It is Procrastination Week! What Have You Been Putting Off?

"Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today." -- The Earl of Chesterfeild, December 26, 1749

Wow, it seems that procrastination has literally been an issue for centuries.  Nearly everyone has experienced a time when it seemed easy to delay working on something such as cleaning, writing a term paper, or going to workout at the local gym.  For some people however, procrastination is a persistent pattern of behavior that results in missed opportunities, increases in anxiety, guilt, making excuses, and avoiding the people who depend on them.

Who is more likely to be a procratinator? Gender and intelligence do not seem to play a role in procrastination. There is research that indicates that procrastination is increasing. After researching for ten years, on a project that was only supposed to take five years, Piers Steel, a Canadian industrial psychologist found in a sizable study that not only is procrastination on the rise, it causes people to be poorer, heavier, and more unhappy.

It seems that people are so occupied with checking email and all manner of notifications that time passes by, before the person works on the more important tasks.  Prioritizing differently or limiting the time one spends on social media ond email could be a solution for this type of procrastination.

More Tips for Overcoming Procrastination:

Change your "shoulds" to wants.  This also applies to "have to" "ought to" and "musts". When we feel obligated to others we could feel inhibited, just by changing these types of statements to "wants" then we take responsibility for doing the task. 

Make up a To Do List.  Write out a list of things you want to accomplish in a day or week and cross them off as you get them done.  This tip often leads to a sense of fulfillment as the list gets shorter.

Just get started. We do not have to wait until we feel inspired to write that paper. Start by just writing whatever comes to mind, then revise it a little later.  If the task at hand is to free the desk of clutter then remove the clutter and sort the keepers from the trash after making space.

Break a big task down into smaller pieces.  This is one of the most important ways to overcome procrastination.  Write down the steps involved in a large project so you can look at each step as a very manageable task.  

Manage your STRESS! There are several ways of handling stress and anxiety, that we teach clients at such as guided imagery, self-hypnosis, progressive relaxation, and counseling.  Other healthy approaches to reducing the effects of stress are deep breathing, exercise, music and the appropriate use of humor.

Procrastination may be such a long standing pattern that it may seem impossible to change it, and while the tips presented above are helpful to many, for some people procrastination can be a symptom of a larger problem.  For some people the underlying issue could be depression, a self image issue, or a personality issue that could be addressed in therapy. Please feel free to call us at (631) 473-0405 if you think someone could benefit from our help.

We can work on changing uncomfortable patterns of behavior like procrastination. Fortunately, the procrastination habit is very conducive to change.  Just don't put it off.