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Our fascination with procrastination

Slumped in my chair, dreary-eyed and facing my computer, my essay title glares back at me. It’s been two hours since I typed it into an empty Word document, and nothing has been added since. In that time, I’ve reorganised my entire collection of notes. I’ve written three to-do lists. I’ve made coffee – properly, in a cafetière. But as the clock ticks me closer to my deadline, I know I’m just making life more difficult for myself. So why is it so impossible to start? 

Procrastination is a chronic condition of the modern world. Professor Piers Steel of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary found that 95 per cent of us procrastinate at some point – putting off everything from Christmas shopping to paying the bills. Students are perhaps the worst offenders: with so much free time and so many deadlines it’s an easy trap to fall into. 

Contrary to popular belief, procrastinators show no differences in their ability to estimate time or plan. They are well aware of how much time they have left, or how they should manage their workload, but there is simply a mental barrier to getting started. Dr Ferrari, Associate Professor of Psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, explains it well, “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.” 

No one is born a procrastinator. It is an indirectly learnt trait that often results from a particular upbringing. Authoritarian parenting styles are particularly likely to elicit such a response. Controlling parents can prevent their children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, or simply cause them to rebel. 

Under these conditions, however, procrastinators often turn to their friends for support, who may be tolerant of their excuses and hence reinforce the trait. 

But not all procrastinators are created equal. Dr Ferrari identifies three categories of procrastination, of which you may find yourself slotting into a few. Thrill-seekers enjoy the rush they get from completing work under a tight, last-minute schedule. Avoiders have such a fear of failure and what others will think of them and because of it, they actually seek the impaired work that procrastinating will bring them. They would rather people think they lack effort than ability. Decisional procrastinators just can’t make a decision and not doing so saves them from responsibility for the outcome of events. 

Ultimately, however, the reason we procrastinate is to avoid a certain amount of pain – be it the unpleasantness of spending a night reading chapters of a dull book, or watching the money drain from your bank account as you pay your bills. Procrastinating allows us to enter a comfort zone with instant gratification, and often this is all it takes to dominate the rational part of our mind that knows it would be best to get the work over with. 

While the odd essay crisis after an extended binge on Netflix is normal and most likely expected, chronic procrastination can have serious impacts on your health. Procrastinating university students show evidence of compromised immune systems, gastrointestinal problems and insomnia. 

The problems can even extend to others. Shifting the burden of responsibility onto your peers breaks down relationships and can have dire consequences for teamwork. 

Although procrastination is virtually a fact of life, it can be overcome by relatively simple strategies. Breaking down your work into smaller chunks is usually the first step and is one of the easiest ways to make a task feel more manageable. The added gratification of succeeding in meeting each of your deadlines is a great motivator and can make the end of a project feel more tangible. Beating procrastination can often require a change in attitude, too. For those who use the excuse of perfectionism, it is important to learn to accept that it is okay if things aren’t perfect and realise that a completed task, even if it didn’t turn out exactly how you’d like, is infinitely better than nothing at all. 

One thing all procrastinators can benefit from is trying to focus on the success and positive feelings that are achieved on completing a task. There is no doubt that a night out following a completed essay feels a whole lot better than trying to enjoy yourself with the niggling fear of a rapidly impending deadline. Changing such seemingly hard-wired behaviour takes work, but it is certainly not impossible. There is, however, one thing to remember in all this: you can’t procrastinate forever.

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