Procrastination is just a Bad Habit!
We are all guilty of procrastination at times, we put things off because its a boring or difficult task and we have much more interesting enjoyable things to do. However once procrastination becomes a part of your normal behaviour it can cause a negative impact on your life.
You start to put off important things like paying bills and end up paying penalty fees. You put off revision and end up not completing your studies which then leads to not moving on in your career. Sometimes fear of the unknown is the cause of procrastination, for instance, you hate your job but in order to apply for others you must update your CV. You keep putting it off and every week moaning about your job but the perfect excuse keeps popping up and allows you to remain in your safe haven.
Procrastination can also cause anxiety, the more you keep putting the said task off the more anxious you become and soon you are even anxious when you are completing tasks that you enjoy. Procrastinators also sabotage themselves with their ‘self talk‘ , telling themselves “dam it, I am useless, if only I had got that completed sooner” Why am I so slow, “Why cant I just get on with stuff “.
If you are concerned that your procrastination is a problem then it is time to do something about it.
Chronic procrastinators are not lazy people and nor do they lack good time management skills and nor were they born this way. Procrastination is a habit and all habits can be overcome. We all have strategies for everything we do; our morning routine is our strategy for getting to work on time. Once you define the strategy behind your procrastination you can then install a new strategy that gets the desired outcome. A new strategy that works for you, that gets the job done and out of the way, once this is done you can praise yourself, tell yourself how brilliant you are and how organised you are. This in turn will alleviate all the anxiety surrounding your procrastination.
So how do you define the current strategy and install a new one?
Spend some time concentrating on the last time you procrastinated.
What was the first thought you had
What was your self talk telling you
How did you feel
Where did you feel it (in your chest? in your stomach? in your head?)
What did you visualise
What did you hear
Go through every step and note everything down. Once you recognize this as the pattern for your procrastination the next time the pattern begins you will be aware of every step. You will no longer go through your normal strategy at an unconscious level.
So if your first thought is “Can’t be bothered I’ll do it later”
Replace this with –
“I’ll do it now, get it out of the way and then I can relax”
If your self talk is “there is no rush I could do it tomorrow”
Replace this with
“If I do it now it will be another item off of my to do list”
Once you have replaced every step with a new step you now have your new strategy and all you need to do is put in place.
Now every time a task appears your new strategy goes into play and pretty soon this will be undertaken at the same unconscious level as the old strategy.
So spend time understanding why you procrastinate and experiment with new strategies. Remember your old strategy grew into a habit over time so don’t expect an instant change. But slowly you can change the behaviour little by little and always praise yourself for your hard work!!!
You can do this!!