Definition of When You Keep Doing Something You Know Wont Work
Why Yous Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control)
If procrastination isn't well-nigh laziness, then what is it about?
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If you've e'er put off an important chore by, say, alphabetizing your spice drawer, yous know it wouldn't be fair to describe yourself as lazy.
Afterwards all, alphabetizing requires focus and effort — and hey, maybe yous even went the actress mile to wipe downwards each bottle before putting information technology back. And it's not similar you lot're hanging out with friends or watching Netflix. You're cleaning — something your parents would be proud of! This isn't laziness or bad time direction. This is procrastination.
If procrastination isn't about laziness, then what is it near?
Etymologically, "procrastination" is derived from the Latin verb procrastinare — to put off until tomorrow. But information technology's more than just voluntarily delaying. Procrastination is also derived from the ancient Greek word akrasia — doing something against our meliorate judgment.
"It's self-harm," said Dr. Piers Steel, a professor of motivational psychology at the University of Calgary and the writer of "The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Commencement Getting Stuff Washed."
That cocky-awareness is a key function of why procrastinating makes the states feel so rotten. When we procrastinate, we're not only aware that we're avoiding the task in question, but also that doing so is probably a bad idea. And nonetheless, we do it anyhow.
"This is why nosotros say that procrastination is essentially irrational," said Dr. Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield. "Information technology doesn't make sense to do something y'all know is going to take negative consequences."
She added: "People appoint in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task."
Await. We procrastinate because of bad moods?
In curt: yeah.
Procrastination isn't a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.
"Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time direction problem," said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.
In a 2013 written report, Dr. Pychyl and Dr. Sirois found that procrastination tin can exist understood every bit "the primacy of short-term mood repair … over the longer-term pursuit of intended actions." Put just, procrastination is nigh being more focused on "the immediate urgency of managing negative moods" than getting on with the task, Dr. Sirois said.
The item nature of our aversion depends on the given task or situation. Information technology may exist due to something inherently unpleasant well-nigh the task itself — having to make clean a dingy bath or organizing a long, boring spreadsheet for your boss. But it might also result from deeper feelings related to the task, such as cocky-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety or insecurity. Staring at a bare certificate, you lot might be thinking, I'm non smart enough to write this. Even if I am, what will people think of information technology? Writing is so difficult. What if I do a bad job?
All of this tin can atomic number 82 us to think that putting the document bated and cleaning that spice drawer instead is a pretty proficient idea.
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Just, of course, this but compounds the negative associations we take with the task, and those feelings will notwithstanding exist there whenever nosotros come back to it, along with increased stress and anxiety, feelings of low self-esteem and self-arraign.
In fact, there's an entire body of research dedicated to the ruminative, cocky-blaming thoughts many of the states tend to have in the wake of procrastination, which are known as "procrastinatory cognitions." The thoughts we have most procrastination typically exacerbate our distress and stress, which contribute to further procrastination, Dr. Sirois said.
Merely the momentary relief nosotros experience when procrastinating is actually what makes the wheel specially cruel. In the immediate present, putting off a task provides relief — "you've been rewarded for procrastinating," Dr. Sirois said. And we know from basic behaviorism that when nosotros're rewarded for something, nosotros tend to do it once more. This is precisely why procrastination tends not to exist a one-off behavior, merely a bike, one that easily becomes a chronic addiction.
Over time, chronic procrastination has non only productivity costs, but measurably destructive effects on our mental and physical health, including chronic stress, general psychological distress and low life satisfaction, symptoms of depression and anxiety, poor health behaviors, chronic illness and even hypertension and cardiovascular illness.
But I thought we procrastinate to feel ameliorate?
If it seems ironic that nosotros procrastinate to avoid negative feelings, but end up feeling even worse, that's because it is. And once again, we have evolution to thank.
Procrastination is a perfect instance of present bias, our hard-wired trend to prioritize curt-term needs alee of long-term ones.
"We really weren't designed to think ahead into the further future because nosotros needed to focus on providing for ourselves in the here and now," said psychologist Dr. Hal Hershfield, a professor of marketing at the U.C.Fifty.A. Anderson School of Management.
Dr. Hershfield's research has shown that, on a neural level, we perceive our "future selves" more like strangers than equally parts of ourselves. When we procrastinate, parts of our brains actually call up that the tasks we're putting off — and the accompanying negative feelings that await united states of america on the other side — are somebody else'due south problem.
To make things worse, nosotros're even less able to brand thoughtful, future-oriented decisions in the midst of stress. When faced with a chore that makes us experience anxious or insecure, the amygdala — the "threat detector" office of the encephalon — perceives that chore as a genuine threat, in this case to our cocky-esteem or well-being. Even if we intellectually recognize that putting off the task will create more than stress for ourselves in the hereafter, our brains are still wired to be more concerned with removing the threat in the present. Researchers phone call this "amygdala hijack."
Unfortunately, we can't just tell ourselves to stop procrastinating. And despite the prevalence of "productivity hacks," focusing on the question of how to get more piece of work done doesn't address the root cause of procrastination.
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O.K. How do we get to the root cause of procrastination?
We must realize that, at its cadre, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity. The solution doesn't involve downloading a time management app or learning new strategies for self-control. Information technology has to do with managing our emotions in a new mode.
"Our brains are always looking for relative rewards. If we have a habit loop around procrastination merely we haven't found a better advantage, our brain is but going to go along doing it over and over until we give it something ameliorate to do," said psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Judson Brewer, Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center.
To rewire any habit, we have to requite our brains what Dr. Brewer called the "Bigger Improve Offering" or "B.B.O."
In the case of procrastination, we have to notice a amend reward than avoidance — 1 that tin can salvage our challenging feelings in the nowadays moment without causing harm to our future selves. The difficulty with breaking the habit to procrastination in particular is that there is an space number of potential substitute actions that would still be forms of procrastination, Dr. Brewer said. That's why the solution must therefore exist internal, and not dependent on anything simply ourselves.
I option is to forgive yourself in the moments you procrastinate. In a 2010 study, researchers found that students who were able to forgive themselves for procrastinating when studying for a first exam ended upward procrastinating less when studying for their side by side exam. They ended that self-forgiveness supported productivity past allowing "the private to move past their maladaptive beliefs and focus on the upcoming exam without the burden of past acts."
Another tactic is the related practice of cocky-compassion, which is treating ourselves with kindness and understanding in the confront of our mistakes and failures. In a 2012 study examining the relationship between stress, self-pity and procrastination, Dr. Sirois found that procrastinators tend to have high stress and low self-pity, suggesting that self-compassion provides "a buffer against negative reactions to self-relevant events."
In fact, several studies show that cocky-compassion supports motivation and personal growth. Not only does it subtract psychological distress, which we now know is a primary culprit for procrastination, information technology likewise actively boosts motivation, enhances feelings of self-worth and fosters positive emotions like optimism, wisdom, curiosity and personal initiative. Best of all, self-compassion doesn't require anything external — just a commitment to meeting your challenges with greater acceptance and kindness rather than rumination and regret.
That may be easier said than done, but try to reframe the chore by considering a positive aspect of it. Maybe you remind yourself of a fourth dimension y'all did something similar and it turned out O.1000. Or maybe you think about the beneficial outcome of completing the task. What might your dominate or partner say when you lot show them your finished work? How will y'all feel about yourself?
What are another, healthier means to manage the feelings that typically trigger procrastination?
Cultivate curiosity: If you're feeling tempted to procrastinate, bring your attending to the sensations arising in your mind and body. What feelings are eliciting your temptation? Where practice you feel them in your trunk? What exercise they remind yous of? What happens to the thought of procrastinating every bit you observe it? Does it intensify? Dissipate? Cause other emotions to ascend? How are the sensations in your body shifting as you keep to rest your sensation on them?
Consider the next activeness: This is different than the age-quondam communication to break up a task you're tempted to avoid into seize with teeth-sized chunks. According to Dr. Pychyl, focusing only on the "side by side action" helps at-home our nerves, and it allows for what Dr. Pychyl called "a layer of cocky-deception." At the start of a given task, you tin consider the next action as a mere possibility, as if you were method interim: "What's the next action I'd take on this if I were going to exercise it, fifty-fifty though I'm not?" Maybe you would open up your electronic mail. Or perhaps you would put the date at the top of your document. Don't wait to exist in the mood to practise a certain job. "Motivation follows action. Get started, and you'll observe your motivation follows," Dr. Pychyl said.
Make your temptations more inconvenient: It's still easier to change our circumstances than ourselves, said Gretchen Rubin, author of "Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits." According to Ms. Rubin, nosotros tin can take what nosotros know about procrastination and "employ information technology to our reward" by placing obstacles between ourselves and our temptations to induce a certain caste of frustration or anxiety. If you compulsively bank check social media, delete those apps from your phone or "give yourself a really complicated password with not only five digits, but 12," Ms. Rubin said. By doing this, you're adding friction to the procrastination cycle and making the reward value of your temptation less immediate.
On the other side of the coin, Ms. Rubin also suggested that nosotros make the things we want to practice as like shooting fish in a barrel as possible for ourselves. If you want to go to the gym earlier work just you're non a morning person, sleep in your practise apparel. "Try to remove every, every, every roadblock," Ms. Rubin said.
Nonetheless, procrastination is securely existential, equally information technology raises questions about private bureau and how we want to spend our fourth dimension as opposed to how we really do. But it's also a reminder of our commonality — nosotros're all vulnerable to painful feelings, and most of united states of america just want to be happy with the choices we make.
Now go finish upwards alphabetizing that spice drawer before information technology becomes your next procrastination albatross.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html
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