you are about the task at hand, the more likely it will be put off to a later time.
Think it like this – First, you have to spend your time and energy just to understand what it is about. And this was just to move ahead of the starting line. Now you have to cross the finish line with the remaining energy.
The vagueness of the task at hand creates a barrier for you to start doing it. And this barrier at times keeps us from doing the task.
2. Lack of relevance
Some things in your environment grab your attention – like social media or TV. Whereas some things are being forced to bring your attention to – your daily tasks at home and at work. The point is that many things are contending for your attention at any given moment.
So how do you decide which ones to address and which ones to ignore? Relevance. The one that seems most relevant to you at the moment wins your attention. The rest have to wait.
For example – your mom tells you to clean your room, but you find it clean already from your perspective. So you won’t find cleaning your room a relevant task.
Thus, if you don’t see any relevance to the task at hand, it is likely to be skipped.
3. The task looks too big
Let’s pick up the example of the exam again. Conquering the whole syllabus seems like too big a task even if you have plenty of time for it. Why? Because you see the whole syllabus in its entirety instead of taking it chapter by chapter.
A similar thing happens with anything else. We often fail to break a big task into small steps which we can take one at a time. We focus on jumping directly to the end, which is so far away that even pole vaulting couldn’t help you.
The big task also demands attention at various points simultaneously if seen as a whole. It results in a feeling of overwhelm and leads us to walk across it rather than through it.
Conclusion
Voila! You have taken the first and biggest step to overcome procrastination. Even knowing the roots of why you procrastinate weakens them, says research. But is knowing the reason enough? Of course not.
Now that you are more aware of what kept you putting off a task, it is your responsibility to not let them deceive you into procrastination. Remember, procrastination leads to unnecessary stress. Overcome it and enjoy the sense of worthiness that comes from completing a task.
Quick question – Which among these reasons leads you to procrastination? If any others, then please share them too.
Let’s Connect Beyond
Hey buddy, I hope you found this post valuable. But Make in Yourself isn’t limited to this blog. It goes beyond this where I provide you with bite-sized digestible insights so that you can grow on the go.
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