Episode 84: Procrastination
procrastination- episode 84
“...at its core, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity.” Procrastination is what I am talking about today and boy do I need to figure this out. The most helpful thing I learned and shared in this episode is that procrastination is more about avoiding unpleasant emotions that come up when you think about doing a certain task. I share how this relates to social anxiety, sometimes making things a bigger deal than they really are. Plus I give a few tips to help you and myself on our emotional journey to less procrastination. Because usually when you finally do the things you have been putting off it really isn’t that bad. We can do this!!
Show Notes: Hi Friends! I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. Below are all the references.
Things I learned this week:
I think my favorite thought and quote for this week is "Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.
“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Put simply, procrastination is about being more focused on “the immediate urgency of managing negative moods” than getting on with the task, Dr. Sirois said. (The article is below)
Another thing I learned is that procrastination can relate a little bit to social anxiety in the way the people with social anxiety are so worried about a perceived flaw being revealed that they avoid social situations. So with procrastination maybe what we are also doing us avoiding, an emotion or task, and this constant avoidance makes the task and the subsequent emotions attached to it a way bigger deal. The more you avoid doing thing the greater this false idea of how bad it is going to be becomes.
A few tips I found helpful :
Make sure to set aside time to do a task. It is easy to forget to do something on your list. Setting aside time will help you finally get to it.
Don't worry about the prefect time or perfect place. Perfectionism makes it seem like if it isn't going to get started perfectly then we don't start. And related to that, there is no right way or wrong way to do something.
James clear had a whole article about procrastination and uses alot of his same tips. Just get started with the 2 minute rule is one of my favorites.
Another great youtube video suggests to divide your time into small increments.
The other thing is to be forgiving and compassionate with yourself as you go through this process. More shame about procrastination is not going to motivate you do it less. Forgive yourself and move on.
The last thing I mentioned is also to be aware of the things you usually procrastinate and then put things in place that will help you avoid putting it off.
This is the TED talked I watched about the instant gratification monkey.
The rest of the articles are what I read to prepare for this podcast. All of which were quite helpful.
WHY PEOPLE PROCRASTINATE from solvingprocrastination.com is quite an extensive post with lots of good info.
