Procrastination is Not About Being Lazy

Procrastination is not about a lack of time management or organizational skills. Procrastination is not about lack of motivation, either. Nor, is it about a lack of focus.

It is about the avoidance of something uncomfortable. The sooner we can stop blaming procrastinators for being somehow inadequate, the better. In fact, trying to pin inadequacy on a procrastinator is just making it worse. Therefore, all the 'treatments' and 'solutions' for procrastination that focus on building time management skills or just focusing on the outcome or setting deadlines or creating rewards and punishments are just going to fail. They are not ever addressing the problem which is not laziness or lack of motivation or lack of interest in the tasks or lack of organizational skill or lack of focus, yada, yada, yada.

I am just going to take a refreshing nap first.

Procrastination is about the avoidance of discomfort, pure and simple. At some point in the past, a procrastinator learned that it is better, safer, and / or more comfortable to avoid certain situations and activities than to engage in them. Because if they engaged in the activity, they would feel again what they felt in the past; humiliation, criticism, punishment, disappointment and so on. Chances are good that even the worst procrastinators don't put off all tasks, activities or to-dos. And that is a good clue. There is something about the triggers that reminds them of past negative experiences.

When we experience situations for the first time we have no expectations about it and no feelings or judgments about that situation. We judge experiences based on how they make us feel. When we encounter that situation or a similar situation again, we start our new experience from the point of memory of how the prior instance made us feel. Unless there is something significantly different about the next encounter, we will likely reinforce our original opinion about it.

Do this again and again and a belief forms about that situation. If we start this process in childhood, as we do with most beliefs, we probably don't even remember why we like certain situations and experiences, and dislike others. Our beliefs just are because it feels like they always have been that way. If there is no compelling reason to believe otherwise, meaning we are not experiencing any pain, discomfort or punishment for the existing belief, we are likely to continue holding that belief for the remainder of our lives.

For those who procrastinate, there has been a learning at some point in the past that they will be punished for whatever they are procrastinating over. Most procrastinators will know they need to work on the task they are avoiding. They know it will be better to just do it than to put it off. However, all of these reasons are logical, not emotional, and emotional drivers will almost always win out over logical ones. So no amount of logic-based solutions are going to work to 'fix' procrastination.

So what to do? How do you fix procrastination?

Well, in my opinion, you have 4 options.

1. Brute force - keep reminding yourself there is no good reason in this moment to procrastinate, that the act of procrastination is based on an old belief that does not apply in the present moment. Eventually, as you override your desire to put off that 'thing' over and over again, and you remind yourself that the old belief no longer applies, your subconscious mind will reprogram itself. This is the Just Do It, or Do It Anyway approach. It takes time but can work.
   

2. Focus on something bigger - eventually not doing the thing you are avoiding will result in some form of punishment or missed opportunity. At some point, the discomfort you are feeling that is creating the procrastination will be dwarfed by the perceived pain of the punishment or missed opportunity. In other words, focus on the result of the procrastination rather than the task itself and make the potential pain of not doing the thing larger than doing the thing. Then do the thing. This is similar to having a deadline and then pulling an all-nighter to get it done. This may not work some of the time but with persistence can be successful.
   

3. Dissolve the feelings of discomfort - each time you experience a tendency to procrastinate, spend a few moments feeling the feelings and ask yourself some questions, like what am I feeling right now, or when was the last time I felt this way. Jot down what came up so you can review it later. Somewhere in this process you should be able to access a memory that explains the discomfort you are feeling for that task or activity that you are avoiding. Breathing methods and Emotional Freedom Technique (also known as tapping) plus journalling are helpful here. Again, this takes time.
   

4. Go to the source and reprogram it - if the above techniques are not resolving the issue, try regression hypnotherapy which can explore the subconscious mind to find the memories and the meanings you created in the past, and can work to reframe or reprogram the subconscious routines for a more productive and supportive behavior. This is the fastest way I know, to find the root cause and with a form of hypnotherapy I practice, namely Rapid Transformational Therapy, the easiest and best method to just get on with it.