Put Off Procrastinating by Center for Clinical Interventions

Put Off Procrastinating

• Procrastination is a common part of human behavior and is not the same as "laziness".
• Procrastination means to decide for no valid reason to delay or not complete a task or goal you've committed to, and instead do something of lesser importance, despite there being negative consequences to not following through on the original task or goal.
• Problematic procrastination can be distinguished from more general procrastination by how bad the negative consequences are of us not following through on things.
• Procrastination can occur in many different areas of one's life. It can involve tasks or goals in life domains such as work, household, study, health, financial, social, family, relationships, self-development, and decision making.
• Procrastination activities are the things you do as a diversion from or substitute for the key task or gaol you need to accomplish. These can involve activities such as pleasurable tasks, lower priority tasks, socializing, daydreaming and distractions.
• To avoid the guilt associate with procrastination, we often generate excuses for our procrastination which helps us feel justified and OK with putting things off. These excuses often imply that because of some set of circumstances, we are better off leaving the task to another time.
• People procrastinate because they hold certain unhelpful rules and assumptions. These rules and assumptions may relate to themes like needing to be in charge, pleasure seeking, fear of failure or disapproval, fear of uncertainty or catastrophe, low self-confidence and depleted energy.
• The rules often take the form of statements like "I should...", "I must...", or "I can't..." The assumptions often take the form of "If..., then..." statements. Rules and assumptions are unhelpful when they are inaccurate and inflexible.
• The unhelpful rules and assumptions that are linked to procrastination often generate some type of discomfort and boding a task or goal, and procrastination then becomes a strategy to avoid the discomfort.
• The positive consequences of procrastination, such as relief from discomfort, feeling good for having stuck to one's unhelpful rules and assumptions, and gaining pleasure from procrastination activities, are all pay-offs that keep procrastination going next time.
• The negative consequences of procrastination, such as creating more discomfort, preserving one's unhelpful rules and assumptions, being self-critical, piling up tasks, and punishment or loss from the environment, all keep procrastination going because it makes the task or goal even more aversive, so next time procrastination looks like an attractive option.
• The cycle of procrastination involves the following steps:
• approaching a task/goal
• activates unhelpful rules and assumptions
• this generates discomfort about the task/goal
• then if you hate discomfort your urge to avoid the discomfort by procrastinating will increase
• plus if you find good excuses for not doing the task
• then you will engage in procrastination activities as a substitute or diversion
• which then leads to positive and negative consequences
• which just increases the likelihood that you will procrastinate next time around
• To change the procrastination habit you need to learn ways to dismiss procrastination excuses, learn practical techniques to stop procrastination activities, and learn tips for adjusting unhelpful rules/assumptions and tolerating discomfort
• The first step to changing procrastination is being aware of what you are doing and adopting an accepting and non-judgmental attitude towards your procrastination. Blaming and judging yourself just makes things worse.
• Committing to changing your procrastination is important. Changing any habit can be hard and challenging, so you need to be motivated to stick with it. You can do this by reminding yourself of the ways procrastination hurts you and what will be good about changing your procrastination. You can also prepare for the obstacles that might get in the way of change.
• One of the ways to overcome procrastination is to learn how to dismiss the excuses that make our procrastination justified and OK to us.
• Procrastination excuses usually involve some grain of truth, from which we conclude we are better off postponing a task or goal to another time. So, the key to dismissing excuses is to change these unhelpful conclusions.
• One way to change these unhelpful conclusions is to challenge them by asking disputation questions like:
• What is the factual evidence or reasons that it is better for me to put off this task or gaol?
• What is the factual evidence or reasons that it is better for me to start this task or goal now?
• Is it really true that I will be better off in the long run delaying this task or goal?
• Is it really true that I can't make even a small start on the task or goal right now? Can I still get some parts of the task or goal done now, even though conditions aren't ideal?
• Is it really true that later is a better time to do it?
• If I do make some start on the task or goal right now--What might happen? How might I feel?
• If I don't make a start on the task or goal right now--What might happen? How might I feel?
• Another way to change these unhelpful conclusions is to test them. That is, conducting experiments to see if what you predict about your abilities to complete tasks under certain circumstances, really hold up in reality.
• The more you criticize yourself for procrastinating, the more demotivated you feel. As such, turning self-critical self-talk into more motivational self-talk, can also be an important part of overcoming procrastination. The best way to encourage and motivate yourself, is to speak to yourself as you would a friend who was in the same situation.
• Overcoming procrastination in practical ways involves knowing what needs to be done, how to do it and when to do it. Clarity, task approach and time availability is the key.
• To gain clarity as to exactly what needs to be done, you need to write a list of tasks and goals, then prioritize these, then grade each, and then accurately estimate how much time each step of each task or gaol will take.
• When contemplating how to do a task, there are numerous ways you can approach any given task to make the task easier. Some of the methods you might try include, worst-first, using momentum, just 5-minutes, set time limits, prime time, prime place, remember-then-do, reminders, visualize, focus, and plan rewards.
• To manage your time availability, so that you know when to do your tasks and goals, you can use a more fixed method like the schedule (i.e., planning specific tasks for specific times in your week) or a more unfixed method like the unschedule (e.g., being aware of when you have blocks of time in your routine to devote to tasks and goals, and marking off the time you have worked on these).
• Other things to consider when overcoming procrastination is self-monitoring your achievements, getting someone else involved in the process, and improving your assertiveness skills.
• You don't necessarily need to change your unhelpful rules and assumptions and discomfort intolerance to overcome procrastination.
• Changing the unhelpful rules and assumptions and discomfort intolerance that give rise to your procrastination can be hard, and you may require further professional assistance beyond these Modules to address these issues.
• Adjusting your unhelpful rules and assumptions requires going through the following steps:
• Clearly identifying what your unhelpful rule or assumption is and recognizing where it might come from.
• Questioning whether your unhelpful rule or assumption is reasonable? Realistic? Fair? Helpful? And recognizing the negative consequences of having this unhelpful rule or assumption.
• Identifying a more helpful rule or assumption you could try to adopt.
• Planning how you would need to act in every day life to put this new helpful rule or assumption into practice.
• Increasing your tolerance of discomfort can be achieved by practicing skills such as, mindfulness (i.e., be aware, watch, observe, no-judgment, let go), relating to your discomfort as riding a wave of emotion, and gradually delaying procrastination and hence increasing the amount of time you sit with discomfort.
• To reverse the negative cycle of procrastination you need to:
• Be aware of your procrastination and be non-blaming towards yourself.
• Adjust your unhelpful rules and assumptions.
• Tolerate your discomfort.
• Dismiss your procrastination excuses.
• Be motivational towards yourself rather than critical.
• Put into action practical strategies to stop procrastinating.
• Reflect on the changes you have made and revise anything that isn't working.
• Changing your procrastination habit takes times, practice, persistence, and patience. Expect setbacks, use your action plan, get support, and recognize your achievements--doing this will help you stay on the path of becoming a "doer" rather than a "procrastinator".