Aw yeah, let's cozy on up.
I always like the space under here. It just feels really comfortable and safe.
A little cubby hole to...hang out in?
I don't know.
There’s nothing quite like waiting til the last-minute to make a video about procrastination.
That's not a joke, actually.
I procrastinated on making this video...unintentionally.
I’m filming this just a couple days before it's supposed to go up
and I know it’s gonna be a ton of work to get it done in time.
But ya know, I had a lot of really important stuff come up and
things got in the way and, you know, I jus-
No, that’s a lie.
I was mostly just playing Rocket League and
making bread and...
ya know my toolbox really needed reorganizing, so...
here we are.
And every time this happens, I ask myself,
“How did I get here?
What’s wrong with me?
Why did I do this?
What is the deal?
Why are you like this?
What? Why?
How did this happen?
What's wrong with me?
Why can’t I get things done before they’re due?
I have an answer to this question, if you haven’t guessed, but for the longest time
I thought that maybe I just, I don't know,
lacked the willpower or was lazy or just overall was bad at time management.
And you probably think the same thing.
Well, about yourself, not me. I mean, maybe me too.
But hey, it turns out
that’s not true.
Listen to me, you’re actually a smart, capable, hard-working person, okay?
So for all the chronic procrastinators like me out there, listen up.
Procrastination is “the unnecessary avoidance of a
task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline.”
Thanks Wikipedia!
It’s not putting things off every once in a while because
your couch is really comfy or because you have more pressing things to do.
No.
Procrastination is a conscious, active delay.
It’s almost like...a compulsion.
You come home from class and you remember that you have
five chapters that you need to read in your psychology textbook about child development,
and then the thought starts to creep into your mind.
“Do I need to do that...now?”
See that’s the big problem with procrastination - it’s counterproductive.
It’s pretty much self-harm...self-sabotage.
You choose not to read those chapters.
Even though you know it'll come back to bite you later on.
And you’re totally cool with that.
Sort of like the 90% of people watching this video right now who are not subscribed.
Like, what are you waiting for??
For real though, it helps us out a bunch, so if you like what we do, make us feel good,
make yourself feel good, subscribe, hit that little bell icon, we love you.
Alright, let’s look at the best-studied population in psychological research.
College students.
More than 90% of them report that they procrastinate at some point.
75% of college students identify themselves as “procrastinators”.
And 25% are chronic procrastinators to the point that they may end up dropping out of school.
So it’s pretty widespread.
What’s going on? What makes us do this?
Well there’s no singular answer.
Sidebar, there are some neurological conditions that are linked to procrastination like
ADHD and depression.
I won’t be talking about those conditions specifically, but
the info here still generally applies, so
if that's something that you’re struggling with, stick around.
Look up what causes procrastination online
and you’ll see all sorts of theories.
Some believe it’s the result of perfectionism or irrational beliefs or anxiety
or a lack of structure or maybe it's an expression of rebellion.
But while that may be true for some people, the research doesn’t back it up.
I actually came across a meta-analysis from 2007 recently
that looked at hundreds of procrastination studies.
And it found only five strong, consistent predictors of procrastination.
And they are as follows.
First, task aversiveness.
This one is pretty straightforward. You essentially say to yourself,
“I really don’t like doing laundry, so...
I just won’t until I literally don’t have any more underwear that I haven’t worn both ways.”
This sort of aligns with the “pleasure principle",
which is a term Freud came up with back in the day to describe our
inherent search for pleasurable experiences and avoidance of painful ones.
So the more you dislike something, the more likely you are to avoid it.
And vice versa.
Second, reward delay.
Now people often procrastinate on tasks where the rewards are received
long after completing the task.
And this is a phenomenon known as temporal discounting.
You might really want rock hard abs, but
the reward seems so far off.
When you’re in the moment and you're trying to decide
whether to stay home and eat a bag of chips
or go to the gym,
well that delay in the reward tricks your brain into downplaying
the satisfaction of showing off your future hot bod.
Third, self-efficacy.
This is essentially your belief in how well you think you can do a thing.
There’s a lot of overlap with self-esteem and self-confidence, so
if you have low self-efficacy, that could mean you don’t believe in your ability to perform.
...or perform well enough.
Now this might prevent you from starting in the first place because
you’re worried about failing
or make it more likely that you’ll give up if you run into an obstacle.
Fourth is impulsiveness.
Procrastinators are usually not as future-focused
and tend to dislike structure or routine.
They do whatever feels right in the moment.
I mean, Think about the times you did procrastinate. Was it part of the plan?
Most likely it happened on a whim.
There’s also evidence to suggest that procrastinators are more sensitive to
pleasantness of tasks, which makes them more likely to be impulsive.
Additionally, procrastinators typically choose to start with more pleasurable tasks while
nonprocrastinators save the best for last.
And fifth, conscientiousness.
Now conscientiousness is a personality trait that's used to describes someone who's
responsible, reliable, someone who's goal-oriented and
rule-bound, and someone who's motivated by achievement.
So people who have low conscientiousness levels generally tend to have
lower self-control, higher distractibility, and worse organization.
Sound familiar?
So yes, you may be prone to procrastination because
it’s part of your personality.
You can change your conscientiousness levels by working on habits and thought patterns
and all that good stuff, but
I’m not gonna lie, it’s tough stuff.
I’ll add in one more theory that I read about recently in the New York Times.
It doesn’t have the same amount of research to back it up, so it's not as evidence-based,
but it really helped me conceptualize procrastination
in a way that helped me personally.
Essentially, the theory is that procrastination is an emotion regulation problem.
So think about it.
When you’re confronted with a task that you perceive as negative,
it gives you a negative feeling.
If you find you can’t handle that negative feeling,
then you put it off and engage in a more positive task.
In other words, you’re giving yourself a temporary relief.
But, when the feeling comes back,
now it'll be compounded by the guilt of putting it off.
And this can make you procrastinate even harder,
leading to a vicious cycle of negative emotions.
And the only way to overcome that is by confronting those negative feelings
and changing the response.
Cool, right?
Okay, so we have a good idea of what may lead to procrastination.
But how do you stop procrastinating?
Ah yes, the million dollar question.
Well there’s a ton of suggestions out there, but
as a therapist and a fellow procrastinator,
I can give you a handful of tried-and-true strategies for
getting things done...today.
First, start with your tasks and front-load your work.
Nonprocrastinators do this. They get
all of their responsibilitiesout of the way before they enjoy their guilty pleasures.
They eat their peas and carrots before they go to cake.
It’s a whole lot harder to go the other way around.
So hit the ground running first thing in the morning,
make a to-do list, and just knock it out.
Then you can relax afterwards with the satisfaction of knowing that
you did what you needed to do.
Second, make your responsibilities seem more pleasant.
Alright, so story time. I used to hate doing dishes.
It always seemed like a huge chore and really boring
and my fingers were always pruned afterwards and I just really didn't like it.
But I got rid of that terrible feeling by making the dishes more fun.
So now, when I do the dishes, I listen to my favorite podcast and
admire how clean the kitchen looks when I’m done.
If you can reframe the way that you think about your work,
then suddenly it’s not such a negative experience. So try it out!
Third, just get over the hump.
Maybe you don’t feel ready to clean your whole room, that's fine.
But just make your bed and then see how you feel.
You can break down big projects into smaller,
easier-to-accomplish tasks.
And once you start, it might not be so bad.
So another form of this is the “2-minute rule".
Essentially, you can scale down a new habit that you’re trying to do
into a two minute activity. So,
instead of thinking about running five miles, focus instead on
putting your running shoes on and stepping outside.
Strangely, once you finish those first two minutes,
the rest seems just a whole lot easier.
Fourth, make your temptations really inconvenient.
Do you procrastinate with social media?
Well maybe think about changing your setting and limiting app usage
or logging out every time you're not using it.
Does your bed call your name when you should be studying?
Maybe study at the library or a coffee shop instead.
Do you distract yourself with friends rather than doing chores?
Well then tell your friends ahead of time that you have different plans and
help them keep you accountable.
Essentially, know your pitfalls so you can counteract them.
With a little determination, this can help a lot.
And last but not least, make yourself painfully aware of your behavior.
Now this is a hard one to do because essentially you need to become your own mother.
You ask yourself throughout the day, “is what I’m doing right now my priority?”
If the answer is no, well then try to change the behavior.
And if that doesn’t work, well then be honest with yourself
about the intentionality of your avoidance,
the fact that you’re prioritizing procrastination over other things.
And maybe what the likely consequences will be.
Ooo, feels bad, doesn’t it.
Well maybe it’ll get you to change.
Or, at the very least, you won’t be as surprised later on when things don't go so well.
So there ya go. I think the big takeaway here is
humans are really bad at predicting how we're gonna feel in the future.
So be kind to your future self.
If you’ve got your own ways of coping with procrastination, then
please please leave them down in the comments for me and others to read.
Also subscribe if you've procrastinated on that from earlier in the video.
And let’s go get schtuff done!
Until next time, I’m Micah. Think about it.
Ah, finally.
I gotta go edit