The writer, Oscar Wilde once teasingly said, “I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do the day after.” And many of us identify with that sentiment when we dread getting work done or sticking to deadlines. If you’re one of the 20% of adults who are chronic procrastinators in the U.S., you’re not alone. Earlier this year I wrote for Forbes.com about getting your winter arc before the New Year. And there also are advantages to getting a leg up on procrastination before 2025.
Why We Yield To Procrastination
It’s ironic, isn’t it? Studies show that 78% of workers procrastinate even though it makes them anxious. If you’re in this demographic, you have ambition and drive, yet you find yourself postponing the project due tomorrow morning. Instead of planting yourself in front of the screen, you watch yourself organize your desk, re-arrange furniture or engage in unnecessary cleaning.
You call yourself lazy because you can’t get motivated despite the looming deadline. But you’re not a couch potato because you’re being productive. In the back of your mind, you know you’re not focused on your priorities, but you stall anyway. The deadline passes, commitments pile up, and your self-talk beats you into smithereens. You attack yourself with ugly names—a second layer of pressure that adds insult to injury and makes you feel lousy.
As counterintuitive as it sounds, procrastination serves a psychological purpose. Studies show that it’s a form of short-term mood repair. At its core, procrastination is an emotional response to a distressing issue, protecting you against fear of failure, judgment by others and self-condemnation.
You’re doing something against your better judgment, but you do it anyway because of the relief it provides. It’s not rational or logical, because it takes effort and energy to procrastinate, but your efforts are going in the wrong direction. Science-backed studies show that people who procrastinate have higher levels of stress and lower levels of well-being because the brain keeps nagging them to get motivated.
When you avoid the looming project, you temporarily avoid the judgment and self-doubt. It’s much more fun to binge watch your favorite sitcom than to sit in front of a blank screen with you heart beating a mile a minute. It’s a paradox because the avoidance of pressure actually amplifies the pressure. The closer you get to the deadline, the more distressed and paralyzed you feel, and in the long run stalling and stress erode your productivity and career success.
Strategies To Curb Your Procrastination
- Break tasks down into short time chunks. Give yourself five minutes to warm up to the task, taking small, measurable steps that are easy and doable to trick your emotional brain (that doesn’t want to do this). The adage, “one step at a time” mitigates feelings of overwhelm and reduces procrastination. Once you take the first small step, you realize the task isn’t as challenging as your emotional brain told you. This change in perception allows you to break through postponement and move to completion.
- Amp up self-compassion. When you’re aware of the relentless voice that says “This project must be perfect,” (the psychologist Albert Ellis dubbed it “musturbation”), choose more supportive, comforting words such as “I can;” “I get to;” “I want to;” or “choose to.” Coming down hard on yourself when you procrastinate reduces your chance of rebounding. Instead of kicking yourself when you procrastinate, being kinder helps you bounce back. Studies show that forgiving yourself for previous delays neutralizes procrastination, as does self-compassion, which provides shock absorbers against self-recrimination. When you affirm your ability to get the job done with compassionate pep talks, atta-girls or atta-boys, you overcome stalling and the ability to face career obstacles.
- Chill your perfectionism. Chances are you hear an inner voice say that the outcome must be perfect. You could be exaggerating the difficulty of the task or how severely it will be evaluated. Unchecked perfection’s iron-fisted grip causes you to set unrealistic goals, try too hard and avoid the impossible target you set. When expectations are unreachable, you see failure even in your triumphs, and you’re more likely to procrastinate. When you give yourself permission to make mistakes or do an imperfect first draft, it tricks the emotional brain that says the quality won’t be perfect enough. And your first draft is often better than you thought it would be.
- Refrain from labeling yourself a procrastinator. When you call yourself a procrastinator, you identify with the very habit that you want to untangle from. You give your tacit approval to the label and accept it as you. This gives you unspoken permission to act as a person worthy of the label, and you repeat the habit of putting off tasks. Think of your procrastinator as a part of you, not as you. Stepping back and observing this part of you with an impartial eye lessens the self-judgment and keeps you from clobbering yourself. Learning to think of it as an aspect of you, not as you, lets you separate from the booming, eviscerating voice. Refer to your procrastination in the third person and befriend it by talking to it so it doesn’t dominate your decision-making. Studies show that this strategy heightens your ability to untangle from the procrastination, take charge of the task and scale the obstacles that procrastination puts in your way.
- Reward yourself. Your brain is hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If you’re like most people, your brain loves a reward. After you complete a small portion of the task—not before you complete it—give yourself a payoff. Instead of watching your favorite sitcom before completing the task, plan to view it after finishing a designated part of the task. Positive reinforcement raises your motivation to partially complete the looming project.
- Set priorities. Simply completing one item from your to-do list that you can accomplish quickly can give you a jump start. You can face your commitments head-on and early instead of waiting until the last minute. If you have several items on your list, you can distinguish between essentials and non-essentials and work through the tasks that need immediate completion one at a time.
- Consider the long-term benefits. Many workers say, “If I don’t try, I can’t fail,” so postponing seems to bring relief in the short term while undermining your career in the long run. When you procrastinate, you focus on the immediate relief instead of the gains of completing the task. It helps to flip your focus and concentrate on the gains of the final outcome and less on the short-term relief in the present. In the end, considering the long-term benefits moves you closer and quicker to the finish line.
A Final Word On Procrastination
When a project seems like an uphill struggle, think of the view from the top. It’s a reminder of how good you will feel after you complete the project that you’ve been avoiding. If you exercise regularly, you probably know the dread of getting to the gym. But when you remind yourself of how good you feel after a work out, it ignites your motivation to get there.
Procrastination is a self-defeating pattern of behavior that has productivity and career costs, and it leads to negative effects on our mental and physical health. Call it a friend without benefits because it helps you avoid the inability to complete something, but in the avoidance it sabotages your career. In the words of writer Denis Waitley, “Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top exhilarating.”