The Psychology of Procrastination

The Psychology of Procrastination

*NOTE: The article's title is the same as the book “The Psychology of Procrastination". Since I haven’t read it, I cannot determine whether the things discussed here will match or not.*

Let's first discuss what procrastination means..

Procrastination means putting off things for the future because you don't want to do it.

Why is it called the psychology of procrastination?

At the time of scientific studies, it was found that most of the people followed the same practice because they had the fear of failure or judgement.

You might have entered the dilemma if you are procrastinating or not. Self-awareness is the right answer for your dilemma. Question yourself, "Am I procrastinating"? You might get an answer to your question.

"Tim Pychyl," said procrastination is an emotion regulation problem and not a time management problem. What does emotion regulation mean? It means that humans are most likely to work according to their emotions. They generally procrastinate on unpleasant tasks due to the fear of doing them.

Procrastinating something provides pleasure and puts you in the comfort zone. It feels like removing a burden.

It may not be realised, but this comfort zone starts attacking you mentally, “how?”

You might feel a temporary positive sensation after procrastinating the task, but this revolves continuously in the back end of your head that something needs to be done. You might start feeling restless, and so your mental health starts getting affected.

Following the same trend of procrastinating may lead to anxiety and stress resulting in your behaviour change. Based on the experiments, there are six behavioural styles of procrastination:

1. Perfectionist

2. Dreamer

3. Worrier

4. Crisis maker

5. Defier

6. Overdoer

So, the next time you procrastinate, just ask yourself, “What if I complete this task before the deadline?”🤔

Assume that you are given a project by your professor and its deadline is 8 days later, you don't like to work on the tech stack, there are high chances that you will procrastinate.

Does this say that deadlines are one of the reasons for procrastination?

Yes, your mind says there is much time to complete the project and doing this now can make you feel terrible. Most likely you will complete the task on the 8th day at anyhow. This results in a last-minute hurry.

Procrastination is not only in school or college work. It can even be editing your resume, writing a journal or making a plan to follow a healthy diet.

Here are certain tips that you can follow to overcome your procrastination: ✨

1. Start small

2. Plan out

3. Eliminate distractions

4. Start with your favourite task

5. Improving the surroundings