“I will do it later; I’m not feeling up to it right now.”
“There’s time tomorrow, I can easily do it then.”
“Hmm… I will start in a few minutes. Can’t hurt, right?”
Sound familiar? The answer is “Yes” for everyone. Later, later, later- we all chant the word in our minds from time to time. We avoid doing inevitable tasks as long as we can. Seems idiotic, doesn’t it? But we still keep doing it anyway because procrastination is ingrained in our nature.
Procrastination refers to the act of putting off work for future, especially something that requires immediate attention. Procrastination, also termed as avoidance, is often associated with laziness or poor time management. So, the question is, do we indeed procrastinate because we are lazy when we know that we have to do it later anyway? Or are we driven by some other deep-rooted emotional issue?
The truth is procrastination has less to do with time management and much more to do with our emotions. Sure, if you are lazy, you are not going to be the poster child of productivity. Some people are just plain and simple lazy. Putting that aside, some of the most common reasons behind procrastination are task aversion, anxiety, indecisiveness and lack of immediate reward. Let’s learn how.
- Task Aversion: We avoid doing tasks that we feel aversion to. We might find a task unpleasant because it’s boring, recurring or particularly difficult. We seek to uplift our moods short term by avoiding the task.
- Anxiety: We procrastinate when we feel anxious about a task. This anxiety is driven by self-doubt and fear. The fear might be of negative feedback or simply failure. And the end result is avoidance.
- Indecisiveness: Procrastination also comes when we cannot decide on how to do a task. This indecisiveness might be about where to start, how to end or which course of action to take before moving forward.
- Lack of Immediate Reward: We are always looking for instant gratification. We don’t look forward to doing tasks that take time to yield results. So, we keep delaying till the last possible minute.
Now that we know some of the reasons, we can prepare ourselves to stop procrastinating as much as we can. Whenever we don’t feel like doing something, we should try to understand why. If we know the real reason, we can motivate ourselves to go on accordingly. Whatever the reason, ultimately, it’s on us to fulfill our responsibilities. We just have to be smart about it.
Kashfia Shaoky
Content Writing Intern
YSSE
