Do you want to beat procrastination? Join the club. Procrastination has been around since the start of modern civilization.
Historical figures like Herodotus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and hundreds of others have talked about how procrastination is the enemy of results.
One of the inspiring quotes about procrastination is from Abraham Lincoln:
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
The funny thing about procrastination is that we all know that it’s harmful.
Who actually likes to procrastinate?
No one enjoys doing that.
And research shows exactly that: When you procrastinate, you might feel better in the short term, but you will suffer in the long term.
It doesn’t really matter why you procrastinate. Some love the pressure of deadlines. Some are afraid to fail, so they put it off until the very last moment.
One thing that all procrastinators have in common is that procrastination has a price.
This highly cited study, published in the American Psychological Society journal by Dianne Tice and Roy Baumeister discusses the cost of procrastination. It is related to:
Depression
Irrational beliefs
Low self-esteem
Anxiety
Stress
Procrastination is not innocent behaviour. It’s a sign of poor self-regulation. Researchers even compare procrastination to alcohol and drug abuse.
Beating Procrastination
The key to finding from the study by Dianne Tice and Roy Baumeister is this:
“The present evidence suggests that procrastinators enjoy themselves rather than working at assigned tasks until the rising pressure of imminent deadlines forces them to get to work. In this view, procrastination may derive from a lack of self-regulation and hence a dependency on externally imposed forces to motivate work.”
Self-regulation, self-control, and willpower are all things that we overestimate. We think: “Yeah, sure, I will write a novel in 3 weeks.”
In our minds, we’re all geniuses and mentally strong. But when the work comes, we cop out. If you’re a procrastinator, you can’t help but delay work. And that’s true for the small and big tasks.
Sure, everybody fears stepping outside of their comfort zone — that’s why we call them comfort zones. It takes courage to make a bold move.
But it sure doesn’t take any courage to complete small tasks like paying bills, printing out something for your boss, doing taxes, etc.
The truth is that procrastination has nothing to do with what you’re trying to do — small or big, it can wait until later. It can always wait, right?
You start working on a task, you’re excited, you’re focused, but then, after some time, you think: Let’s read the news for a second.
It always starts with just one thing.
Then, you think: I might as well watch one episode of Game Of Thrones. Then, a video on YouTube — and then another one. Then, a little bit of Instagram browsing. And so forth.
It always ends with a bang: “This is the last time I’m wasting my time!”
Yeah, right.
Willpower Doesn’t Work. Systems Do.
If you want to beat procrastination, you need a system for doing work. A lot of people shy away from routines, systems, and frameworks because they want to have “freedom.”
Freedom is your enemy. The fact is that if you want to get things done, you need rules. What are some things that research proved to be effective?
Self-imposed deadlines.
Accountability systems (commitment with friends or a coach).
Working/studying in intervals.
Exercising 30 minutes a day.
A healthy diet.
Eliminating distractions.
And most importantly, Internal motivation.
If you combine the right productivity tactics, you have a productivity system.
The deadlines create urgency, accountability will create responsibility, working in intervals improves your focus, exercising will give you more energy, so does a healthy diet, and eliminating distractions will take away the temptations. Procrastination will be something of your past.
But no system can help you if you don’t have an inner drive. People overcomplicate that concept, but it’s simple: Why do you do what you do?
If you don’t know, make something up.
If you know why you’re doing something, even the most annoying tasks become bearable. It will become a part of the bigger picture.
So, instead of diving into work, take a step back, think about why you do what you do, and then rely on a system that supports that. It’s not rocket science. Just science.
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I am sure that all of this is true in principle -- that setting up and adhering to systems is (potentially) the answer to the chaos of procrastination.
But -- and there's always a "but" -- I've been discovering, at the age of 82 and as a pretty severe hoarder, that the most likely explanation for a lifetime of difficulty in meeting deadlines, or confining my interests to achievable goals, or confining my possessions to available space, seems to be traits of AuDHD exacerbated by childhood trauma.
And I'm not seeking excuses: only to understand WHY so many of these traits -- which could also be called "procrastination" -- have made my life so difficult for so long: with a view to doing something about them (if it's not far too late, with chronic pain and fatigue also to contend with).
Why, for example, do I dream of having everything perfectly organised and cross referenced in an impeccable information system -- but also have huge resistance to recording anything at all in a diary?
Beyond its blank pages being a good way to miss listening to the live episode of the latest expensive online course I bought, given SO MANY OTHER online courses and articles and references and books which I would miss out on, each time I actually attend to any one of them?
I hate "To do" lists too -- though I have a memory of the joy of scoring out and ticking things off one such TO DO list I kept prominently displayed on the kitchen table after my father died. This was mainly to demonstrate to his interfering, bad tempered sister who invited herself to stay with me (as sole executive of his Will, staying in his big house, trying to clear it for sale, get Grant of Probate etc etc etc) that there was a huge amount to do AND I WAS DOING IT despite her maddening interference and endless criticism.
Whereas anything she demanded to take over, to "help", she screwed up -- and it then took me twice as long to sort out after (thank god) she left, as if I'd done it myself in the first place.
And god forbid I ever actually USE the index cards I recently bought thousands of (mostly white, but in a range of colours too!). Bought remembering the last time I actually DID use such a paper-based system: for a failed (because its given scope was too vague and too enormous) academic research project.
Whereas now I'd just like to know where all my money is going, and from which account, and what Direct Debits I need to cancel. And what are the myriad of online courses I signed up for but never looked at again? I come across these courses sometimes: usually on adding a new one by the same outfit.
Or what are the thousands of books stuffing bookshelves that it's been years since I ccould physically reach? And never learnt or used a classification system to arrang by, nor even kept an A-Z author index?
Or ebooks randomly acquired but never categorised on Kindle? At least I come across those sometimes too, in Amazon searches: "Purchased..." (on some instantly forgotten date).
Given that it's surely necessary to master the neurobiology of dysregulation: of trauma and autism and ADHD, and the range of dietary, somatic etc ways of addressing dysregulated life systems, to overcome these lifelong traits... with so many courses, books, podcasts, and YouTube experts begging to explain it all to me. And with more references and revelations from Facebook etc Neurodivergent groups, that it's all yet MORE to keep up with.
Running exhaustedly on the hamster wheel of an information / attention economy that's always trying to bloody sell you something.
I've known for some time that hoarders very often have ADHD. And I've been discovering evidence for years that a range of ADHD traits describe me: including "hyperfocus" for things I get fixated on. But it also takes autism to explain some of the quirks of compulsive acquisition: eg fascination by sets of things -- nested plastic yoghurt pots which therefore cannot be thrown away, but cannot be recycled either.
So it's great news to me that our local Council will be collecting an extended range of recycling from May 2025: when I can at last (but with pangs of regret too) pass on (by then) nearly 13 years of nested plastic food containers of every shape and size, right up to nested trays for Christmas mince pies. Though I'm sure I could find a practical or aesthetic use for these very decorative items if I only tried a little harder...
I had to throw out a loftful of such stuff, 10 years'-worth, when I last moved house. I now have a 12 years'-plus accumulation, all washed and nested, but no loft to hide it in.
PS What looks like the best book to explain the dysregulated systems of AuDHD (and how to cope with them), by a psychiatrist who has overcome it in himself and become a specialist, is yet to be published.