Why you’re procrastinating and how to overcome it (backed by science!)
Plus, ZenGile, the Agile task management tool.
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The science behind procrastination and how to stop
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”- Abraham Lincoln.
Everyone procrastinates. If you’ve found a productivity system that works for you, you might procrastinate less often than others, but there are certainly times when you can’t escape the feeling.
Procrastination works differently for everyone. In my case, it happens when a particular task breaks my workflow. For example, if I need to switch from operational to strategic work, or if eventually, the task I’m doing gets more complicated.
Procrastination doesn’t make you lazy; it’s a psychological and involuntary response. “It’s that gap between intention and action,” says psychologist Dr. Timothy Pychyl.
The science behind procrastination
Procrastination is a natural response to unpleasant tasks. In fact, here are three scientific theories to prove that you’re not just lazy.
1. Desire and responsibility
Scientists explain that procrastination is a battle between two different parts of the brain that starts when you come across an assignment or activity that you don’t want to do. The two parts of the brain are the limbic system, responsible for unconsciousness and pleasure, and the prefrontal cortex, your internal planner. The prefrontal cortex reminds you of your to-do lists and deadlines, while the limbic system tells you to take a nap.
When the limbic system wins, you end up putting things off until the next day, giving you a sense of relief. When the prefrontal cortex wins, which happens less often, you battle through the unpleasant feeling and finish the task.
2. Emotional intelligence and locus control
Three psychologists, Mu Nuri Deniz, Zeliha Tras & Didem Aydogan, conducted research in 2009 to measure the relationship between procrastination, emotional intelligence and locus control. They studied 435 randomly selected university students (mostly women) between 17 and 21 years old, using the Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Academic Procrastination Behavior Scale, and the Rotter Locus of Control Scale.
They came to the conclusion that people with higher levels of emotional intelligence and self-control had lower procrastination rates. High procrastination rates were associated with a lack of intrinsic motivation and less emotional intelligence.
This study is closely related to the previous one in that the lower the locus control, the higher the chances of giving in to the pleasure proposed by the limbic system.
3. Asymmetries in anticipation and excitement
This study by psychologists David J. Hardisty and Elke U. Weber, explains that the way our brain anticipates future events can cause us to procrastinate. For example, when we think of something positive, like eating lunch when hungry, we prefer an immediate response. However, when we think of a negative task, like paying bills, we’d rather do it later.
In this study, Hardisty and Weber asked 171 participants to eat different flavors of jelly beans. The flavors ranged from delicious to disgusting. The participants often felt excited and impatient to eat the tasty ones, and while they disliked the awful ones, they were also annoyed by the wait before eating them.
People want to have good things now and terrible things later, and that asymmetry in desires is what drives our behavior. “This happens partly because the anticipation of positive versus negative events is asymmetric,” explains David J. Hardisty, Ph.D. “When we imagine future positive things, we both enjoy imagining it and feel impatient. But when we imagine future negative things, we just hate thinking about them.”
Wanting to rest or check Instagram, for example, requires an immediate response. Meanwhile, finishing a work task feels like a negative outcome that needs to be delayed.
What causes you to procrastinate?
We’ve covered what happens after you feel the need to procrastinate, but what causes that feeling? What causes your limbic system to take over and ask for a break? Here are some of the reasons you might be procrastinating:
Perfectionism. People who want to come up with a perfect result often end up procrastinating because their work never matches their ideal. This leads them to stop trying since they’ll never reach “perfection.”
Fear of failure or criticism. It’s common to be afraid of doing something wrong, failing, and, as a result, getting criticized by others. The idea of doing a poor job and getting judged for it can cause more fear than the feedback itself. This leads people to avoid work as they’re afraid of what others will think or say.
Fear of success. Many people who think they’re afraid of failure are actually afraid of succeeding. Why? Because with success usually comes additional responsibilities or new evaluation standards that they might not always meet. (See: Fear of failure and criticism, or perfectionism).
Increased difficulty. When tasks start to get difficult, it can be common to think that it's time to stop since you need to make an additional effort to finish. So, you might save the more demanding work for later thinking that you’ll have more answers or it will be easier then.
Science-backed ways to hack your brain to stop procrastinating
Now that you know procrastination doesn’t make you lazy or a bad employee, but is how the human brain is wired, you can start taking action. Some ways to overcome procrastination are:
1. Set hard, immovable deadlines
Deadlines are procrastination’s kryptonite. The problem is that they can often be moved, especially if your work doesn’t require much supervision. A good tip is to set yourself hard and immovable deadlines even when no one is asking, and be vocal about them. So, if you’re working on a report to share with a different department, send them an email explaining when they should be expecting it.
Make sure your deadlines are realistic and that you have enough time to complete the tasks. If not, it will cause you to miss them.
2. Stay away from distractions
This one requires you to identify your default distraction when you begin to procrastinate. In my case, it’s my phone. If I have my phone next to me on my desk when I’m working, every time a task gets a bit more complicated, I’ll grab it by default. Even if I don’t have any text messages, I will check all the social media apps and spend several minutes scrolling through them.
What I do now is force myself to leave my phone in a different room. That way, whenever I have the impulse to grab it, I need to stand up and walk to the other room. Since that requires more effort, I simply keep working. If your phone is also a default distraction, you can download apps like Freedom to block any distracting sites for a set time. This helps improve your locus of control.
3. Piggyback your habits
Humans follow habits, and almost everything we do is part of a routine. Wake up, brush your teeth, shower, get dressed, make coffee, walk the dog, have breakfast, sit down at your desk, start working, etc.
A good way to work on something that you’re chronically putting off is to piggyback one habit with another one. For example, if you need to clean the bathroom mirror every morning, you can do it right after you brush your teeth. Since you always brush your teeth in the morning, you can use it as a trigger to remind yourself to clean the mirror. That way, one habitual task reminds you of another new one without that much extra effort.
4. The five-minute rule
This is a widely-known technique to overcome procrastination by committing to a task for just five minutes. The hardest thing to do when procrastinating is to start working, so doing it for just five minutes allows you to make a small commitment and to simply begin. Most times, you’ll find yourself wanting to continue working after the five minutes have passed.
This is also a way of noticing that what you thought was a confusing or difficult task was, in fact, not terrible at all, and it’s better to just finish it.
Other tips from James Clear
James Clear is a #1 NY Times Bestseller and the author of the productivity book Atomic Habits. He shares different tips to overcome procrastination on his blog, including:
1. Get an immediate reward for taking action
Clear proposes that you reward yourself immediately while you’re doing a task you’ve been putting off. For example, if you’re procrastinating going to the gym, reward yourself while you’re there by listening to your favorite podcast. The formula for this is to “Only do [THING YOU LOVE] while doing [THING YOU HAVE BEEN PROCRASTINATING ON].”
2. Get an immediate consequence for procrastinating
He invites you to find ways in which your procrastination is visible and the consequences are immediate. For example, if you told the sales department that you would send them a report by EOD and you miss your self-imposed deadline, you’re not only failing to deliver, but the whole sales department knows that you’re behind schedule. The consequence — embarrassment — is immediately palpable.
Note: This only applies if the deadline was realistic and you procrastinated; not if you had too many tasks and couldn’t finish. In that case, you should work on your prioritization.
3. The two-minute rule
This is another take on the five-minute rule. Clear proposes that you start working on a task for just two minutes and take breaks. You should also begin with the simplest part of the task. You can do this by breaking down an assignment into really small pieces that can be done in two minutes. For example, let's say that you need to write an essay on Ancient Greece. Setting one task on your to-do list called “Write an essay on Ancient Greece” will likely cause you to procrastinate. If you break it up into smaller, actionable tasks, it becomes easier. You could write this instead:
Write the essay cover (include: date, professor, title, and author)
Make a list of research links
Read the first link
Read the second link
Read the third link
Write the introduction
And so on
TL;DR: How to overcome procrastination
Procrastination involves delaying responsibilities until a later time, hoping that you’ll have the energy and/or knowledge to do them then. We all do it at some point, and many of us then regret leaving tasks for the last minute.
Studies have shown that there are scientific reasons behind procrastination. We procrastinate because:
Our limbic system, a part of the brain that’s in charge of desire, is in constant battle with the prefrontal cortex, another part of the brain that controls responsible decision making. When the limbic system wins, we procrastinate.
We have lower levels of emotional intelligence and self-control, so we give in to distractions.
Our brain anticipates future scenarios asymmetrically. That means that we want immediate gratification and want to delay everything that represents hard work.
But science has also taught us how to fix this habit. Some ways to overcome procrastination include:
Setting hard and immovable deadlines
Staying away from distractions and locking our phones in a different room
Piggybacking habits to simplify their adoption
Working on a task for just five minutes at a time
Creating a reward and penalization system
Breaking projects down into smaller, actionable steps that take two minutes to complete
Are you ready to incorporate these habits into your daily routine?
Written by: Camila Mirabal
Edited by: Lauren Maslen
EDITOR’S PICKS
My Simple Productivity System (for normal people)! - Jeff Su is a YouTube productivity influencer. This video shares how to create a simple productivity system that’s easy to understand and doesn’t require extreme commitment or learning how to use difficult tools.
It’s Every Manager’s Job To Support Employees With Disabilities.- If you’re a manager, you need to support all of your employees without discriminating against any of them. You should empower all of your employees, but you might not know how to do it. This article shares three tips to support your employees with disabilities and explains why doing so isn’t just good for your people, but good for your business and the world, too.
Four Hyper Productivity Hacks In A Reactive Environment.- If you’re finding it hard to focus and remain productive in a world that’s making you overstimulated, try these four productivity hacks shared by the Business Council at Forbes. My favorite is to use an accountability partner.
DISCOVER
If you work on an Agile team and need to improve your task management platform, take a look at ZenGile. It’s a task tracker tool that was designed to keep track of tasks following Agile practices. It uses Kanban boards, allowing you to record user stories and track iterative development.
SCROLLING THROUGH
Matt Gray is a founder who recently shared his 8-step routine for staying productive — including four hours of deep work and no screen time. How does your “perfect day formula” compare?
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
5 Common Reasons Your Team Isn’t Using SOPs and How to Easily Fix Them.- SOPs are simple step-by-step guides that allow your business to scale. Your team is probably not using them because they’re not clear, are hard to find, or they think they’re optional. Read the complete list of reasons and how to put them into action in the link.
Build a recruiting program for startups in 10 easy steps.- It’s different to hire for a startup compared to an enterprise. You can skip some bureaucratic steps, but you can’t risk not having a standardized hiring process. Read this article to learn how to build your startup recruiting program from end to end.
Naps: The Best Productivity Booster.- Resting is the only thing that will make you not feel tired, but there are some ways to hack that resting process during the day so you can meet all your responsibilities without feeling sleepy. This article shares the power of naps and introduces the concept of coffee naps.
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