136. The psychology of procrastination

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Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, is so great to have you here. Back for another episode where we discuss the psychology of our twenties. Today, we're talking about procrastination, which is basically our tendency to delay a task indefinitely despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so. We delay by doing something to distract us, by preoccupying ourselves with less important things, kind of ignoring the impending deadline, all the while knowing that we are most likely going to regret that decision in the future. The amount of literature around this is extensive and fascinating because I think for a long time, psychologists and researchers were confused as to how someone could have every intention of doing something, could be motivated, could have a bigger goal that they were working towards, but still actually never do the thing and put something off to the last minute. It's what's known as this intention behavior gap, having every desire to do something and yet finding that despite all of that, you can never quite bring yourself to do it. Maybe you are listening to this episode whilst you avoid your exams or your assignments. Maybe you're putting off studying, you're avoiding those dishes. It might feel productive to get a better understanding of your procrastination by listening to this episode. It might feel important, but that is still procrastination even if it looks productive, because what we're engaging in is avoidance, and a kind of avoidance that could be stemming from a number of factors like academic anxiety and overthinking, perfectionism, feeling like you're not good enough, boredom, a lack of impulse control, negative coping skills. We all do it. Procrastination is a nice kind of guilty pleasure to feel momentarily distracted and able to avoid our stress, even if we know it's going to come back to bite us later on. And I also think it's especially common in our twenties when they're always feels like there is like one hundred more urgent tasks to be done or more fun things to be doing. Friends to be seeing online, shopping to be done, But whether we're conscious of it or not is another thing. That's the crucial element here. Being aware of why our procrastination occurs is important if we want to bring it under control. So today we are going to break down all of the psychology behind why you and I I do it as well why we procrastinate. But also much more importantly, I think, how to stop kind of getting in your own way, how to stop letting the tendency to put things off harm your goals and your dreams. We kind of all have shit to do, we have stuff we want to work towards, and I think wasting your own time isn't going to hurt anyone but yourself. So I really want to provide an overview of how we can manage when we are chronic procrastinators and actually put some practical strategies in place. All right, So let's start with the basics here. I think the definition of procrastination is a good place to start. We all have some sense of what that is, but basically, it's allowing ourselves to shift our focus away from things that we should be doing by focusing on the things that we could be doing or the things that we want to do. I think procrastination gets blamed for a lot of our time management problems, and it's also often used synonymously with laziness, but they are very different. Laziness and procrastination are not the same thing because laziness involves no intention to do that task at all and real minimal effort upon doing it, but procrastination. When we are procrastinating, we often want to get that thing done. We are very aware of that deadline, We are very aware of the things that we are not doing, but we just can't bring ourselves to do so because of some other reason. And to a certain degree, it's normal to procrastinate, and it can be regarded as kind of a useful way to prioritize between tasks, mainly because we're less likely to procrastinate on taskit are very very important and for which failure to do so would be very negative. And also just naturally, I think procrastination is part of our stress response. We don't like feeling anxious or stressed or overwhelmed, and so avoiding those feelings by avoiding the things on our to do list that is a great temporary solution, and I think temporary is the key word here procrastination. It also comes from, you know, just general life stress, being overwhelmed, or unfounded negative beliefs we have about ourselves, which we're going to speak about more in a second. However, regardless of the reasons behind this behavior, it can become a problem and it can impede our normal functioning when this happens. Procrastination has been found to result in a lot of kind of health problems like stress, anxiety, you know, very mentally, the sense of guilt or a loss of productivity, or even feeling kind of an added pressure or an added sense of social disapproval from the people you feel accountable towards. And sometimes it actually causes us to procrastinate more. It makes this tendency, this behavior more chronic. Typically, as we spoke about before, we procrastinate because of aversion, because we want to avoid stress, not by facing it head on or being aware, but by ignoring it, and so that provides momentary relief. We feel that we are safer by just completely ignoring what we need to do than we would be if we had to really focus and concentrate on what may seem quite impossible, So that actually makes the cycle especially vicious. So in the immediate present, if you're putting off you know, writing that essay or doing your taxes, I don't know, you are delaying the oncoming stress. And we know from very very basic principles of reinforcement that when we're rewarded for something such as avoiding something terrible, we tend to do it again. And that is kind of precisely why procrastination tends to not be a one off behavior but almost a chronic habit. There's an important distinction I think between what I would call work or task based procrastination. Maybe a better word for it is like practical procrastination and then emotional procrastination. So I think task based procrastination is what we typically think of, you know, putting off paying your parking fines, studying, waiting until the last minute to submit that work deadline. And I think the area where we talk about practical procrastination the most is when it comes to our academics, and that's because we have a lot of opportunities to procrastinate with fewer overt consequences. You know, if you miss a really important word deadline, that's your job on the line, right you could be fired. The stakes are super high, but if you don't do your laundry, you know, it's not the end of the world. Studying is so task based, so repetitive, but the consequences are also so individual, and we often feel like we will have time to make up for it when we're kind of in that studying mentality. So it is the area we see it the most. Unfortunately for us, though, procrastinators have been found to receive worse grades than non procrastinators. In one study they did in the late nineties, what they saw when they looked at finally exam scores is that amongst people who didn't procrastinate or at least didn't say they procrastinate, and the people who did, there was this huge variation in the marks that they were receiving. So I think that negative association between procrastination and academic performance is not just one that we see in academic studies and in articles and in research. It's also one that we see in our own life lives. You know, when we have poor academic grades as well, we also report higher levels of stress and poor kind of self worth and increasing sense that we are failures. Rather than understanding that this behavior is sometimes not always in our control, so that is task based procrastination. But emotional procrastination is a little bit different, and it's kind of usually referred to in the context of emotional avoidance, unavailability, conflict, aversion. Really, at the end of the day, procrastination is more about managing our emotions than it is about managing our time, and the area that we experience the biggest emotions is generally in our relationships. I always think of the example of someone maybe messaging you something really confrontational and you put it off for days until you're ready to reply, or you completely you know, avoid a friend instead of talking about something that you know needs to be addressed. That is emotional procrastination. You're putting off an important task indefinitely, knowing there might be consequences. Sometimes what we're feeling or anticipating can be so intense that sense of someone being upset at us, or maybe being mad us being rejected, that is so intense that we busy ourselves with anything but to prevent having to experience what might be really uncomfortable and awkward. We all know that doesn't work, though, that's the nature of procrastination. There will always be negative consequences down the line. But I think our tendency to do this explains why sometimes it doesn't even feel in our control, even if we want to reply to that text message, even if we're prepared to have hard conversations, it still comes from a place of not only emotional avoidance of stress, but also kind of the prioritization of short term mood repair over the long term pursuit of an intended action. So basically, these researchers put it really, really well. I'm just gonna copy and paste their words here because I think it's the best way to put it. Or when we procrastinate, what we're more focused on is the immediate urgency of managing our negative mood rather than getting on with the task, And a lot of that comes from the development and the reliance on pretty negative coping skills, and procrastination just tends to elevate those. When we know we have something pressing to do, procrastination kind of makes us do a few sneaky things, things that we might not even realize we're doing, employing these habits not just to prevent us from starting or completing a task, but also allowing us to ignore any sign or reminder of it. So that includes kind of even avoiding the location where the task takes place, maybe avoiding your UNI campus or avoiding going into the office, denying the consequences of not completing the task, and engaging in a bit of delusional thinking, the classic one being you know, I'll do it on the weekend, I can do it tomorrow, which, let's be honest, we rarely actually do that, blaming external factors for not doing the task, like I had to call my mom, I had to pick up that extra shift, my friends really needed to see me. And also something called valorization. Now this is an interesting one for us in our twenties because although not many of us know the word for it, I think we all somewhat do it. So valorization involves elevating the satisfaction of doing one task as a reason to not do the other, or making it seem like the other thing you did is more important as an excuse. For example, this is the one I see all the time, also the one I use all the time, like I'm only going to be young once, so it's really important for me to go to that party. It's really important for me to go see my friends, rather than finish my assignment. Because I'm in my twenties, I'm young, that's important to me. We place a higher value on the behavior we know we probably shouldn't be doing that's not productive, to feel better about not completing the thing that we know we needed to do. That pattern of avoidance, especially in regards to stress, not wanting to actually acknowledge just how much we need to do, how overwhelming it's going to be to start, how anxious we're going to feel once we confront the actual problem. That's one explanation. That's one opinion on procrastination. Boredom is obviously another. Sometimes the things we need to do are just like they're just not fun. And we know that our brains like novelty, they like stimulation, they like doing things that it enjoys. So if that pressing task you need to do isn't providing that stimulation, we're not going to want to do it. No one likes having to clean their car or do their taxes, which is often why we put those off for so long, for the simple fact that they are boring and they are tedious, So why not you know, scroll TikTok or Instagram instead? Things that will immediately give us that dopamine hit, and that links to what is known as the pleasure principle. So the pleasure principle is a Freudian idea and it has a lot to do with impulse control. What this principle argues is that each of us has this inherent desire to pursue immediate gratification and reward. We want to have fun right now. We want that new item of clothing right now without having to save for it. We want that sweet treat, we want that nap, and sometimes we don't have the cognitive restraint to tell ourselves no because it's so appealing and it's so instantaneous. We're kind of like little kids in that sense, and so we sacrifice long term payoff for short term pleasure and satisfaction. It's why we often see that people who are more likely to procrastinate have poor impulse control, because a they can't ignore the appeal of what's right in front of them, and b often the tasks that we most want to avoid are the ones that are going to take the most effort, time, emotional energy, and all of that investment is going to come before we actually get the satisfaction or the reward for it being completed. So why wait for that bigger payoff when you could have a dozen smaller payoffs in the short run. We can't control that impulse, so we procrastinate and we put things off, leading to that negative cycle whereby inevitably, the more we distract ourselves, the worse the situation becomes. The less time you have, and so you feel a greater need to procrastinate, your impulsive behaviors become stronger, and you're kind of stuck. Some people with poor impulse control also have increased risk taking behaviors, and so they just enjoy the pressure and the energy of leaving things to the last minute. They kind of live for that adrenaline. They find it makes them more productive, and once they get used to that feeling, the more they're gonna do it. The more they can't complete a task without that rush and that added risk or possibility of maybe I won't get it done in time. That's exciting. If you're not getting the motivation externally, that internal anxiety will definitely do it. You do not feel like you can do the thing. You do not feel like you can do the task unless it's like so immediately urgent that you just cannot put it off for any longer. I know so many people like this. One of my friends was actually asking me about this the other day and I said, you know, you like the adrenaline, you like the stress. Those are the conditions you've told yourself you're most productive under, and so now you don't want to do anything differently. Okay, so we've covered three unique explanations for your procrastination so far, but there's one that we haven't covered, and I actually think it's the most important. If you are a perfectionist, if you are an overachiever, an overthinker, I think this one will definitely apply to you. So we're going to talk about that and a lot more after this shortbreak. You want to know the biggest reason people procrastinate. It's to do with perfectionism, a fear of failure, of not living up to your potential. This seems kind of counterintuitive, surely, if you are a perfectionist, someone who sets really high standards for themselves, you know, procrastination would not typically be a behavior that you are engaging in because you want to be your best and procrastination takes away from that. But actually it's that excessive focus on being the best, that pickiness, that preoccupation was flawlessness, that makes perfectionists more likely to procrastinate. And that's because they face this kind of internal dissonance. If it's not going to be perfect, why should I try? Or where do I even start? The mountain just seems so much higher if you have these kind of standards for yourself. Perfectionists also become obsessed with really small minute details and sometimes a sense of procedure, and we can see how that relates to procrastination. Where we go, Okay, I'll start this essay, but first I just need to make sure that my room is clean, or I need to get this one other thing done, or I need to get a snack, Otherwise I won't be able to focus. Those details for most of us shouldn't be as compelling as they are, but when we're a perfectionist, it's really hard to ignore them. And so if you find yourself relating to that description and struggling with procrastination, you may tend to feel really overwhelmed when you think about the amount of work that's going to be required to produce the results that you want for yourself. I had a friend who once said to me, once I start to do something, not only does it feel more real, but I know it's going to take a lot of trial and error. And that's the thing I can't cope with, not the work, but the mistakes I know that I'm going to make. So why don't I just not try it all? And then if I fail, I fail because I didn't try, not because I'm lacking some other ability, not because I'm not smart, not because I'm not perfect. Obviously, there is some very deep irony apparent in that, but that is what perfectionism is. It's irrational. So, according to one psychologist, over planning is a pretty considerable telltale sign that your procrastination is not laziness, is not poor time management, it's actually perfectionism in disguise. So her name is doctor Shield, and she says that perfectionists often want to control every variable and anticipate every potential issue before taking action. The problem is that when we overplan, that plan is almost never good enough. So you might write essay structure after essay structureft after draft, plan your day over and over again, and it's going to create this endless cycle of brainstorming planning and overthinking, and so we never actually feel confident enough to get started until we believe that it's going to be perfect with what we have in mind. And I think that kind of that aiming for perfection that's unrealistic for anybody, no matter how skilled they are, but we hold ourselves to such a high standard that we can't see that. To expand on that, perfectionists are often also overachievers, and so they commit to too many tasks, they fail to prioritize properly, They genuinely just do not have enough time. They don't have enough time, and maybe that over commitment is also subconsciously a way to offer themselves a distraction, but it's also because they just can't say no. They need to be the best, They need to do everything, so that leaves no time to do just one thing really well. So this whole group of tendencies, this combination of perfectionism, of overthinking, overachieving, a fear of failure that shows up a lot in our academic performance. So, according to some early researchers on this idea, academic procrastination has been correlated to what they call performance avoidance orientation. So this is kind of like a personality trait of personality orientation is what we would call it. And people who have this, they're very much concerned with avoiding failure, but mainly avoiding failure in front of others. They're very extrinsically motivated by a fear of poor performance, by what other people might think of them if they see that, and also this innate comparison between themselves and others as well that they really struggle with. These students procrastinated as a result, because they don't want to look incompetent, they don't want to demonstrate any flaws, so they adopt a facade of competence, but also really deeply struggle with a feeling of lacking self worth, maybe of imposter syndrome, and of course chronic procrastination. And we've talked about this briefly in terms of people who like to wait till the last minute to get that rush, to get that adrenaline, but it actually has its own terms, specifically applied for people who are studying. For students, it's known as student syndrome. This phenomenon where we wait and we wait to apply ourselves until we really can't wait any longer to leverage that sense of urgency. We know that this behavior hurts us. We've seen the outcomes more stress, poor grades, miss deadlines, but our anxiety and our perfectionism, it really doesn't care. We've trained our brains to respond to pressure in a different way, and we kind of cannot bear the prospect of not doing our best, and so we engage in this kind of negative coping mechanism, this way of avoiding that impending sense of stress, of being overwhelmed, of being anxious about what this thing could mean for our sense of self worth. That's kind of the simplest way of putting it. There's also this whole body of research dedicated to how we feel after we procrastinate. Spoiler alert, it's not great. The thoughts we have about procrastination typically actually exacerbate our distress, and that contributes to, as we know, further procrastination. So it seems like we're kind of stuck here, and maybe that is the place you're in now. You're feeling like no matter what you do, no matter how motivated you are, no matter how much you tell yourself it is going to be different, Suddenly you get to the point of not being able to actually, you know, go through with that, you get stuck in the loop. And I think that's what I'm here to help with. What I really want to discuss in this next kind of segment of this episode, because it's all great to know why, but to know how to fix it is probably more important. So let's discuss kind of six practical tips to overcome your procrastination. First of all, chunking. So chunking is normally used to describe a specific way of learning in psychology, where we break down information into smaller pieces and order to remember it. But when it comes to procrastination, this habit involves breaking down what feels like an impossible task into smaller, itty bitty tasks, little activities. And the premise of that is super simple. When we break something down, a problem, a task, things on our to do list, whatever it is, it feels less impossible. It feels like there is less pressure on us to get it all done right now, as soon as possible, all in one go, And so we manage our time better, we manage our expectations better, we manage our stress better. I used to do this when I was at UNI. I would break down writing an essay into writing only five smaller paragraphs. So instead of feeling like I had to write three thousand words all in one day, I would be like, Okay, you just have to write five hundred words in the next two hours, and that's your task. Don't think about the bigger thing. Don't think about the thing that's like kind of the cloud above your head. Just think about this one smalltivity that's superdoable. Writing five hundred words. Could do that in like an hour, and chunk the task down while you're doing that as well. Also engage in what we call positive self reinforcement. Often the reason we can't get our impulses under control to distract ourselves to do something else is because when we try and force ourselves to do something, we do so in an environment of deprivation. Think about it in this way. You have this huge essay. I know I'm using this academic example quite a bit, but I think it's most relevant. And so you have this essay. You force yourself to sit down at a desk and not move until it's done. All you keep thinking about the things you need to do is really boring or tedious. When we have that mindset, it's going to be harder to complete what needs to be completed because you're not giving yourself the reward your brain needs to keep going, you're not giving it that stimulation. And we talked about this when we discussed the pleasure principle. Our brains are always going to want to do the activity that is more fun. But if you give it a little treat, a little variable reward, at different intervals, it's going to remain focused because it doesn't feel as deprived. And when it feels deprived, it's going to search for external stimulation. So by giving it that instead, you are able to bring your attention, your focus back into control. Phone breaks are a classic one, giving yourself five minutes of TikTok or Instagram time every hour. It also kind of makes it feel a little bit more special than when we're just kind of constantly flooding our brains with this like instant gratification. I used to also use gummy bears on my textbook, so on each page i'd put a gummy bear, and when I finished it, I would get the gummy bear. I know it's kind of funny, but it really did work because it kept me looking forward, It kept me being like, Okay, this isn't just like some exhausting, monotonous, never ending task, there is reward built into this kind of structure. So this is all about getting your mind to not fear moments of hard work, to not fear moments of dedicated effort, because you are showing your brain that's the sacrifice of doing something tough is not going to come without reward. We also cannot overestimate the influence of social accountability. According to studies conducted and published in the Harvard Business Review, when other people are watching us, we feel that what we are doing is magnified and that can feel our motivation. It's kind of similar to the spotlight effect. Now, obviously this is a double sided coin, because friends, co workers' partners can sometimes be a distraction if they're in the room with us. But also when we feel like we are being watched or observed, we are more likely to act in accordance with what we want our best selves to be doing, what we want ourselves to look like for others. We want to look forward. We want to look like we have a good work ethic, so that external pressure or perhaps kind of implicit expectation keeps us from actively procrastinating. Study groups are great for this. Studying in public places like at a public library also amazing. There's always onlookers, bystanders walking behind you, and even more practically for when you maybe need the silence, you want to be alone, but you still want that social accountability. There's a series on YouTube called study with Me by this account called merv Study Corner that is so motivating you. So she does these videos where she's like, study with me for twelve hours, study with me for six hours. I used to love them. You can have it on in the background, and seeing this standard that someone else is setting for themselves, using them as a model for your own behavior, I think keeps you focused and allows you to avoid the temptation of distraction. Social accountability. We have social brains, we have social creatures. It really does work. So my next stip is specifically for my perfectionists and my overthinkers, my overachievers out there, and that is to apply the eighty twenty rule. Now this was originally used as a phrase in a lot of like diet nutritional weight loss communities, but I've seen it adapted to workplaces, to personal goals, to relationships everything in between. The premise is that when we hold ourselves to the standard that we need to be one hundred percent perfect, one hundred percent productive, one hundred percent free of procrastination all of the time, we are rarely going to be successful, and so that inability to hold ourselves to that standard is going to create a negative cycle or spiral of kind of putting off the task again and again in the future because we're fearful of not meeting that expectation. Instead, aim for eighty twenty eighty percent perfect, twenty percent almost there, twenty percent room for error, twenty percent. You know, it's not great, but it's done. You know, eighty percent is still exceptional. It's still an a it's still a high distinction. It's still eighty percent of the task done compared to zero percent if we were to get stuck in the overplanning procrastination loop. And you've also minimized some of the stress of being perfect in the process. So eighty twenty rule, if you are a perfectionist, will save you so much time, so much anxiety. Chronic procrastinators also benefit from setting false deadlines for themselves. If you know something needs to be done by the fifth of the month, put it in your diary. That the real deadline is the first and push forward with that deadline in your mind. So they did a study on this in two thousand and two and it indicated that students who are aware that they have a tendency to procrastinate and they respond by setting what we call self binding deadlines, I'm more likely to get the task done before it's due. So these heel and post deadlines, they are correlated with better performance compared to those who just use the external deadline as their main marker. I know that that might feel like it's adding an additional time commitment, an additional time constraint, but what it really does for you is allow you to prepare for a date closer in the future and then provides you with a buffer for that procrastination you know might take place. Obviously, not for everyone, especially if you know you're going to ignore that binding deadline anyways, But for some people, particularly those who like the rush of the last minute urgency and crunch time but want to avoid the negative consequences of that, you can kind of engage in a little bit of self delusion here that might be part of the solution for you. Finally, and I feel like this is so obvious that it goes without saying, but please remove those distractions. Corporate number one is always going to be your phone. And I don't mean remove distractions by like just turning your phone off and sliding it down the table. I mean we are putting on time blocks, we are using stay focused on our computers. We are giving our phone to our friend to watch it and hold us accountable. If you can't self impose boundaries to do with social media or whatever it is, adopt tactics that make that boundary or removal of distractions external. Remember, if you're going to do something, don't do it fifty percent, because that's just going to make it feel like you've been doing it for longer. It's going to take more time when your effort has only been fifty percent. Like when you're multitasking and watching TV while you study, or you're scrolling TikTok whilst you're trying to pay your bills, or listen to your lecture whilst you're listening to a podcast whilst trying to focus on a work deadline. You might think that your brain can process those two things at once, but it can't. We work better when we are and we are more productive when we are one hundred percent focused on one thing, and it will also make the time go by faster. We will get things done quicker and to a higher quality. So distractions, remove them. You will thank yourself later, even if it means depriving yourself from something you really want to do in the moment. So I hope this episode has helped you from one procrastinator to another. I use all those tips that actually they are really really effective, and I think it's all about minimizing the stress response, meaning that you get things done, you're not always rushing towards that deadline, and you feel less shame, you feel less guilt, you feel better about yourself because you're actually able to do the things that you know are contributing towards your goals and your dreams. So thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope that it has given you something to think about. As always, If you enjoyed this episode and you have a friend who may also be a fellow chronic procrastinator, please feel free to share it with them. If you have an episode suggestion, any feedback, any comments, please feel free to follow us at that Psychology podcast and shoot me a DM and as always, will be back next week with another episode, so we'll see you then