Procrastination is a natural human tendency, but it seems to have worsened in recent years.
And the reason is simple: the activities to do, the skills to learn, the work and social duties, they have multiplied madly.
And so managing time has become very complicated.
The result is that we feel more and more pressed by events, and as a psychological reaction to this pressure it happens that, simply, procrastiniamo.
That is, we freeze on this or that activity, refusing more or less unconsciously to go on.
Now, in this article we will analyze together what I call "the procrastination equation", And which has two fundamental elements:
- One is you, with your character, your skills, your expectations, your motivations, the environment in which you live, study and work.
- The other is the activities you need to carry out, and which often become the object of your procrastination.
When you know and think well about each of these two elements, then you can solve the equation, and stop procrastinating.
Or even continue to do so, however consciously, that is, when you think it is really appropriate.
Because "When you know the enemy and know yourself, then victory is certain" (Sun Tzu)
In this article we will therefore see together:
- What does it mean to procrastinate
- Why we do it
- What consequences does it have
- How can we use the Eisenhower matrix to evaluate the activities we need to do, and decide if and when to postpone them.
Procrastination Meaning
Procrastination means postpone to an indeterminate "tomorrow" what you dovrebbe do today.
According to some dictionaries, this "postponing until tomorrow" is due to the desire to do other things that are considered more pleasant or more urgent.
That is, theoretically, you should postpone a business for rational reasons: like you have more beautiful or more important things to do.
But if you ask a chronic procrastinator, things are very different, and procrastination appears as something completely irrational.
In fact, most of the time people procrastinate not to do something else more important or more beautiful, but:
- To do nothing, vegetating with a certain guilt on the sofa.
- To do activities that are clearly less important. And that are used as an excuse to seem busy, and not do the others.
In these cases, procrastination no longer becomes a choice, but a real psychological block that we self-inflict. And which has consequences that should not be underestimated.
Consequences of procrastinating
"There is nothing as tiring as bearing the eternal weight of an unfinished task"
William James
You see, always putting off what you feel you have to do has very negative consequences in two main ways:
- The first is emotional, and it is well summed up in William James' sentence we have seen above. The procrastinated things accumulate to become a one over time almost unbearable psychological burden, in the form of anxiety and guilt.
- The second is practical. The habit of continually postponing the things you have to do leads you to failure: certainly in study and work, but also in emotional and social life. Because procrastinating takes you away from your goals, and doing so makes you increasingly insecure and vulnerable.
Am I exaggerating?
Ask a chronic procrastinator how he feels! Or, more simply, search your mind and analyze which thoughts are bothering you the most.
I bet a lot of them relate to activities you know you need to do, but haven't started or completed.
And so they remain in your brain as open "loops", which continue to goad you whenever they can.
But why do we procrastinate?
Since opening the GetPersonalGrowth blog I have received hundreds of emails, from people of all ages.
Many had to do with very specific problems, but I believe that at least 40% concerned in one way or another situations related to our tendency to procrastinate.
Thanks to these emails I have made a fairly precise case study of the reasons why we don't do what we know we should do.
Here are a few in no particular order.
# 1 Generic laziness
As I tell the 7-minute technique in the pdf, for anthropological reasons in my opinion the man is quite lazy.
Or anyway his instincts are not programmed for the kind of chores of modern life.
This isn't necessarily bad if you can handle it.
But when you procrastinate too much it means that you have lost the ability to dose your laziness, and then there is nothing more positive. And your laziness will drive you away from your goals.
Then try to find the natural enemies of laziness by reading my articles on focus and mental concentration
# 2 Lack of motivation
It is undeniable that those who are motivated towards a task tend NOT to procrastinate it. However, as you can read in my article on motivation, this is a bit of a dancer: today there is and tomorrow not.
So learning to do things even when motivation is lacking is key. In this case, to stop procrastinating, it can be helpful frame your activities in well-structured habits, in such a way as not to remain a slave to the motivation of the moment.
If, for example, every time you have to study, you have to do it with an effort of will, you get exhausted quickly. And you start procrastinating.
If, on the other hand, you are in the habit of studying 4 hours a day, well, you will anyway, regardless of the motivation or desire to procrastinate.
# 3 Fear of failure
Who does not do, is not wrong.
And so we tend to postpone activities for which we somehow don't feel up to it.
Maybe you subconsciously feel that failure would "reveal" your inadequacy, while doing nothing keeps you within the scope of possibility.
But then wake up!
This culture "to always be successful”Is the biggest imposture to which we are subjected.
Failing, failing, failing an exam, failing a job interview, they are not indelible marks that define you as a person.
Read this:
“In my life I have missed more than nine thousand shots, I have lost almost three hundred games, twenty-six times my teammates have entrusted me with the decisive shot and I missed it. I have failed many times. And that's why in the end I won everything "
Michael Jordan
If he was sitting on the bench it didn't happen, what do you think?
# 4 Value system dystonia
Strange expression, indicating more than a lack of motivation.
In this case, in fact, you postpone activities not because you lack the desire, but why "you don't believe it", as they are not aligned with your value system.
But then, why did you find yourself having to do them?
And don't just read this question on your screen, ask it, seriously.
And give yourself an answer, because you still have time to make different choices.
If you know your value system, and you realize that it is not in line with what you have to do, everything becomes very simple: or you change your value system, or you change your business. If not, you live in a mousetrap.
So what are the reasons for your tendency to procrastinate?
Maybe it's just one of them, but more likely it's a mix.
Then deal with them one by one.
And at the same time, introduce the second element of the equation: what are the characteristics of the activities you have to deal with? How do you manage time well if you haven't really valued them?
Stop procrastinating by formalizing activities
I started this long article with a statement that I think you felt to be true:
"The activities to be done, the skills to be learned, the work and social duties, have multiplied madly"
And so, besides knowing yourself, maybe you have to look into it a little better, to this myriad of activities.
And you have to do it in a formalized way. That is, it is not enough that you have a generic feeling about what you have to do. Like "this is important, this is urgent, I have to do this ..."
To stop procrastinating you must instead learn to do analysis:
- Precise
- Periodicals
- Structured
Which does not mean building very complicated decision trees or making a thousand mental whacks, but simply:
- Make a list in writing about open loops, that is, about the things you are procrastinating
- Enter them one by one in one of the quadrants of the Eisenhower matrix
- Decide and act based on the results
The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower matrix is ​​a simple simple time management system, which exploits the intersection of two very familiar concepts:
- Urgency
- Importance
(Image taken from the blog frombehindmyglasses)
When you rate an asset through an Eisenhower matrix, you essentially categorize it into one of the following 4 categories:
Urgent and unimportant (procrastinate, eliminate or minimize)
Some may disagree with postponing urgent activities ...
But if they are not important to you, why have you reduced yourself to being pressured by them?
It is easy that these are activities that are imposed on you from the outside, that is, they are important for others but not for you. If this time you have to do them, at least make sure that they don't happen again.
Urgent and important (Don't procrastinate)
They are the ones where you really need to learn NOT to procrastinate.
The matrix helps you not to, because once you have rationally established that an activity is urgent and important to you, you find it hard to put it off with an excuse.
Not urgent and not important (Delete!)
Even more than for the first category, these activities are to be reduced to a minimum. You simply decide not to do them, without looking back.
Not urgent and important (Procrastinate to a specific date)
These activities can be postponed, but you must not procrastinate them " to an indefinite tomorrow".
Instead, you have to establish the exact moment in which you will do them, both with respect to when you start them, and with respect to when you finish them. And you have to put those moments in writing.
Why the Eisenhower Matrix Works
Sometimes I realize that personal growth tools are criticized for being too simple.
Maybe because there is a little the "myth" of complication, that is, if something is not complicated it will not work.
Or maybe because complicated things sell better.
Actually, as Occam said, I believe:
«Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. "" We must not multiply the elements more than necessary. ".
That is, do not complicate the bread. And indeed, be wary of too complicated tools!
And in fact, the Eisenhower matrix not only works, it works precisely because it is simple.
It doesn't change the intrinsic characteristics of the activities you need to do, but it represents them to you with such clarity that it is difficult to resist.
And in fact think for a moment, in retrospect, about what you have done in the last week, and then try putting it in the Eisenhower matrix.
Are you still convinced that you have used your time well?
Or have you procrastinated what you shouldn't have and didn't want to procrastinate, while you have been doing perfectly postponable or useless things?
Procrastinate judiciously or quit altogether?
I think the methodological thread to stop procrastinating is clear: become aware of yourself, become aware of the activities you do.
And in this way you will also feel free, when you want, to procrastinate. Without anxiety and without guilt, because you really chose to do it.
And in fact, I'll leave you with a tip: don't try to stop procrastinating altogether.
In the first place because it is such a difficult task that, for the same psychological mechanisms seen before, you might get stuck, that is to say , procrastinate to stop procrastinating!
Which, in addition to being a real grammatical somersault, it would also be from a psychological point of view.
More importantly, procrastination has a lot of good in it.
For this reason, as I said in the first sentence of this article, "procrastination is a natural human tendency".
In fact, it stimulates your creativity, prevents you from making rash decisions, protects you from hyper-productivity neurosis and success at any cost.
And so, after this article on how to combat procrastination, you definitely need to read the one on the great benefits of procrastination. It is important, but not urgent. :)
