Procrastination
Page 1
Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Acknowledgements
A Note to Our Readers
PART ONE - UNDERSTANDING PROCRASTINATION
KNOW THYSELF
Chapter 1 - ProcrastinationNuisance or Nemesis?
HOW CAN I TELL IF I’M PROCRASTINATING?
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONSEQUENCES
THE CYCLE OF PROCRASTINATION
THE ROOTS OF PROCRASTINATION
THE PROCRASTINATOR’S CODE
Chapter 2 - Fear of FailureThe Procrastinator on Trial
FEAR OF FAILING: THE SEARCH FOR PERFECTION
THE FATE OF THE IMPERFECT: CONSEQUENCES REAL AND IMAGINED
Chapter 3 - Fear of SuccessHello Procrastination,Good-bye Success
ARE YOU AFRAID OF SUCCESS?
CULTURAL PRESSURES
COMMON REASONS FOR AVOIDING SUCCESS
Chapter 4 - The Procrastinator in CombatFear of Losing the Battle
THE BATTLE FOR CONTROL
THE ISSUE OF AUTONOMY
Chapter 5 - The Comfort Zone Fear of Separation andFear of Intimacy
FEAR OF SEPARATION: I’LL NEVER WALK ALONE
FEAR OF INTIMACY: TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
Chapter 6 - Do You Know What Time (It) Is?
OBJECTIVE TIME AND SUBJECTIVE TIME
THE EVOLUTION OF A TIME SENSE
STUCK IN ANOTHER TIME ZONE
IS THE PAST IN THE PAST?
Chapter 7 - Current NeuroscienceThe Big Ideas
BIG IDEA #1: YOUR BRAIN IS CONSTANTLY CHANGING
BIG IDEA # 2: FEELINGS MATTER, EVEN IF THEY ARE UNCONSCIOUS
BIG IDEA #3: THE INFLUENCE OF IMPLICIT MEMORY
BIG IDEA #4: WIRED TO RELATE
BIG IDEA #5: THE LEFT SHIFT
Chapter 8 - Procrastination and Your Brain
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
DEPRESSION: THEME AND VARIATIONS
ANXIETY DISORDERS
THE EFFECTS OF STRESS
BIOLOGICAL RHYTHMS
SLEEP: SLEEP DEBT AND SLEEP APNEA
OTHER MEDICAL CONDITIONS
A FINAL THOUGHT
Chapter 9 - How You Came to Be a Procrastinator
MODELS OF SUCCESS AND FAILURE
FAMILY ATTITUDES: THE MAKING OF A PROCRASTINATOR
FAMILY THEMES
THE FAMILY’S INFLUENCE ON SELF-ESTEEM
Chapter 10 - Looking Ahead to Success
THE DANGERS OF IMPROVEMENT
PROCRASTINATION AS IDENTITY
GETTING REAL
THE INNER PROSECUTOR AND THE DEFENSE ATTORNEY
PART TWO - OVERCOMING PROCRASTINATION
TAKING STEPS
CHANGE IS A PROCESS
ADDRESSING THE FACTORS THAT LEAD TO PROCRASTINATION
HOW TO APPROACH THESE TECHNIQUES
Chapter 11 - Taking Stock A Procrastination Inventory
EXAMINE YOUR WAR STORIES
EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL CONSEQUENCES
CONSEQUENCES
YOUR PROCRASTINATION TODAY
Chapter 12 - Setting and Achieving Goals
THE BEHAVIORAL GOAL
A ONE-WEEK EXPERIMENT
Chapter 13 - Learning How to Tell Time
TIME TO THINK ABOUT TIME
THE UN-SCHEDULE
TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE YOUR TIMING
Chapter 14 - Learning to Say Yes and No
LEARNING TO SAY YES TO HELPFUL PEOPLE AND ACTIVITIES
LEARNING TO SAY NO TO POINTLESS PURSUITS
Chapter 15 - Using Your Body to Reduce Procrastination
GET GOING BY GETTING MOVING
MINDFULNESS: THEME AND VARIATIONS
Chapter 16 - Tips for Procrastinators with ADD and Executive Dysfunction
START WITH THE EXTERNAL, MOVE TO THE INTERNAL
POINT OF PERFORMANCE HELP
THE IMPORTANCE OF STRUCTURE AND ROUTINE
KEEP IT SHORT
DON’T TRY TO GET GOOD AT WHAT YOU’RE BAD AT. GET BETTER AT WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT.
Chapter 17 - Neither Here nor There Procrastination and theCross-Cultural Experience
THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE
THE FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
CHALLENGES OF CHANGING CULTURES
Chapter 18 - Living and Working with Procrastinators
THE CYCLE OF MUTUAL FRUSTRATION
NEGOTIATING WITH A PROCRASTINATOR
Epilogue
APPENDIX A - Procrastination Twenty-five Years of Research
APPENDIX B - A Short List of Techniques for Managing Procrastination
APPENDIX C - Notes and Sources
Index
Copyright Page
Praise for PROCRASTINATION
“Trying to kick the procrastination habit? In their practice treating procrastinators, [these] California psychologists . . . have pinpointed several causes.”
—USA Today
“An exploration of what causes people to procrastinate and various procrastination styles. . . . Fascinating.”
—Fitness
“Dr. Burka and Dr. Yuen . . . get procrastinators to feel better about themselves. . . . In learning to reduce their delaying tactics, procrastinators have much to gain in addition to faster performance and enjoying life more.”
—New York Times
“Procrastination can be deadly to just about every aspect of your life . . . Burka and Yuen . . . offer hope for those prone to delay.”
—Boston Herald
“Procrastination’s basic message: A tendency to be tardy is neither a bad habit nor moral failing [but] a ‘complex psychological problem’ caused by fear.”
—U.S. News and World Report
“Warmly and even humorously written, but the points are clearly made. . . . Burka and Yuen did not procrastinate in getting to the remedies which have been successful in their clinical work.”
—Honolulu Star-Bulletin
“Burka and Yuen see procrastination as more than just laziness. For some, it’s closer to a psychological block that keeps them from doing what needs to be done.”
—San Jose Mercury-News
“If procrastination is starting to play havoc with your sanity . . . fortunately there are . . . helpful tools [in] Procrastination.”
—Oakland Tribune
“A close examination of procrastination. . . . Most useful is the authors’ advice on how procrastinators can break their bad habits. . . . This frequently lively book will certainly set time-wasters and task-avoiders on the path to self-improvement.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A good overview. . . . The authors provide useful suggestions without being slick . . . [and] give sensible advice for dealing with the procrastinators in one’s own life.”
—Library Journal
“Why do we make excuses and put things off? Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen explain how we get that way, and what we can do to stop it.”
—In Business
“Want to stop procrastinating and be more productive? Read this now!”
—Working Woman
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the people in our private practices and our Procrastination Groups and Workshops for deepening our understanding of procrastination. Hearing their stories, understanding their struggles, and helping them progress has been one of the great joys of our professional life. Their words, phrases, and stories have significantly enriched this book.
We appreciate the support and encouragement of the many friends and colleagues who helped make this book possible. Carol Morrison offered wise editorial advice as well as frequent personal boosts. Ken Rice graciously shared his extensive research on perfectionism. Barb
ara Blasdel, Karen Peoples, and Leslye Russell are members of a writers’ group that provided psychological guidance and inspiration along with editorial eyes and contact creativity. Apologies to the many friends who remained supportive even while being neglected. Barbara Kaplan, Gerson Schreiber, Ingrid Tauber, Kathy De-Witt, Virginia Fredrick, Beth Herb, Anna Muelling, and members of the Lindemann Study Group and the Stanford Professional Women’s Book Club offered steady encouragement with open hearts and great patience for many canceled meetings. Our dear friend Taraneh Razavi opened not only her heart to us, but her wonderful beach house where we spent many weekends working with a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean. Taraneh, we don’t know how we would have done it without your generosity.
The editorial staff at Da Capo Press provided both leadership and responsiveness. Our editor, Jonathan Crowe, has been unfailingly gracious and supportive of this project; his kind and respectful guidance was a pleasure. Renee Caputo is just what we would want a production manager to be: clear, efficient, and on time. Jennifer Swearingon is a wonderful copyeditor, and that means a lot coming from two recovering perfectionists, one of whom had an English-teacher mother.
Immense love and gratitude to Paul and Reece for each being that special combination of family and friend. You were steadying influences when necessary and always generous well-wishers. And to John, Nick, Chloe, and Obi—thank you for your patience, your tolerance, your editorial suggestions, and for being the best family ever. It is a privilege to share the planet with you.
Finally, in the first edition of this book, we had to acknowledge our indebtedness to Federal Express, which enabled us to meet numerous deadlines at the last minute. This time we thank all who made the Internet accessible to the technologically challenged and those who developed the “Track Changes” editing program for manuscripts. What a difference twenty-five years makes!
A Note to Our Readers
People who write books are supposed to be very knowledgeable about their subjects. We know procrastination from the inside out: between us, we have been through many all-nighters, spent long years struggling with our doctoral dissertations, paid late tax penalties, and made up elaborate scenarios to excuse our delays (a story about a death in the family is our most extreme example).
In addition to two lifetimes of personal experience, we have had many years of professional experience working with procrastinators. We began in 1979 when we were on the staff of the Counseling Center at the University of California at Berkeley where, to the best of our knowledge, we created the first group treatment program for student procrastinators. In our Procrastination Groups, we saw patterns and themes emerge again and again. While each individual’s struggle was unique, there were many striking similarities among them. We learned, for example, that our plan to start the week off by holding the group on Monday mornings from nine to eleven was completely unrealistic—no one even showed up until ten o’clock!
When we offered Procrastination Workshops to the general public, we were once again reminded of the nature of the beast. We almost canceled our first workshop one week before the scheduled date because too few people had registered. In the end, we had to move to a larger room when two-thirds of the group signed up at the last minute.
For thirty years now, we have worked with individuals in our private practices of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, exploring issues of procrastination in depth for extended periods of time. Our patients have opened their hearts and minds to us, and we have been the fortunate beneficiaries of their courage.
All of these experiences have reinforced our idea that procrastination is not primarily a time management problem or a moral failing but a complex psychological issue. At its core, problem procrastination is a problem with one’s relationship to oneself, reflecting a shaky sense of self-esteem. In our first book, we called it a problem of self-worth. Now we emphasize that self-worth is rooted in the capacity for acceptance, which includes acceptance of our biology, our history, our circumstances, and our many human limits.
Why, after twenty-five years, did we decide that the time is right for an update of our book? We want to place procrastination in the context of our current culture and add new perspectives to our formulation of what procrastination is all about. In addition to having a deeper psychological understanding of the issues, we have new information from other fields, such as neuroscience and behavioral economics, that contributes to the understanding of procrastination.
Twenty-five years ago, there was virtually no research on procrastination, but now there are research findings that clarify what leads to procrastination. In 2007, psychologist Piers Steel at the University of Calgary published a review of almost 800 studies on procrastination,1 including our 1983 book, which was one of the earliest resources cited. Steel ultimately identified four main issues that make procrastination more likely—low confidence in succeeding, task aversiveness, distractibility and impulsiveness, and having goals and rewards be too far off in the future. We were pleased to see that these research findings supported our clinical observations and suggestions, but we think there is more to procrastination than meets the research eye.
The world has changed dramatically since we wrote the first edition of Procrastination. The Internet was not available to individuals in the early 1980s, and the personal computer was not commonplace. We wrote in pencil on yellow pads, typed our drafts on IBM Selectric typewriters (with the thrilling “erase” key), and exchanged chapters in person. Getting our manuscript to the publisher required many mad dashes to the Federal Express office for overnight delivery. (If we missed the 6:00 P.M. closing time downtown, we were well aware that there was always the 8:00 P.M. option at the airport.) Now computers are our pads and pencils, our research libraries, and our mail carriers.
At that time, there were no Blackberries, PDAs, cell phones, or iPhones. Technological advances now allow us to work 24/7, but they also tempt us to procrastinate 24/7! No matter the time or place, at work or at home, we can lose ourselves for hours while we surf the Internet—reading the news, researching ad infinitum, blogging, watching sports, fantasizing about vacations or pornography. There’s something for everyone.
In fact, over the years there has been an increase in avoidance behavior, with the Internet as the single most powerful cause.2 Now, information is both limitless and instantaneously available; there is far more information than we can manage, let alone use. Too much information, too many decisions, too many options—this overabundance of information leads many of us into procrastination paralysis.
As we write today, we see that procrastination is even more complex than we once thought—an interweaving of not only individual psychological, behavioral, and emotional issues, but also social, cultural, and technological dynamics, biological and neurological predispositions, and universal human tendencies. We therefore regard the complexity of procrastination with even greater respect.
In writing this book, we believe now, as we did twenty-five years ago, that loosening the grip procrastination holds over your life requires both understanding what leads you to put things off and finding some way to take action. You may be aware of how delaying works against you, but we imagine you are less familiar with how procrastination works for you, and until you can see the function that procrastination serves in your life, you’ll probably put off trying our techniques, just as you’ve put off so many other things. If you don’t understand why you delay, all the practical techniques in the world aren’t likely to help. Yet, even if you’ve searched your soul and believe you thoroughly understand your reasons for procrastinating, you still won’t get anywhere unless you do something to overcome it. (Reading about techniques may be interesting, but reading is not doing.) So figuring out how to take action in new ways is vitally important.
In Part One of this book we untangle the many and varied roots of procrastination; then in Part Two we offer suggestions that can help you take action. Our aim is not to do away with procrastination. There are pl
enty of times when it’s in your best interest to put something aside and not attend to it. Rather, we hope this book will lead you to the freedom of choice that comes from self-acceptance. We want our readers to lessen their tendency to delay by being happy with their humanity, accepting their strengths and weaknesses, and being able to be with themselves liking the company they keep. We don’t suggest that you give up setting ambitious goals, striving for excellence, or taking on new challenges. But the fear, shame, dread, and self-loathing that go along with conflicted attempts to take action are surely worth banishing.