procrastination

We can also note the existence in most languages ​​of proverbs such as “Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today”, “Procrastination is like death”, “Seven do not wait for one”. German proverb: "Morgen, morgen nur nicht heute" - sagen alle faulen Leute" ("Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today - that's what lazy people say"), English: "Procrastination is the thief of time" (Delaying is a thief of time), "Delays are dangerous" (Delays are dangerous). At the same time, however, there are sayings in defense of procrastination - "Morning of the evening is wiser", "Work is not a wolf, it will not run away into the forest."

A fairly accurate description of the phenomenon of procrastination is given by Edgar Allan Poe in his short story The Demon of Contradiction:

We have work ahead of us that needs to be done as soon as possible. We know that delaying it is fatal. We hear a trumpet call: it calls us to immediate, energetic activity, the most important, turning point event of our whole life. We are burning, consumed by impatience, we are eager to set to work - the anticipation of its glorious outcome inflames our soul. The work must be, will be done today, and yet we put it off until tomorrow; and why? There is no answer, except that we are tempted to act contrary, without understanding why. Tomorrow comes, and with it an even more impatient desire to do one's duty, but as impatience grows, there also comes a nameless, downright terrifying - because incomprehensible - desire to procrastinate. This desire intensifies as the moments fly by. The last hour is near. We shudder at the fury of the struggle going on within us, the struggle of the definite against the indefinite, matter against the shadow. But if single combat has gone so far, then the shadow wins, and we fight in vain. The clock strikes, and this is the death knell for our well-being. At the same time, it is a cock's cry for the ghost that has taken possession of us. He disappears - he is gone - we are free. Now we are ready to work. Alas, too late!

Thus, we can conclude that procrastination has always been. But at the end of the 20th century, the relevance of the problem increased so much that it became necessary to study it, theories and methods for measuring the level of procrastination, techniques for its weakening were created.

Causes of procrastination

There are a lot of reasons to procrastinate: each person justifies their procrastination in their own way. It is quite obvious that the main reason for procrastination is the lack of desire to do what is put off, laziness and lack of willpower. The question is why these factors appear in each case and what to do to avoid them. There are many theories that try to explain this phenomenon, but none of them is generally accepted and universal.

Anxiety

According to this theory, the only and main cause of procrastination is a feeling of anxiety, stress. Those who are more prone to stress are more prone to procrastination. One of the sources of anxiety is fear of the future: a person is worried that he will not be able to do important work, will show incompetence, will not live up to expectations, and therefore unconsciously tries to delay the moment when he will have to present his results. Another source is perfectionism, manifested by trying to achieve perfection, focusing on details, and ignoring time constraints. Perfectionists also often enjoy deadlines, more pressure, last night work; they are consciously or subconsciously convinced that the quality of their work depends on pressure from above, and the more it is, the better the results.

self-restraint

According to this theory, a procrastinator limits himself out of a subconscious fear of becoming successful, standing out from the crowd and showing himself better than others (becoming, for example, a possible object of excessive demands, criticism, envy; in addition, subjectively low-rated personal ability to act can play a role in changed (after the start or completion of the case) conditions). In any case, as in the first theory, the key word is "fear".

Defiance (spirit of contradiction)

According to this theory, we are annoyed by imposed roles, programs, plans, and we put things off in order to demonstrate (to others, management, the world) our independence and the ability to act in accordance with our own decision. Being subject to external pressure, we come into conflict with the mass or leadership. In this way, "rebels", anarchists defend their own opinion. They are always dissatisfied with their position and easily fall into the trap of not doing - they spend their whole lives proving their independence from public opinion, which makes them slaves of an idea; as a result, their activity is limited to the generation of ideas.

Theory of temporal motivation

All of the above theories do not explain the whole problem. Opponents identify two main drawbacks in them: they explain the reason for avoiding solving problems, but not the reason for postponing them, and they do not explain the main thing - the relationship between procrastination and anxiety (for example, perfectionists are less prone to procrastination than other people). The theory of temporal motivation is considered more reasonable. temporal motivation theory).

According to this theory, the subjective utility of an action (Utility), which determines a person’s desire to perform it, depends on four parameters: confidence in success (Expectancy), value, that is, the expected reward (Value), time to completion of work (Delay) and level impatience, i.e. sensitivity to delays (G). A person considers a business more useful if he is confident in its successful completion and expects a large reward based on its results. On the contrary, things are subjectively less useful if there is still a lot of time left before their completion. Also, the more painful we are with delays, the less rewarding we find things that take time to complete.

Following this theory, we can conclude that the level of procrastination is the lower, the more expectations from the case and the more valuable its results are for a person personally, and the higher, the less persistent a person is (for example, impulsive people are more prone to procrastination) and the further to achieve goals (the closer the goal, the harder we work). In other words, work is best done when there are high expectations and self-interest in relation to it, and the time to achieve is reduced to a minimum.

Techniques for dealing with procrastination

Since procrastination directly depends on the degree of motivation (interest in work and positive expectations from its completion), in some cases the problem can be solved by changing jobs (dropping out of school), but these are not universal and very drastic measures, and most people are not capable of them. In addition, if a person’s high level of procrastination is associated with increased anxiety and a lack of planning skills, then it is highly likely that changing the type of activity will not help (or will help only at first).

There is no specific recipe that guarantees getting rid of procrastination. However, within the discipline of time management (time management) there are a number of techniques that allow to a greater or lesser extent to reduce the level of procrastination and, thus, increase the real return on work, which entails an increase in life satisfaction and getting rid of stress.

Time use categorization

Usually there are no special problems with procrastination in people who can draw a line for themselves that clearly divides tasks into urgent and those that can wait. Lucy McDonald, citing Dwight Eisenhower as the source of the idea, as well as Stephen Covey, author of the Franklin Time Management methodology (“Franklin Time Management”) and the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, suggest dividing all cases according to two criteria: importance and urgency . Thus, there are only four categories of cases that take time:

1. Important and not urgent (Important and Not Urgent - Priority Principle) These are the things that have the greatest impact on a person's life as a whole, while procrastination primarily affects them. This includes everything for which a person lives, his most promising goals and objectives, that which gives meaning to all life. Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of the existence of this category of cases and remember them as milestones that determine the direction of movement. On a daily basis, it looks like this:

• What corresponds to life goals and values, what a person should start his day with: getting out of bed, remind himself that he has a life project.
• When doing important and urgent tasks from category 2, you should remember that all this is done for the sake of “important and non-urgent” life goals, and be aware of for what: I work because I want a healthy family, I attend English classes because I want to open the door to Europe, I pull out a bad tooth, because my health is important to me. That is, this is your every minute filter for any business.
• In this category, you need to take into account the time for rest and allow yourself to provide it. Without health and strength, the following categories will not be needed.

2. Important and Urgent (Important and Urgent - Crisis Management) This includes all really urgent matters: emergency, illness, deadline, family crisis, life threat. As a rule, there are no particular difficulties with their execution. 3. Not Important and Urgent - Distractions as Denial Neighbors invited, mother-in-law's 52nd birthday, daily conversations during lunch, 5-time meeting with buyers, daily cleaning of the house. The unimportance of these cases does not mean that they can not be done at all, but a person should be aware that they are not very significant and the rejection of them in favor of cases of 1 and 2 categories, if necessary, should be easy and natural. 4. Not Important and Not Urgent - Busy with the "Trivial Many" This "trivial many" is a category of daily activities that make very little or no contribution to the quality of life, but take time. These cases are given time when a person does not know in which direction it is better to move: always answer all calls, chat with relatives during working hours, lingering tea parties, business and personal spam, Internet blogs, playing cards, gatherings until late at night.

Education industriousness

Success breeds success. Based on this, a person should maintain a positive attitude, finding pleasant consequences in any previous action and, as a result, making them an incentive for further vigorous activity. It is necessary to reward yourself for success, to maintain a sense of your own worth. When starting a new business, be sure that there were successful actions in the past, celebrate small daily victories, but do not stop at them, keep track of the ratio of victories to tasks.

It is productive to realize that escaping from unpleasant experiences, the desire to make life as easy as possible through entertainment is not justified. Since experiences become unpleasant only when a person himself so evaluates them, he should learn to enjoy work and avoid displeasure from judging its quantity.

To get rid of the “spirit of contradiction”, the feeling of imposing duties from outside, one should replace the wording “I am obliged” (to do) with “I choose” (to do) - subjectively turning the obligation into an act of good will. A variant of this technique would be scheduling, in which the central place is occupied not by business with breaks for rest, but by rest interspersed with business.

Case Planning

You need to plan your day and allocate time for each job, taking into account rest, possible delays, and so on. Instead of performing tasks sequentially, when you cannot start the next one until you finish the previous one, several different tasks are performed simultaneously - in parts. You can set aside short time blocks (from 5 to 30 minutes) to do something and then switch to another, or plan to do something specific and small in volume in this block. The schedule must be drawn up in advance; it is better to spend some time on this in the evening, so that in the morning you will know what to do and how to use your time wisely. When the to-do list is visual, then, even putting something off for later, you are still doing useful work. You can make a list by ranking things by priority, but you don’t have to do them in order of importance, you can do what is easier first.

One of the planning techniques that is useful for combating procrastination is Getting Things Done, developed by David Allen. The basic idea of ​​the methodology: stress arises, among other things, due to the need to constantly remember about a large number of cases of varying importance and urgency and the constantly standing problem of choice: “What to do right now?”. Therefore, it is necessary to unload the brain by transferring all plans to external media (paper notes, electronic calendars and planners, and so on), categorizing them (current affairs, projects, permanent duties, and so on), importance and urgency, clearly defining what what needs to be done at a specific time, and fixing deadlines where they matter. As a result, it is clearly known at any given time which tasks need to be done first, and you can concentrate on work, allocating special time for periodic adjustments of plans and no longer returning to the problem of choosing between current tasks.

Allen insists that any business, no matter how insignificant, must be included in the plan. The purpose of this, however, is not to draw up an unambiguous "calendar of the future" and adhere to it with all possible scrupulousness, but just the opposite. When planning their affairs, people tend to include in their plans, first of all, complex, important and time-consuming tasks that require a lot of time to solve, as well as cases that have an unambiguous chronological reference (meetings, conferences, official events). Other cases fill empty spaces in the work schedule. But life is full of coincidences: a scheduled meeting can start 10 minutes late, a meeting agreed a month in advance can fail ... A “window” suddenly appears in the schedule. If a person has a list of tasks at the ready that he can complete under given conditions in the free time (and time is usually small, and “big” tasks cannot be squeezed into it), he uses this time. If there is no list of "small" tasks at hand, time will most likely be lost. Allen also advises when planning “large” tasks (projects) not to be limited to “large-block” planning (allocating time for the entire project), but, on the contrary, for each large project, always have at least one planned specific task (for example, within the framework, perhaps the multi-year project "Development of system X for customer Y" in the task "Agreement of the terms of reference", for which a month is allotted, something like "Call the secretary Semyon Semyonycha and arrange a meeting to agree on the TOR" should be planned with a specific critical date). For a procrastinator, such planning allows you to overcome the fear of starting specific actions on a project, since an indefinite plan to “do something on a task” turns into a very specific action that does not require additional explanations and reflections.

John Perry, professor of philosophy at Stanford, introduced the concept of "structured procrastination." According to his theory, procrastination can not be suppressed, but turned into an aid to work. Since most procrastinators, shirking important things, are still doing something, you just need to direct their activities in a more important direction than, for example, browsing the Internet. Professor Perry suggests building a task structure so that important and urgent things, of course, are at the top of the list, but after them come a little less important, but, nevertheless, requiring work to be done. An avid procrastinator will naturally skip the most important task, but instead do something useful. Perry notes that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since it essentially involves substituting one task for another.

However, if there is a category of tasks that this person stubbornly and constantly puts off, then in order to cope with procrastination, it is imperative to understand what is unpleasant and impossible in these cases. It is possible that these tasks can be delegated to someone else or made so that they do not need to be performed at all. Perhaps, realizing the cause, a person will be able to get rid of the problem himself. In any case, you need to consider unpleasant activities in more depth.

Distribution of efforts

This technique is familiar to all athletes - you need to learn how to distribute your strength, plan your activities so that everything planned is carried out without strain.

It is curious that in Eastern practices [ what?] things that are planned and not executed are equated with an unbearable burden. Energy is wasted when we don't do what we have planned and plan for what we will never do. Guilt eats away at our internal energy reserves. The more things that are left unfinished, the less strength there is to accomplish them.

Therefore, the essence of the technique can be expressed in the following words - do not plan ahead if there are unfinished business. Before you start, distribute your strength in advance, leaving time for a complete breakdown. Hold your breath so you don't become a downtrodden horse.

Goal Management

The aforementioned systems of "management according to Franklin" and GTD recommend building tasks according to priorities, and both the deadline and the significance of the task can be signs of special importance. At the same time, planning should be carried out at several levels, from the global (“goal of the whole life”), through the definition of stages for achieving the goal, and so on - to specific plans for 3-5 years, for a year, for a month, for the coming days. At each of the levels, basic values ​​should be defined, attributes by which it will be possible to determine the degree of achievement of the goal, the skills that must be mastered, the most complete picture of oneself, of what a person is going to achieve personally.

There are two types of people. The first type: a person is successful, achieves everything he wants, 24 hours a day is enough for him. Second: procrastinator. People of the first type, most likely, will never look here, they have many important matters that require their direct participation. And this article is just for you, representatives of the second type.

I hasten to note that being a procrastinator is not at all shameful, moreover, the absolute majority of procrastinators of varying severity.

The very word " procrastination”, as Wikipedia tells us, has Latin roots and currently means “delay, postponing” in English. Thus, “procrastination” is the tendency to constantly put off “for later” unpleasant thoughts and deeds. Up to a certain level, procrastination is the norm (we all know the common joke about work that is not a wolf and will not run away into the forest), but, outgrowing this limit, procrastination becomes a serious problem. Laziness and procrastination have a lot in common, but they are not the same thing. Rather, laziness is one of the many components that form the phenomenon of procrastination.

So who is he, the mysterious "procrastinator"?

First of all, those who are not accustomed to discipline suffer from procrastination. In fact, who wants to brush their teeth on a schedule and exercise strictly from 6:30 to 6:45? Who is actually ready to do this exercise without even being tied to a certain time? That's right, only those who will not read this article.

By the way, this very article was planned to be written at least six months ago. And all this time it was not published solely because the author of this article has a procrastination problem. It is difficult, you know, to take and write, but what if it doesn’t work out? What if I'm missing something? But what if…? Ahh... well, it doesn't burn, really. I'd rather go and have some tea.

And that's the whole point of procrastination.

What does a procrastinator do when he has things on the agenda and he realizes their importance and the need to complete them? He, most often, is distracted and entertained, until the last moment trying not to notice this unpleasant feeling in every sense that time is running out, and nothing has yet been done. A person begins to be distracted and entertained with a vengeance, just to forget about the depressing consequences of not doing everything that is required to be done.

A true procrastinator is never in a hurry to get things done. There will always be 1000 and 1 reason why "the whole world will wait." Sooner or later, in especially neglected cases, it becomes difficult not only to finish what has been started, but also to start at least something new. Immediately there is a fear that one more thing will be added to the mountain of unfinished business, which will only bother with its presence.

Even if the procrastinator found the remnants of strength in himself in order to complete a particularly important or particularly long-lasting business, the fact of its completion does not bring former moral satisfaction, only. The reason is that the remaining pile of cases did not go anywhere, and one project completed with such difficulty mercilessly reminds that there is still a long list of cases ahead, each element of which will require no less, if not more effort.

By the way, it would be nice to have this list. Most often, the procrastinator does not have this list, naively believing that all his many unfinished business fit in his head. The only thing that these things do in his head is that they bring in “confusion and vacillation”, do not allow him to concentrate, scare him with their quantity, which often “from the inside” seems to be greater than it really is.

Therefore, the conclusion follows from here for those who decided to move from the second type of people to the first:

Rule number 1: Make a numbered list of cases that have already accumulated.

After compiling such a list, a small positive reinforcement follows: almost every person had this list in their head much more extensive than it is on paper. And this means that there are not so many things to do as it seemed. The mountain to climb is not that high. For a “neglected” procrastinator, this is a good sign and some relief.

I must say right away that the implementation of these rules is also a matter and it will also fall into the same heap, if you do not start its implementation immediately, it has not yet occurred to you to go to drink tea. If you have time to read this article, then you have time to make a sorted numbered list. Therefore:

Rule #2: Make this list now.

In this case, it will not do without pleasant bonuses. The fact is that every time a procrastinator completes a task, even the smallest and even the most insignificant, he will have the effect of realizing that he could do it, that he is worth something, that he can, when wants. Time after time, this confidence will grow stronger. And the day will come when, after small deeds, great deeds will come into play, which a person (no longer a procrastinator) will be able to bring to their logical conclusion. Do you want to experience a little joyful feeling that you are closer to solving your problem? Then follow rule #2.

Immediately after compiling a to-do list, it is strongly recommended to decide on priorities. This means that it is necessary to reconsider the importance, urgency and necessity of each individual item. You will see, if you approach this task with all seriousness, then your “mountain” will become more like a hillock than Everest. And this, again, will add enthusiasm.

Rule #3: Prioritize (importance, urgency), sort things according to priority. Eliminate from the list those things that have already lost their relevance or have never been important.

Difficulties may arise along the way. A person is accustomed to believing that all his affairs are important and that he cannot do without them. In fact, it was not in vain that he carried them all the time in his head, so that later he could take them like this and throw away, say, half of them. Certainly not in vain. He wore them because they seemed important to him but the time has come to review them and take a critical look at this great importance.

Here is a simple test to help you. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this test as the “desirability criterion.” Take each item and say it out loud "I want…" and instead of the ellipsis, substitute the wording of the case that you have listed there. If it suddenly turns out that you don’t want to, but, for example, you should, then this business does not suit you and you can safely remove it far away from this list. If you are afraid to part with those things that you have to do to someone, but do not want to do yourself, then start a separate list specifically for them. You'll see, by the end of this article, you can safely throw it away. But in the meantime, do it anyway, this exercise will also greatly help you on the path of turning from a procrastinator to a successful person, and will also give you an incomparable feeling of “mountain off your shoulders” when you do throw this list away.

The importance of meeting the criterion of desirability cannot be overemphasized. The fact is that regardless of religious, philosophical and other philosophical views, I hope that each of you values ​​the time of your life. Using this criterion, you can maximize the time of your life only for those things that you always want to do. These things will be done not so much for the sake of the result, but for the sake of the process itself. And this means that the time spent behind them will fly by unnoticed, but this is no less pleasant. Such deeds are not even deeds at all, but natural recreation.

It may seem that I advise you to leave only some frivolous things, but how then to live? How to eat? How to work, in the end? How many of you, the author, have seen people who like to work? And you have to live!

Certainly it is necessary. But you also need to know why. The age-old question arises: “Do we live in order to eat or do we eat in order to live?” the same with all other areas. Do we live to work or work to live?

Today I will tell you what procrastination is, what are its symptoms and how to deal with it, what is the treatment for procrastination

Good afternoon, dear readers. Dmitry Shaposhnikov is with you.

Today we will talk with you about such a phenomenon as procrastination.

Surely you, like me, have noticed very strange behavior from time to time. You need to complete a specific important task, but some incomprehensible inner feeling prevents you from getting started.

Instead, you keep trying to distract yourself with other, more enjoyable things. And in the end, you spend time on secondary things, which leads to missed deadlines, overstrain, dissatisfaction with yourself, and even stress. Maybe it's laziness, or maybe something else? What to do?

Below, I will share my personal experience with you. Go ahead, friends!

1. What is procrastination, really?

The term "procrastination" literally means "delay" and "postponing until tomorrow." This concept came into use in 1977, when two serious scientific articles devoted to this problem were published.

In Russia, no one dealt with this issue until the mid-2000s. It is clear that procrastination has always existed, but scientists have begun to study the phenomenon relatively recently.

The simplest definition of procrastination is:

procrastination- this is the postponement for an indefinite period of important, complex and unpleasant things that, nevertheless, must be completed.

The science of psychology defines this term more verbosely:

procrastination- this is the tendency of the individual to constantly postpone specific important and urgent tasks by replacing them with extraneous matters.

The procrastinator is well aware that unfinished business threatens professional and personal troubles, but he cannot help himself - he ignores an important task, doing anything but doing it.

Perfectly aware of the need to perform specific tasks, a person replaces them with entertainment and is distracted by everyday trifles.

The phenomenon is familiar to many, even if you hear the word "procrastination" for the first time.

Unlike a lazy person who just lies on the couch in front of the monitor, the procrastinator is always busy with something, but this type of activity is unproductive, inefficient and does not bring results in the form of personal development, improvement and wealth increase.

Procrastination almost always leads to life problems and painful psychological results.

The most complete psychological study of the phenomenon was carried out by Professor Piers Steele in his work The Procrastination Equation. The scientist believes that the rhythm of life of a modern person consists almost entirely of postponing important things.

He sees the problem in the absence of the habit of following one's own intentions and peculiarities of human psychology.

A typical example of procrastination

It is time for the student to complete his thesis, and he decides to start it right now, the deadlines are “burning”. He turns on the computer, opens the materials he needs, and decides to pour himself some coffee.

Arriving in the kitchen, he discovers that there is only one spoon of coffee left. He puts things off (writing a diploma), going to the store, buying coffee, coming home and sitting down again at his workplace. Here he decides to look at the mail or new messages on social networks.

Looks, answers, enters into correspondence. Several hours go by, and the work has not even begun. Suddenly, the student discovers that the day has passed, and the diploma is still at the zero stage of completion.

I'm sure many of you have experienced similar situations.

2. Causes, symptoms and consequences of procrastination

A laboratory study of procrastination shows that the phenomenon occurs due to the opposition of 2 areas of the brain: the limbic system and the frontal cortex.

The first is responsible for momentary pleasures and belongs to the unconscious sphere of our personality. The second is our planner, who cares about well-being in the long run.

The conflict between these zones deprives a person of the opportunity to work at full strength and do his business exactly when it needs to be done - that is, right now.

But not only the physiology of the brain is the cause of our inefficiency. There are other reasons for this condition, and there are quite a few of them.

Causes of procrastination

Below I will list the most common reasons. In any case, there may be more of them for each individual person.

Here are a few of them:

1. Low self-esteem. This is a common condition. Self-doubt: a person believes that he will not be able to complete a specific task and doubts whether it is worth spending time, effort and energy on it. About that, on our site there is already a popular article.
2. Propensity for perfectionism. Perfectionism is the desire to achieve the perfect result in any business. The pursuit of perfection makes us cling to details, rework finished projects and constantly think about the quality of work. Perfectionism itself is not so bad, if it does not affect the timing of the task and acts as a reason for the complete abandonment of work.
3. Self-restraint. This is a consequence of a person's subconscious fear of standing out from the crowd, becoming more successful than others, and becoming an object of excessive demands. Self-restraint is often caused by criticism of a person from the outside.
4. spirit of contradiction. Many people are annoyed by the programs and plans imposed on them, and they subconsciously strive to "break free." Postponing things, according to this reason, acts as a kind of demonstration of independence.
5. Boring and annoying job. In this case, everything is clear - who wants to do what he does not like. This is probably the most common and objective cause of procrastination.
6. Failure to prioritize. A person rushes from one thing to another and, as a result, chooses the easiest way - to do nothing.
7. Failure to organize your time. In this case, a person illiterately manages his time. In our article about you can find recommendations for effective planning of your time.

Now I will talk about the symptoms of procrastination. Maybe you will find some of them.

Procrastination Symptoms

There are many symptoms, as well as causes of procrastination.

I list here the most common:

1. Failure to complete planned work. For example, you plan to complete 5 tasks today and it is really possible to do this without any problems in your situation. But after a day, you find that you have done 1-2 tasks at most. It's okay if these are rare cases, but if this happens quite often, think about it, suddenly something goes wrong.
2. Missing important deadlines. Meeting deadlines and arriving at the appointed time at a certain place is called punctuality. If this same punctuality suffers for you, then this can be a formidable symptom.
3. Deterioration of relationships at work and in the family. Your relationship with superiors, clients, colleagues, or other half may deteriorate due to delay and failure to fulfill these promises.

If you often observe such negative manifestations in yourself, then these symptoms may indicate that you are prone to procrastination. These are the first "bells" that should alert you.

Consequences of Procrastination

They can be quite scary, but everything is fixable, so do not despair.

Among them may be:

• lack of career growth;
• dismissal;
• low personal efficiency;
• depression;
• irritability;
• lack of sleep and insomnia;
• constant frustration (depression);
• prostration and nervous tension;
• conflicts with others;
• financial difficulties.

Friends, in fact, everything is not so scary. A well-known saying says: “Fear has big eyes”, in the case of procrastination, it fits 100%. In the next section, we will talk about whether it is worth fighting this phenomenon.

3. Should You Fight Procrastination?

Most reasonable people consider procrastination to be an absolute evil: they intend to eradicate in themselves the desire to put off important things to the best of their ability.

However, some scientists believe that the fight against procrastination is useless and inappropriate. What's more, proponents of the theory say, in important tasks, postponing and substituting allows us to do more in the long run. Some people are even more comfortable working in "deadline" mode, when tight deadlines force the brain to work at full speed.

Procrastination advocates believe that postponing something allows us to decide whether a given task is really important and to understand whether it is worth spending our own energy on it. Procrastination allows us to save energy and acts as a kind of insurance against failures and disappointments.

This theory will only be true if the task we are postponing is really unfamiliar and completely new. If the expediency and benefits of postponed cases are extremely clear to us, then procrastination is only one of the types of “active laziness”.

Fighting procrastination is undoubtedly worth it, but it must be done wisely. As in solving many other problems, the most effective is the scientific approach combined with daily practice.

4. How to beat procrastination - 5 effective methods

It is quite possible to cure and defeat procrastination if you approach the matter pragmatically.

It is also worth stocking up on patience - it is impossible to get rid of the habit of postponing in one day. The best medicine here is different for everyone, but I have chosen the most effective methods that help me and my friends cope with this phenomenon.

Method 1: Work with to-do lists

Since our personal effectiveness is largely dependent on the rational use of time, it is necessary to structure the day in advance by making a to-do list. The list includes tasks of varying importance that really need to be done today.

Ideally, everything is simple: if the task is not on the list, then it is not required to complete it.

But the most important thing is not even that: the very fact that you have written down all your tasks in one list will already work for you!

The to-do list should also be compiled in accordance with expediency. You can use the Eisenhower matrix: divide all tasks into 4 categories and, first of all, pay attention only to urgent and important tasks.

Example

If your list does not include correspondence on social networks with a girlfriend about plans for the weekend, then you should not do this (at least until the main task is completed).

Important things are those that directly affect your personal well-being, correspond to your personal goals and life values.

Method 2: Eliminate Unnecessary Tasks

Sometimes we can put things off simply because they are no longer relevant to us. Perhaps the importance of these cases is not completely lost, but partially. That is why they are delayed.

For some reason, we did not decide for ourselves to abandon them or reformulate them, that is, we did not think this question through to the end. Therein lies the problem!

A “hanging task” takes a part of our resource, like an open application on a computer. What to do? You need to clarify your motivation!

There are cases that you can simply refuse for reasons of a purely professional nature. Small things and all sorts of distractions can kill even the most promising project.

Method 3. Break up large tasks into parts

An old, but very effective and proven way is to break one big business into several small “deeds”. The main task remains unchanged, but now it is not so scary to start it.

A local failure is psychologically not as dangerous as a major failure - besides, if one small thing suddenly went wrong, it can always be replaced by another.

Again, it is desirable to break down visually: that is, on paper or in an electronic diary. Any large project can be divided into many sub-items - you just need regular practice in this kind of classes.

Keep in mind the Chinese proverb: "A long journey starts with a small step". Forget about the road for a while - take steps. Don't write a book, write paragraphs.

So, step by step, you will reduce the impact of procrastination on your life.

Method 4: Isolate the workplace

The workplace should only be a workplace. This means that your work laptop should not be used for entertainment, friendly correspondence and games.

Even if you work remotely, and the watchful eyes of your boss are not watching you, taking away your working time, filling it with extraneous matters, is at least inappropriate.

According to Professor Steele, mentioned above, one of the main obstacles to our effectiveness is impulsivity. It is common for a person to be distracted from important matters, especially if he is constantly surrounded by irritants.

Look around you and remove all things from your field of vision that could potentially distract you. This applies not only to material objects, but also, for example, bookmarks on a computer. Order in the workplace contributes to order in the head (and vice versa).

Method 5: Accept your imperfections

Do not worry about your own perfection, because it is impossible to achieve it. Any psychologist will tell you that the ideal is only our idea of ​​the situation, and not the situation itself.

Perfectionism is often the cause of procrastination, our fear of doing something not "perfectly" stops us and prevents us from starting to act.

Remember the rule

“Better to start badly than to do well!” - quote .

Feelings of insecurity and fear prevent us from developing, creating, earning and getting what we want to receive. Achievement is impossible if instead of putting it into practice, we are engaged in thinking about failures and difficulties.

You should accept your own imperfection and do things without thinking too much about the end result.

You can take as a rule the following statement by an author unknown to me: "Just do what you gotta do and come what may!"

For clarity, I present the methods of dealing with procrastination in the form of a table:

№	Method	What to do	Result
1	Working with the to-do list	Write things down daily	Unnecessary tasks are excluded by themselves
2	Refusal of unnecessary tasks	Analysis of tasks and rejection of non-essential	Frees up space for what needs to be done
3	Task fragmentation	Divide a large task into several parts	The feeling of fear and insecurity disappears
4	Workplace isolation	Get everything out of sight	Increasing focus
5	Acceptance of your own imperfection	Don't try to be perfect	Decreases fear of criticism

As you can see, if you set a goal, you can successfully eradicate this phenomenon.

5. Treatment of procrastination - opinions of famous scientists

A large number of scientific papers and research books have been written about the treatment of procrastination. The works of Paul Graham and John Perry seemed to me the most accessible and practice-oriented.

Paul Graham- a well-known businessman, programmer, essayist. In his writings on improving personal efficiency, he argues that procrastination cannot be cured, but you can use it to your advantage.

Graham argues that you need to procrastinate skillfully.

He identifies 3 types of procrastination:

• do nothing;
• do something less important;
• do something more important.

Good procrastination, according to Graham, is when you do one thing, rather than doing all the things at once. It's pretty easy not to run errands for yourself, you just need to minimize all distractions.

John Perry, a professor at Stanford University, also suggests using the natural tendency to put things off for your own good.

The scientist advises to structure daily affairs, but in such a way that unimportant and not urgent things are at the top of the list, and the most important and necessary projects are in the category of secondary tasks.

In essence, the professor is suggesting that procrastinators engage in sophisticated self-deception, an art that procrastinators are proficient in. The scientist also believes that one should not reduce the number of daily tasks, but increase them so as not to deprive oneself of motivation.

Maybe this helps someone, God forbid, but for me personally this is a method of self-deception and I don’t like it.

It is also worth seeing a short interesting video by John Kelly illustrating procrastination:

6. Test for procrastination

To understand how procrastination dominates your life, take a short test.

Answer a few simple questions. Give yourself 1 point for a “yes” answer and 0 points for a “no” answer.

1. I often find myself thinking that I am doing a task that should have been completed yesterday (a week, a month ago).
2. When planning a meeting, I always think about the details.
3. I always answer emails, even the ones that are not the most important and urgent.
4. I rarely make decisions right away.
5. When I need to do a difficult job, I think about how I will do it for a long time.
6. I am often in a hurry trying to get the job done on time.
7. I try not to think about the approaching deadlines for a work task (order, project).
8. I often say "It's better to do it tomorrow".
9. I am easily distracted by stimuli.
10. The best assistants in my work are coffee, tea, energy drinks and other invigorating drinks.
11. I am a fatalist: if the work does not go, then nothing can be done about it.
12. I can't start work if the household tasks are not completed.

It is not difficult to evaluate the test results: if you get 5 or more "yes" - you are a real procrastinator. If less than 5, then you have a normal state regarding this phenomenon.

7. Conclusion

Let's sum it up, friends! Procrastination is evil, but it can be overcome. Thousands of successful people do this every day, improving their skills.

In conclusion, watch a video from expert Maria Dolina on how to beat procrastination:

The main thing is just to start moving in the right direction, overcoming difficulties and solving local problems as they come.

Share your observations and your own secrets of dealing with this “ailment” in the comments! I wish you peace of mind!

He dictates his own rules. To become successful, you need to work hard, learn new things and keep up with everything. A procrastinator is a person who wants, but for a number of reasons does not do even the most necessary things. This becomes a real problem, interfering not only with work, but also with a good rest.

The essence of procrastination

The phenomenon of procrastination has long been known. Many great figures of the past, especially creative personalities, were famous for their inability to competently organize their activities. However, only at the end of the last century, psychologists and sociologists began to closely study this phenomenon.

A procrastinator is a person who constantly puts things off despite their urgency and importance. He is engaged in small, insignificant things or endlessly perfects, polishing every little thing.

Such behavior is most characteristic of young people who have recently begun independent steps in life. Many over time get over the stage of procrastination. However, about a quarter of adults continue to indulge in the addiction of procrastinating.

Perfectionism and procrastination - what do they have in common?

There is a very common type of person who is so eager to make everything perfect that he often does not even start. He understands that there will not be enough strength, time, resources. And for less than impeccability - I do not agree.

Another version of the procrastinator-idealist - in an effort to do the best possible, the performer begins to endlessly polish small details. Moreover, he often does not do all the work as a whole, but prefers to bring the initial part to perfection. As a result, time and effort wasted, but the job was never done.

In itself, the desire to do a job well and with high quality is commendable. Problems begin when the focus shifts from the word "case" to the word "impeccable." The ideal is unattainable, and this knowledge paralyzes the will of the procrastinator. Why start if the result will be just good at best?

Why procrastinators can't stop procrastinating

So why do procrastinators procrastinate? After all, it is obvious that if you put off some important business, then sooner or later you will have to deal with the consequences. Either finish the project in a hurry, or disgrace yourself and lose trust, respect, money.

It should be remembered that a procrastinator is a person who simply cannot stop postponing things for tomorrow. It has to do with the nature of our brain. If a difficult or unpleasant task is ahead, he helpfully throws up an idea on how to remove momentary anxiety. You must not do what you don't want to do.

Despite the simplicity of this approach, an avid procrastinator is well aware of the consequences of his actions. And his pseudo-rest is overshadowed by the future "retribution". It turns out that a person, on the one hand, does not work at full strength, and on the other hand, does not rest normally. Time is being wasted unproductively.

A procrastinator cannot just stop and start working. Most often, the reason is the inability to structure your time. Very often they take on big things without understanding their essence. And faced with the first difficulties, they give up, put it off for later, “gather their thoughts”.

Another problem that any great procrastinator faces is the inability to plan. His plan often looks too general. Blurred in start and end times and overly busy.

How to deal with procrastination

The bad habit of postponing everything spoils life, makes it less bright. A procrastinator is a person who not only does not know how to work, but also cannot rest normally. For his thoughts are always clouded by the knowledge of delayed deeds.

One day, a procrastinator decides to start a fight against a bad habit. And most of the time it fails. The fact is that the phenomenon of postponing for later is often confused with ordinary laziness. But these concepts are not identical. If laziness can be defeated by a simple effort of will and external motivation, then this is not enough to defeat procrastination.

The problems that procrastinators can't get to work on or get things done run deeper than simple reluctance. Most often, these are different forms of fear, coupled with inability. So it is necessary to eliminate not the consequence, but the cause.

First of all, it is worth understanding what is the reason for postponing, what kind of fear fetters actions. It can be anything - from the fear of not being perfect enough to doubts about your competence.

It is worth identifying and working out your fears and only after that proceed to the next stage - to learn how to correctly plan activities. Most procrastinators are brilliant at making lists. But more often than not, this is where it ends.

The main problem is that the lists of procrastinators are too general and voluminous. We must learn to break everything down into small and even the smallest details. Then any, even the most difficult work will become easy, understandable and accessible.

Is there any hope?

Is it possible to get rid of the habit of procrastination once and for all, or are most procrastinators hopeless? This question haunts young people. And those who have already passed the stage of overcoming, declare with confidence that everything is possible.

We must move gradually. It will not work in one fell swoop to get rid of a long-term habit. But with due diligence, competent introspection and a little effort of will, procrastination can be defeated.

They are always late with work projects and utility bills... They forget to cash out gift certificates and often don't show up for scheduled meetings... They are said to be irresponsible, lazy and unreliable. Partly it is. But the main reason why these individuals do not have time to do everything on time is procrastination. What is it, let's try to figure it out just now.

What it is?

The term "procrastination" was formed from the Latin word, where pro- means in front, instead of, and crastinus - tomorrow. That is, in psychology, this concept indicates a person’s tendency to constantly put off “for tomorrow” important and secondary matters, shirking from solving tasks and problems, avoiding the fulfillment of previously undertaken obligations. Experts say that often such a state becomes a mechanism for dealing with feelings of anxiety, anxiety, when an individual is worried that he will not cope with the task or will not be able to complete it. In addition, they distinguish three criteria on the basis of which procrastination is defined as a behavior of the individual: delay, inefficiency and uselessness.

According to statistics, 20% of people suffer from this psychological problem. For them, the normal working state is procrastination. What it is? In simple words, this is the situation when, instead of fulfilling the plan, a person is distracted by various trifles: he wipes the computer monitor, removes pieces of paper from the table, or reads a note in the newspaper.

The appearance of the phenomenon

Procrastination is often called the plague of the 20th century. But in fact, people were exposed to it many centuries ago. The earliest mention of “postponing important matters for tomorrow” is the sacred texts of the Indian society Bhagavad Gita, created before our era, as well as quotations from the poems of the famous ancient Greek poet Hesiod. However, at that time the concept was not distinguished into a separate psychological category.

When did the term "procrastination" appear? This happened only in 1977: the phenomenon was described for the first time in the specialized foreign literature and a definition was given to it. And already in 1992, they began to study it in detail thanks to the English scientist Noah Milgram, who drew the attention of colleagues to the problem. As the most striking example, he described the process of writing term papers and dissertations by students: the completion of the task begins at an extremely deadline, when it is completely impossible to postpone or there is a clear threat of never finishing it.

Symptoms

If we dig deeper, we can draw the following conclusion: such a state of mind and body makes life much easier. So, procrastination: what is it? In other words, this is a simplified version of existence, when it becomes less stressful and responsible. Experts identify the main symptoms of a psychological phenomenon:

1. Inspiration and willingness to take on the task .
2. The emergence of a desire to "jump" from the solution of a global problem .
3. The fading of enthusiasm is the postponement of the matter to a later period. The appearance of self-criticism and subsequent justification.
4. The decline in motivation continues - the issue is postponed for a critical period.
5. The problem remains unresolved or is shifted onto the shoulders of colleagues. A person does not admit that he did not cope.

The most interesting thing is that procrastination has a cyclical nature: the symptoms, they are the stages of the process, are repeated with all subsequent cases. The phenomenon is not a disease, sometimes it's just a lifestyle or a banal lack of confidence in oneself and one's own abilities.

Main reasons

There are a lot of them. But psychologists have managed to identify the main reasons that make a person a chronic procrastinator:

• Lack of motivation: unloved job, uninteresting business, low salary.
• Perfectionism and procrastination, when an individual strives to do everything perfectly. He works out even the smallest details until the last moment, still remaining uncertain and dissatisfied with the result. As a result, the problem remains unresolved.
• Insufficient amount of knowledge and existing skills. A person doubts the correctness of actions, since he has not done this before, has not encountered a similar problem.
• existing phobias. There are a great many of them: to fail, to feel disappointed or to hear criticism, and even in awe of success.
• Inability to plan a schedule and distribute the list of cases by category of importance.

The above factors in most cases lead to the development of this condition. But it should be remembered that depending on the characteristics of the behavior and character of the person, procrastination will also manifest itself. The reasons for it lie deep in the mind and can be individual.

The guise of procrastinators

To determine the individuals most susceptible to this condition, psychologists often use a popular method. Procrastination or a tendency to it is diagnosed in such people:

1. gray mice. Such individuals are accustomed to being "average" in the team. They are sure that they are deprived of talents, their inclinations are undeveloped, and positive character traits are not pronounced. Therefore, they often listen to the opinions of others, are influenced by others. It is easier for them to remain in the shadows than to show individuality. They doubt their own abilities and knowledge.
2. Thrill seekers. Such individuals deliberately postpone everything until the last moment, as they cannot live without adrenaline. They like the feeling when the heart beats furiously in the chest from the realization that only a few hours, minutes remain until the decision is made.
3. Irresponsible. These are either the so-called nihilists, who simply do not need anything in this life, or cowards, trembling before important decisions, or weak-willed people without an inner core and with a lack of elementary self-education skills.

Other individuals can also be procrastinators due to certain circumstances, peculiarities of upbringing and character.

How is procrastination different from laziness?

Many people equate these two concepts. In fact, laziness and procrastination are completely different things, although they are in many ways similar and inseparable. The main difference is the presence of activity. If laziness is a person’s desire to do nothing, but only to rest, lie down, sleep, then procrastination is an activity aimed at any little things, just to avoid the execution of the main, global action. It's hard to blame procrastinators for not doing anything, because in fact they were busy - just not doing what they needed to. Such individuals justify themselves by solving other, no less important issues.

Canadian scientist Piers Steele has been researching the phenomenon for many years, discovering new facets that procrastination has been hiding until now. The books he wrote provided an answer to the question of why people prefer to postpone things indefinitely. To do this, he derived the formula: U = EV / ID, where U - the desire to do something is equal to the product of the expectation of success (E) and the value of completing the activity (V), divided by the urgency of completion (I), multiplied by personal sensitivity to one or other activity (D). According to his findings, individuals put off completing tasks if they do not bring immediate success - material gain, praise, promotion. That is, those who like to drag the rubber love to live in the current day, hour, moment, and do not care about the future.

Effects

Procrastination is not a disease. Despite this, it requires some therapy, as the aggravation of the problem leads to serious trouble. The fight against procrastination is necessary, otherwise, due to chronic lack of time, a person will be in constant stress and anxiety. Time constraints also cause mental and physical stress. Such an individual can be nervous and angry, as very often he forgets to satisfy his basic needs for food and sleep. He develops guilt, loses productivity, and in many ways his potential remains untapped or unfulfilled.

Gradually, a person loses the ability to organize. He begins to be constantly late, hardly gets used to changing circumstances, loses control over time, preferring to do anything, but not what is really necessary. At the initial stage of the development of procrastination, the individual reacts aggressively to changes in the work schedule, constantly shifting the blame for not fulfilling it to others. Subsequently, the situation can develop according to two schemes: the first is a tense breakthrough before the deadline, which will lead to complete exhaustion and aggravation of the problem, the second is that the matter will not argue, causing depression and poor health.

How to overcome procrastination?

Each case is individual. Only after a conversation with the patient, the psychologist can recommend effective methods for the current specific situation. General recommendations are:

• Recognize the problem. This is the most difficult step, after which you can already draw a strategy for the fight. Remember: if you cannot change the situation, change your attitude towards it.
• Learn to plan, create a to-do list for every day. At the beginning, write down even the little things up to the exact time of the task.
• Think about the result. It can be a bonus, a promotion up the career ladder, gaining authority. This train of thought will motivate you and force you to act.
• Catch yourself procrastinating. As soon as you feel like you're slipping, punish yourself with an extra task.
• Do not plan global. Start small.
• Dare to refuse. If you are not initially interested in the problem that needs to be solved, say so directly. Give other people the opportunity to deal with that issue, and take something else for yourself, but the most suitable for you.

Remember that the modern one describes in detail how to beat procrastination. A book on this topic should become a desktop: buy it and read it every time before going to bed.

Eisenhower Matrix

One of the most effective methods of dealing with procrastination. It looks like four squares, which are formed at the intersection of the axes "Urgent - Not very urgent" vertically and "Important - Not important" horizontally. Apply this drawing to your business diary and distribute current affairs in its cells in accordance with their degree of importance. At the same time, those problems that cannot be postponed should be classified as important and urgent issues. Without their solution, further steps will be useless. For example, an urgent call to a regular client, rescheduling a meeting to another time. Important and non-urgent - these are the things that will become global in the near future: planning a new project, holding a meeting.

Problems that are urgent but not very important are those that do not bring you closer to the goal. They need to be resolved, but this will not affect your work schedule. These include congratulating colleagues on their birthdays, receiving unexpected guests, and so on. As for unimportant and non-urgent matters, this category is the most capacious. This includes everything that is trifle, but at the same time insanely interesting and desirable: watching a series, playing a computer game, chatting with a friend on the phone. If you organize your work in accordance with the matrix, then you will successfully defeat procrastination: you will forget what it is. Remember that you only have one life. And wasting time on unnecessary things is a luxury and stupidity.