Procrastination

by Jane B. Burka

  We no longer procrastinate the way we once did. Although Lenora does file a tax extension every year, it is a planned event, not a frantic, desperate solution to last-minute panic. And despite the fact that it took Jane five months to take her new PDA out of the box, she now manages to handle most of her responsibilities sooner rather than later. And while our first book was delivered two years past the publisher’s deadline, this time we needed only a four-week grace period! We can attest to the fact that change is possible, though we also know it’s not easy.

  In this book, we want to accompany you through the challenges of procrastination into a world of psychological growth, acceptance, and action. We have given voice to many of the people with whom we’ve worked. To protect their confidentiality, we’ve changed all names and identifying information; the procrastinators we describe are composites of several people we’ve known. In sharing their stories, we hope you will better understand your own. It is in knowing your story, the narrative of your own life, that you will find the context for your procrastination. We believe this is crucial, for when we accept ourselves as we really are, rather than as we wish to be, we are most able to act in our best interest and not live at the mercy of procrastination.

  PART ONE

  UNDERSTANDING PROCRASTINATION

  KNOW THYSELF

  About four weeks into our first Procrastination Group at UC-BERKELEY, a student said with surprise, “Procrastination is like a dandelion. You pull it up and think you’ve got it, but then it turns out the roots are so deep, it just grows back.” While for some people, procrastination is like a flower easily loosened and removed, for many it is a patch of dandelions whose roots are deep and tangled. We can only talk about these roots one at a time, so we must separate them in an artificial way. But in life, these roots grow simultaneously, interweaving and shaping each other as they grow. Human experience, like some weeds, is complex.

  The emotional roots of procrastination involve inner feelings, fears, hopes, memories, dreams, doubts, and pressures. But many procrastinators don’t recognize all that’s going on under the surface, because they use procrastination to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Underneath the disorganization and delay, most procrastinators are afraid they are unacceptable in some basic way. As painful as it is to judge yourself for your procrastination, self-criticism may be easier to tolerate than the feelings of vulnerability and exposure that come with trying your best and then landing in the territory of your fears. We know this is uncomfortable territory, but when you avoid your feelings, you are always unbalanced, picking your way through a field of buried emotional land mines, fearful about when you will stumble into the next explosion. We therefore invite you to explore this territory with us, to look at fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being controlled, and fear of intimacy or separation in relationships, because we believe that when you know what you feel and understand why you feel it, you are likely to be more confident, solid, at ease with yourself, and then able to proceed without procrastinating.

  Another root of procrastination is the procrastinator’s complicated relationship to time. Procrastinators often have a “wishful thinking” approach to time or see it as an opponent to outwit, outmaneuver, or outlive. This attitude toward time fuels more procrastination. If your “subjective time” is in conflict with “clock time,”1 it is difficult to anticipate deadlines, work steadily toward a goal, or predict how much time you need to get things done. In addition, your sense of time may have created trouble in relationships with other people whose subjective experience of time is more naturally aligned with clock time. And when you have conflict with others about time, you might be tempted to procrastinate all the more.

  The biological roots of procrastination include your body, your brain, and your genetic inheritance. All play a role in your procrastination. The field of neuroscience has exploded with exciting discoveries that may help you understand your procrastination in a new way. What happens in your brain influences what you avoid, and what you avoid (or don’t avoid) affects the structure and function of your brain. Because of this “neuroplasticity,” the brain is always changing, and therefore your biological tendencies do not have to be a fixed impediment to your progress.2

  The interpersonal roots of procrastination encompass your family history, your social relationships, and your place in your current culture. Family dynamics from your past probably continue into the present and play a role in maintaining a dynamic of procrastination that no longer serves you. Social and cultural concerns may also contribute to your tendency to procrastinate, and it’s important to understand their influence on your sense of yourself and your relationships with others.

  We encourage you to explore and understand these emotional, biological, and social influences without criticism or blame. One of the themes of our book is that it can be exciting and interesting to learn from your experience—not denying it, forgetting it, or judging it, but accepting what is and making the most of it. Learning about the roots of your tendency to delay lays the foundation for utilizing the techniques to overcome procrastination that we offer in Part Two.

  1

  Procrastination

  Nuisance or Nemesis?

  It’s New Year’s Day—time for your annual resolutions. But after a long night of celebration, and with all the Bowl games on TV, who has time for serious reflection? By the end of January, when one friend has already lost ten pounds on her new diet and another has begun working on his taxes (who are these people?), you decide that the time has finally come for you to make your own resolution: “I’ll never procrastinate again!”

  Procrastination. The word conjures up different images for each of us. If you are among the fortunate who are not severely afflicted, you may imagine a person lying in a hammock, contentedly drinking iced tea instead of mowing the lawn. But if procrastination has been a problem for you, the images are probably less pleasant: a desk so cluttered, you can hardly see it beneath the rubble; the faces of old friends you’ve been meaning to write to for years; memories of school days that turned into all-nighters; a project that even now is waiting to be done. . . .

  The dictionary definition of the verb “procrastinate” is “to postpone, put off, defer, prolong.” The word comes from the joining of two Latin words: pro, meaning “forward,” and crastinus, which means “belonging to tomorrow.”1 Forward it to tomorrow, otherwise known as “I’ll do it later.” Procrastination has been a problem since ancient times. The Egyptians had two words that translated as “procrastinate,” and both were related to survival.2 One denoted the useful habit of avoiding unnecessary work and impulsive effort, thus conserving energy. The other denoted the harmful habit of laziness in accomplishing a task that was necessary for subsistence, such as failing to till the fields at the appropriate time of year in the Nile flood cycle. In 1751, Samuel Johnson wrote about procrastination while a messenger waited to deliver the essay Johnson was late in submitting: “The folly of allowing ourselves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped is one of the general weaknesses which, in spite of the instruction of moralists, and the remonstrances of reason, prevail to a greater or less degree in every mind.”3

  Procrastination has been on the rise since we wrote our first book. In 2007, estimates of procrastination in college students ran as high as 75 percent, with 50 percent of students reporting that they procrastinate consistently and consider it a problem. In the general population, chronic procrastination affects 25 percent of adults.4 Over 95 percent of procrastinators would like to reduce their delaying ways,5 since they suffer both in terms of their performance and their sense of well-being. If we want to stop procrastinating, why is it so difficult to do so? Research does not provide a simple answer to the mystery of why we procrastinate. There is no “typical” profile of a procrastinator, because “the network of psychological variables seems complex.”6

  One cause can be put to rest: research has shown that intelligence bears no relationship to procrastinatio
n,7 so you can forget the idea that you’re putting things off until your brilliance kicks in, or that being a procrastinator means you’re stupid. Men procrastinate only slightly more than women, and there is evidence that procrastination abates as we get older. Perhaps people don’t want to waste the time they have left, or they have stepped off the competitive escalator, or maybe they are finally comfortable with who they are and what they’ve accomplished—or not.

  Procrastination plagues people of all occupations. Under the constant pressure of grades and other evaluations, a student puts off writing papers and studying for exams, only to cram for days when time is finally running out. Self-employed people have only themselves to rely on to stay in business—yet many find it’s easy to delay when no one is watching to make sure they follow through. In increasingly competitive corporate settings, some people slow down instead of trying to keep up with the fast pace. Those irritated by bureaucratic red tape may file things under “pending,” rather than complete the requisite (boring) busywork. At home, the possibilities for procrastination are endless. Who isn’t nagged by an unfinished project, such as cleaning out the basement, painting the bedroom, or deciding on a new cell phone plan?

  HOW CAN I TELL IF I’M PROCRASTINATING?

  People often wonder how they can differentiate between true procrastination and simply putting things off either because they don’t have time to do everything or because they’re naturally relaxed and low-keyed. This is an important distinction. One way to tell whether procrastination is a problem for you is whether you find it troublesome. At one end of the continuum of distress about procrastination are people who procrastinate but don’t suffer much. Here are some examples.

  Some people thrive on keeping very busy, loaded with projects and activities; living from one deadline to the next, they love intense pressure and wouldn’t choose to live any other way. There are also people who like to take life easy. It may take them a long time to get something done, but they’re in no hurry to get around to it; they aren’t especially driven or pressured. At times, people deliberately choose to procrastinate. They might decide to put something off because it’s low on their priority list or because they want to think things over before making a decision or taking action. They use procrastination to give themselves time to reflect, to clarify options, or to focus on what seems most important.

  We all have moments when everything seems to happen at once and we can’t help but fall behind temporarily. There might be one day when the relatives arrive for a visit, the kids need chauffeur service, the refrigerator breaks down, and the tax receipts are due at the accountant’s the next day. At times like these, something’s got to give—it would be impossible to get everything done on time. People who acknowledge that there are limits to what they can expect of themselves are not likely to feel overly distressed when they can’t do everything.

  Some people don’t suffer from their procrastination because it occurs in areas that are of little consequence to them. The important things get done more or less on time. Procrastination is part of their lives, but in a minor way.

  Others don’t suffer because they don’t anticipate any problems, and they don’t admit they’re procrastinating. They may be overly optimistic about how long it takes to complete a task, consistently underestimating how much time they need. Some are “socially active optimists”8 who use the distraction of social activity to procrastinate and have fun doing it. Outgoing and extroverted, they are (overly) confident about postponing now and being successful later.

  INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CONSEQUENCES

  At the other end of the distress continuum are people whose procrastination creates significant problems. There are two ways procrastination can be troublesome. People who procrastinate may suffer internal consequences, feelings that range from irritation and regret to intense self-condemnation and despair. To an outside observer, many of these people appear to be doing just fine. They may be highly successful, like the lawyer who heads his own firm or the woman who is able to manage three children, volunteer work, and a full-time job. But inside they feel miserable. They are frustrated and angry with themselves because procrastinating has prevented them from doing all they think they are capable of. Although they appear to be doing well, they suffer inside.

  Procrastination may lead not only to internal suffering but to significant external consequences. Sometimes these external consequences come as a shock, if you haven’t even thought about possible repercussions. Some are mild, like a small penalty for a late payment. But many procrastinators have endured major setbacks at work, at school, in relationships, or at home and have lost much that is important to them. A lawyer was disbarred because she missed too many court deadlines. We know a man whose wife left him because she got fed up with the way his procrastination at work interfered with family activities. The last straw came when he had to cancel their anniversary trip to Hawaii in order to meet a work deadline. An accountant told his manager that he missed his deadline because his wife was in the hospital. When the manager called his home and his wife answered, he was fired for his deception. A mortgage broker spent his time helping others learn new computer software instead of reviewing mortgage applications. He lost his job, had to move his family to a less-expensive neighborhood in the middle of the school year, and was unemployed for several months.

  THE CYCLE OF PROCRASTINATION

  Many procrastinators find that their delaying seems to have a life and will of its own. They compare the experience of procrastination to living on an emotional roller coaster. Their moods rise and fall as they attempt to make progress, yet they inevitably slow down. When they anticipate starting a project and then work toward its completion, procrastinators undergo a sequence of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that is so common that we call it the “cycle of procrastination.”

  You have your own unique experience of this cycle. Your cycle may be drawn out over a period of weeks, months, or even years, or it may occur so rapidly that you move from the beginning to the end in a matter of hours.

  1. “I’ll start early this time.” At the outset, procrastinators are usually very hopeful. When you first undertake a project, the possibility exists that this time it will be done in a sensible and systematic way. Although you feel unable or unwilling to start right now, you may believe the start will somehow spontaneously occur, with no planned effort on your part. It is only after some time has elapsed and it becomes apparent that this time may not be different after all that your hope changes into apprehension.

  2. “I’ve got to start soon.” The time for an early start has passed, and illusions of doing the project right this time are fading. Your anxiety builds and the pressure to begin intensifies. Having almost lost hope for the spontaneous start, you now begin to feel pushed to make some effort to do something soon. But the deadline is not yet in sight, so some hope remains.

  3. “What if I don’t start?” As time passes and you still haven’t made a start, it is no longer a question of the ideal beginning, or even of the push to get going. By now, any remaining optimism has been replaced by foreboding. Imagining that you may never start, you may have visions of horrible consequences that will ruin your life forever. At this point you may become paralyzed, a number of thoughts circling around in your head:

  a. “I should have started sooner.” You may look back over the time you have lost, realize it’s irretrievable, and chastize yourself with this self-reproach. You regret the behavior that has brought you to the edge of this precipice, knowing you could have prevented it if only you had started sooner. As one procrastinator put it, “I have the experience of constant lament.”

  b. “I’m doing everything but . . .” It is extremely common for procrastinators at this stage to do everything and anything except the avoided project. The urge to reorganize the desk, clean the apartment, or try out new recipes suddenly becomes irresistible. Previously avoided but less onerous tasks cry out to be done now. In no time you are busy accomplis
hing things, happily absorbed in any activity that is not it, soothed by the rationalization, “Well, at least I’m getting something done!” Sometimes distracting activity seems so productive that you actually believe you are making progress on The Project. Eventually, however, it becomes clear that it still isn’t done.

  c. “I can’t enjoy anything.” Many procrastinators try to distract themselves with pleasurable, immediately rewarding activities. You may watch movies, play games, get together with friends, or spend the weekend hiking. Although you try hard to enjoy yourself, the shadow of the unfinished project looms. Any enjoyment you feel rapidly disappears and is replaced by guilt, apprehension, or disgust.

  d. “I hope no one finds out.” As time drags on and nothing is done, procrastinators begin to feel ashamed. You don’t want anyone to know of your predicament, so you may create ways to cover up. You may try to look busy even when you’re not working; you present the illusion of progress even if you haven’t taken the first step; you might hide—avoiding office, people, phone calls, and any other contact that might reveal your secret. As the cover-up continues, you may invent elaborate lies to cover up your delay, feeling increasingly fraudulent. (When people offer condolences on your grandmother’s death, you know she’s alive and well, playing bridge in Florida.)