Hey guys, it’s midterm season. When I was in college and printing a finished paper (believe it, we used to print papers), you’d have found two things to be true should you have happened upon my room.
- I was in my pajamas
- The room was spotless
The first thing was just laziness. However, the second thing was pure procrastination. I know I’m not the only one who cleans to avoid work. And today, in 2020, there are many more ways to be distracted.
Procrastination goes hand-in-hand with rationalizing.
It is easy to tell ourselves that we would have done a better job if only we’d had more time. If you are very good at rationalizing, you might be able to feel fairly satisfied this way. However, it is a cheap source of happiness. You are forced to lower your expectations and accept your second-rate effort.
Think about a slightly different aspect of procrastination: when we resolve to do better next time.
• “Next time,” we think, “I’ll start earlier so I can really spend more time on this project.”
• Or, “This is the last time I leave myself only 25 minutes to work out.”
It’s this promise to ourselves about next time that is interesting. (What will be different about ourselves and our lives that next month that means we’ll have the first draft of our papers done a week before they are due? )
Procrastination presents an opportunity to look at your priorities.
Maybe it’s time to reframe what’s important, if you make the same goals over and over but never get to them. You are allowed to update your priorities.
Make Procrastination Work For You
First, figure out what the secondary gain is behind your procrastination. A secondary gain is a hidden good consequence to an otherwise negative behavior. Are you really trying to get into your down- to-the-wire mentality so that you can churn out a fantastic paper? I doubt it. Ask yourself what you’re really getting by putting things off.
It’s worth noting that procrastination can initially be a stress-relief tool. If you are overworked or your day is fraught with pressing tasks, then pushing them aside to do something else isn’t really procrastination, in my opinion. It’s a form of self-care, so long as it works for you. How can you tell?
When you finally do get to the task you’ve been avoiding, does it come together fairly easily? Do you feel refreshed from your cleaning spree or scrolling and ready to work? If the answer is yes, then you might be a healthy procrastinator. If no, then consider asking yourself about the red flags below.
To review, procrastination has useful purposes:
- Fine-tuning our brains to perform under
pressure - self-care for the overworked and overscheduled
- stress relief from a bad to-do list
And it symbolizes some serious red flags:
- Allows us to be satisfied with second-rate
results, while resolving to do better next time — with no action plan attached. - Highlights ways that our priorities are out of
order
Thanks for procrastinating from what’s really important in order to read this post! 😎
