Psychology Today has this great top 10 on procrastination — a favorite topic of mine, because I hate procrastination, and I know I suffer from a little of it.
These are my favorite points:
3. Procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning. Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time, although they are more optimistic than others. “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up,” insists Dr. Ferrari.
Procrastination is actually a serious problem, we as society just don’t view it like it’s that bad. To me, procrastination deserves the attention drugs, alcohol, and all the likes deserve. Ok so I went overboard a little, but you get the point. We only have a finite amount of time, all the money in the world can’t buy you more time — wasting time is an irreversible process.
4. Procrastinators are made not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances. What’s more, under those household conditions, procrastinators turn more to friends than to parents for support, and their friends may reinforce procrastination because they tend to be tolerant of their excuses.
I’m not a parent, but I think that’s why too much parenting is bad.
7. Procrastinators actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don’t take a lot of commitment on their part. Checking e-mail is almost perfect for this purpose. They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure.
This one, I particular hate — because I suffer from a minor form of it. Yes, I admit. Which is why recently I just cut myself off completely from e-mail. Literally. I won’t have my e-mail client running in background while I’m doing something, with that corner alert popup when a new message arrives. It’s just too damn distracting. I open my e-mail client once every few hours or so. If it’s so urgent, then someone can just call me. That’s what phones are for. In fact, I block off a few hours to focus on work and refrain from e-mail, and reserve checking email as a reward for my working a few hours. It’s a great method.
I think most corporate workers waste time on checking e-mail. Checking email and replying fast gives you that sense that you’re accomplishing something, it’s a form of instant-gratification like for impulse shoppers. If you reply enough emails fast enough all day, it feels like you’ve done work all day. I know I’ve felt like that, but it’s a lie. All day looking busy, but actual net work done = zero. It reminds me of people who like to “look” busy and work hard to be “busy” .. but are honestly just not productive — whether they realize it or not. I rather be productive and be calm and in control of things. Sure that may look like I am not busy, but I actually did real work.
8. There’s more than one flavor of procrastination. People procrastinate for different reasons. Dr. Ferrari identifies three basic types of procrastinators:
* arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
* avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
* decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.
I used to suffer from the second category of avoiding fear of failure/success. I was a bit of a perfectionist, but I am no longer one. Perfection is sometimes overrated. More often than not, my striving for perfection instead leads to my inaction — which is against my value of being a person of action. I rather fail from action, than fail from inaction. As for worrying about what others think of you, I think going overboard there is also unhealthy. At the end of the day, I will be the judge of whether or not I have done myself justice.