Have you ever been in a circumstance where you had to finish a task in its whole in a single day and you were doing it right now since it was the last day to finish it? When you were previously in that scenario, you made a vow to yourself to begin the assignment as soon as possible so that you wouldn’t have to be in it again. Now, you find yourself in the very same predicament, hurrying to do the task at the last minute. And the only reason that leads you in this situation is your habit of procrastination. Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying decisions or taking action, putting off a task we should do despite anticipating negative effects from our actions. Simply put, procrastination is the state of always saying, “I’ll get to that later.”

How brain process procrastination?

Procrastination is a defense mechanism against the task we perceive as a threat. Our brain response it as a threat and amygdala a set of neurons involved in emotional processing and threat identification hormones are released including adrenaline that kick off a fear response which overpowers the impulses from your prefrontal cortex which helps to think long term and regulate your emotions. There occurs fight, flight and freeze situations which leads brain to simply avoid the stressful tasks.

Causes of procrastination:

Instead of being a problem with laziness or time management, procrastination is an emotional control issue or a dread of the outcome. Procrastination is caused by a variety of emotional, psychological, fearful, and environmental factors. Some of the causes of the procrastination are enlisted below;

Perfectionist:

Perfectionist have the unrealistic target in their mindset which is impossible to achieve so, they rather avoid doing task then coming with imperfect outcome. To overcome procrastination, it is essential to recognize and accept the power of failure. 

• Stop focusing on faults and flaws and start to set goals that are easier to achieve.
• Do not think that we will enjoy them, refrain from making ourselves sad, and overcome your fear of failing.
• Never attempt a task and then risk failing at it.
• Pre assumption of how difficult the task is.
• Under-estimating / Over-estimating.
• Waiting to be prepared fully before starting task.
• Poor time management.
• Lack of interest.
• Not motivated.
• Unclear about what to do.
• Voluntarily delaying.

Result of procrastinaton:

Procrastination may provide temporary relief from time constraints and may not significantly affect day-to-day living, but it might be a serious problem in the long run. It has more negative impact on a person’s emotional and mental state than just having pending works to do in huge amount. Some of the long term effect it have on a person are explained below;

Lower self-esteem:

If a task is not completed, it can cause self-doubt, and if it is performed repeatedly, it can cause low self-esteem. We avoid trying anything new because of low self-esteem since we are afraid of failing.

Other results of procrastination:

• Due to needing to complete all of the pending work at once, there is a great likelihood of being physically ill.
• Higher stress level and physical ailments associated with high stress.
• Result in reduce of well-being in the form of insomnia.
• Burden with regrets and guilt.
• Uncompleted tasks
• Procrastination may lead us to miss many opportunities that may fall in our path.
• High risk of anxiety and depression.

How to overcome procrastination?

Traditionally, people believe that self-discipline and strict time management can take the habit of procrastination to the end.

5 second rule– it is the simple technique by American lawyer, author and motivational speaker Mel Robbins which is based on the principle that  if you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it. So we just countdown from 5 to 0 in our mind before starting any work and that trick our brain to just have 5 second deadline and get our work started.

Pomodoro technique– There is a time management method for students, perfectionists, and procrastinators of all kinds developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. This technique just suggests us to focus on task for 25 minutes then take 5 minutes break and repeat the task for 2 more time and take break not more than that of 30 minutes. This whole process makes the work less burdensome and easy to complete.

Above are the scientific technique, there are small action we can take to avoid procrastination some of them are enlisted above;

• • Forgiving oneself– we need to forgive ourselves for all the time we did procrastinate and come out of the pit of the regret and guilt only then we will be able to move forward.

• • Setting artificial deadline in our mind for the works that need to be done.

• • Break task into smaller into simpler steps.

• • Avoid the distractions.

• • Making the to do list can be effective.

• • Reward yourself with some rest or things you like after completing any task.

• •  Make some practical plans and take that plans into actions immediately.

• • Set realistic goals.

• • A perfectionist should accept their work can be imperfect and there is no right time to start.

    We need to understand that we will never be prepared for a task and there is no perfect time. Seeing the positive side we can simply understand the every time is perfect for the starting of task.

    At the top of it all, procrastination is like having two devil on the shoulder where one says to do now and another says to do it later so it’s in our hand to decide which devil to feed and make it stronger. Procrastination is delaying success and living in island of some other day so taking actions is the only way to destroy procrastination.