Why did I wait until 3 days before an essay was due, prior to starting work on it?
Why did this blog post take about four weeks to not write and a few days to write?
Its actually the topic of this post, Procrastination.
As Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby so insightfully wrote “Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.”
Procrastination is the act (or art?) of delaying or putting off a particular action, despite knowing that putting it off will result in a longer, more painful time later on than if we got the action done now.
There are a number of reasons why one procrastinates.
The first is lack of commitment to a task
Commitment to a task and the level of internal motivation you have are both linked to the level of interest that you have in a subject. No-one can provide you with the motivation, nor cajole, threaten or bribe you to be motivated or interested. This comes from an affinity with a subject. In all courses, for all students there are classes which are interesting, exhilarating and those where to stay awake during a lecture is less likely than seeing a flock of winged pigs outside your window.
The level of internal (or intrinsic) motivation really impacts the attention, thought and desire you have to do well in a particular task.
If the task feels dull, it might be. But what if you widen out your thinking to the choices that completing the task enables. Perhaps it supports you in exploring a subject with more confidence or what the qualification at the end means?
The second reason is fear
Fear of failure or fear of success?
Actually both of these amount to the same thing, a fear of consequence.
It is far easier to not know than to try and know for sure “I could have passed the course if I had studied”. By studying you finish (ether successfully or not) by finishing you open up choices. Scared of the choices? You’ve found your reason for procrastination.
We don’t always know what might come next. But without doing, will we ever know?
It is easier to not know the possibility, than to know the outcome, whether good or bad. The difficulty with this short term approach is that one never learns. Or rather the only skill one learns is how to hide. Which is less useful than one might think. (Consider the ‘risk/reward’ curve).
Getting to the goal you want to achieve is important. How you get there is flexible and fluid. So if the goal is important, and there are lots of unknown choices along the way you can either choose to step forward one step at a time, or stand still. And then blame a lack of effort/someone else/ your circumstances for what happened/didnt happen. I love this post by Ben Horowitz on what the net result of that game is.
If the goal you selected is worth pursing to you then write down “What Am I Scared Of?” and write or draw or talk out the consequences you fear. Giving them shape and definition will let you quantify them which is the first step to putting them in perspective.
Putting the fears into perspective will draw out another reason for procrastinating.
The third reason for procrastinating “I don’t know enough”
This is how we procrastinate choices and decisions. Every day you make decisions where you don’t have perfect information.
When it comes to big decisions, you need to get to a point where you have enough information. But what is this level of information?
In a low data environment, (which when you are doing something new is invariably what you have) you need decision grade information. I define this as “Data to get you to the next decision point”.
To get through procrastination driven by not knowing enough, consider doing the following:
1. Break down your big decision into smaller related decisions, as far as possible
2. Figure out the data you have for each of the smaller components of the decision.
As you define the data you have and the decision you need to make, you will quickly see what data you need and what decisions you can make. Start small, make the smaller decisions, so that you are moving towards
As you define the data you think you need, you will come up with the ‘decision grade’ data. This is the amount of information you need to make the initial decision. There will be more decisions to come, and some, right now, you have absolutely no idea that you need to make that decision.
Remember if you had perfect knowledge, you would not need to make a decision at all.
I have been through all of these types of procrastination, in business, in my personal life and when I was at university.
I have found that the only way to break the procrastination habit is to define the tasks down and get on with completing each minor task to build to the big one.
Some great posts on Procrastination by Seth Godin are Everybody Stall
“Do or do not do. There is no try.” ~ Master Yoda
What are your thoughts on procrastination and eliminating it? Let us know in the comment box below!