Procrastinators avoid the work that is right in front of them all day, only to take it home and toil late into the night, frantically trying to finish what they could easily have completed at the office. Photo: Stock.
Travis Bradberry says workers who find themselves making up excuses as to why they can’t get started on that big project are not simply procrastinating, they also risk damaging their health.
Procrastination affects everyone. It sneaks up on most people when they’re tired or bored, but for some, procrastination can be a fully fledged addiction.
They avoid all day the work that is right in front of them, only to take it home and toil late into the night, frantically trying to finish what they easily could have completed at the office.
Recent studies show that procrastination magnifies stress, reduces performance, and leads to poor health.
Psychologists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio offered students a date range instead of a single due date for their papers.
The researchers tracked the date that students turned in their papers and compared this to their stress levels and overall health.
Students who waited until the last minute to turn in their papers had greater stress and more health issues than others did. They also received worse grades on their work.
An earlier study explored the link between chronic procrastination and stress-related health issues. The researchers found a strong link between procrastination and hypertension and heart disease, as procrastinators experienced greater amounts of stress and were more likely to delay healthy activities, such as a proper diet and exercise.
Procrastination is fuelled by excuses. We cannot expect to overcome procrastination and improve our health and productivity until we’re able to overcome the negative mental habits that lead us to procrastinate in the first place.
What follows are the most troubling excuses we use to help us procrastinate. For each, I offer preventive strategies so you can overcome procrastination and be productive, even when you don’t feel like working.
I don’t know where to begin: When a task is particularly difficult, you need all the time you are given to complete it. There’s no sense in wasting valuable time by allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by the complexity of the task.
The key here is not to allow fear of the whole to stop you from engaging in the parts. When something looks too difficult, break it down.
What can you accomplish in 60 minutes that will help you slay the beast? Then, what can you do in 60 more minutes?
Breaking your task into shorter periods (where effort is guaranteed) allows you to move out of the deer-in-the-headlights frame of mind.
Before you know it, you’ve accomplished something, and the task goes from way too hard to absolutely doable.
There are too many distractions: For most of us, starting a large project is a challenge. We stumble over all sorts of smaller, irrelevant tasks that distract us from the real assignment.
We answer emails, make calls, check the news online … anything to avoid the elephant in the room.
Distractions numb you by shifting your attention away from the consequences of not getting the task done. Reminding yourself of what will happen if you continue procrastinating is a great way to make distractions less enchanting.
It’s too easy: Tasks that are too easy can be surprisingly dangerous, because when you put them off, it’s easy to underestimate how much time they’ll take to complete.
Once you finally sit down to work on it, you discover you have not given yourself enough time to complete the task (or at least to complete it well).
If a task is too easy, draw connections to the bigger picture, because these connections turn mundane tasks into a fundamental (and do-it-now) part of your job.
For example, you might hate data entry, but when you think about the role the data plays in the strategic objectives of your department, the task becomes worthwhile.
I don’t like it: Procrastination isn’t always about a task being too easy or too hard. Sometimes, you just don’t want to do it.
Unfortunately, there’s no foolproof way to teach yourself to find something interesting, because certain things will never draw your attention.
Rather than pushing these tasks to the back of your plate, make it a rule that you cannot touch any other project or task until you’ve finished the dreaded one.
When you do get started, you can always turn the task into a game. How can you achieve your task more efficiently? How can you change the steps of the process and still produce the same result?
Bringing mindfulness to a dreaded task gives you a fresh perspective. The task itself might not be fun, but the game can be.
I don’t think I can do it: You are assigned a new project by your supervisor. In fact, it’s one you’ve wished he or she would give you for a while.
However, now that it’s in your lap, you cannot get past thoughts of failure. What’s going to happen if I blow it? Could I be fired over this?
It can reach a point where avoiding failure seems the best possible option. After all, if you never engage in a project, you’ll never fail. Right?
Wrong. Procrastination itself is failure — failure to utilise your innate talents and abilities. When you procrastinate, you’re failing to believe in yourself.
Remember when you were learning to drive and you could only look straight ahead, because if you looked at something off the road, you’d unwittingly turn the wheel in that direction? Worrying about everything that might go wrong if you fail has the same effect. It pulls you towards failure.
Shift your mind in a confident direction by focusing on all the positive things that are going to happen when you succeed.
When you believe you can do something — and you visualise the positive things that will come from doing it well — you equip yourself to succeed.
Fighting procrastination teaches us to fully engage in our work, become more creative with it, and ultimately, get more done.
Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. His books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com. This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
