Procrastination
Why does procrastination always gets its way? Or, seem to, anyway.
Procrastination is born in the gap between intention and action. It’s in this gap we decide, take information from intention, combine it with information from action and go to the next logical step. I say, go to the next step...but, we don’t always.
We get lost in our own deliberation, making excuses to justify an unnecessary and potentially harmful delay. The self sabotages its own intention.
You would think motivation to our intentions would also be enough to motivate action. But it’s not. If it was, we would be machines and there would be no such thing as will. The self must choose to act. As conscious beings, we can not escape the self choosing what to do.
Procrastination is without reason, the real issue is emotional. Though we may know intellectually what we ought to do right now, we don't feel like doing it. So the short-term solution, feel good now, worry about that intention later. Short-term gain, long-term pain.
With procrastination, we delay taking action longer than we know we should. In chronic procrastination, we waste time that we can't afford to waste. We can actually wind up wasting our whole lives.
Among three basic reasons we procrastinate, on things we find aversive. We put off things we don't like to do or upset us in some way.
A challenging task makes us feel uncomfortable. We don't want to tolerate negative emotion. We want to feel good now. So we give in to feel good by putting off the task. In the end, however, the delay sabotages our long-term goals.
Second, we often procrastinate because our intentions are anemic—vague and weak. Ill-defined intentions are part of the problem, part of the self-sabotage. We don't really feel like doing the task, so we make vague declarations like,
"I'll get to that this week" or "I'll do that later."
It's impossible to regulate behavior against such a poorly defined standard.
Third, we're easily distracted, and can be highly impulsive,
"It will take me only a minute to check my email, update my Facebook page, find the recipe, read that blog...."
Oops, where did the day go?
In a world dictated by the economics of attention, we have to be careful where we invest ourselves. There are only so many minutes in a day, in a lifetime, to which we can give attention. The whole world is competing for our attention with marketing designed especially for us. It's personal, seductive and distracting.
Self deception is the handmaiden of procrastination. We create little white lies as we wait for the muse to inspire us or find the right mood to motivate us. But deep down we know they're excuses. To end the self-sabotage, it's essential to stop the self-deception.
One of the simplest solutions is to just get started—anywhere on a task. Don't think too far ahead. Aim for a little progress. A low threshold to task engagement fuels motivation and changes perception of the task. You'll find it's not as bad as you thought,
"a task begun is a task half done!"
To turn feeble intentions into effective plans, we have to break down plans into smaller, successive steps to the larger, more, comparably, harder to reach goals.
Acting in a timely manner on tasks means active choice and the exercise of will. Recognize the enemy within and you can move forward doing what you intended, becoming the person you want to be.
Psychology Today
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