Facing procrastination

As I open the laptop to an empty page of ideas, I feel my procrastination list is increasing. Earlier, my sister referred to procrastination as a usual habit for a perfectionist. How do the two go together I am not quite sure, but I am a testament of that. And I am not alone.

“About 95% of people admit to putting off work, according to Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation. And I’d argue the remaining 5% are lying.”

5 Research-based Strategies for Overcoming procrastination, Harvard Business Review

Procrastination – the definition

According to our friends at wikipedia, procrastination is the act of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing it. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chore or even putting off important tasks.

I won’t continue on the definition in there, but no doubt it covers the 2 big sides of procrastination that I am faced with all the time.

Part I – The stuff that has no deadline

There is stuff I just don’t ever seem to get to, no matter how many times I have stuck it on my bullet journal and decided this was the week I was going to get to it. Perhaps out of habit of seeing it so many times there, I just don’t get to it. Certainly the world has not changed because I have not filed my taxes (yet) or have not completed a necessary bank form. I have time right? And I can probably say with certainty that I will get it done when there is a deadline approaching as

“I work well under pressure“

Have you heard that one before?

What about the tasks that have no real deadline, that are important and will continue to lack in the sense of urgency? That can include the routine health exams that we never get to (until it’s often just a bit too late), doing a will, sorting our finances in an efficient tax manner, the list goes on. All things that do indeed have an important and lasting effect in our life but not an immediate and visible one. And worst of all, they have no deadline.

Until last year, rarely did any of these make it to my weekly list. And if they did, they went untouched as the weeks flew by. As I went into a period of life where I decided I would live less by the urgent and more by the important, I have very slowly been ticking my way through these lists. I have done a few exams and medical appointments, got myself new glasses, even had my first appointment to look at what I should do with pension plan.

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How? You could indeed argue that it is only because I have time, but I can assure you my time constraints have barely moved as things have quickly filled up that were important and waiting in the side-lines for, probably fair to say, years. So I still have many things that can be called urgent or more time pressing that could take my entire day and ensure I would never get to the important ones.

I could be here trying to sell an easy technique to do this, but I have to say like in most things in life, awareness is key. As I go through my planning process for the week, I am trying to bucket things in a way that I can address in bulk, knowing how I avoid certain things if they are just there somewhere in the lost middle.

This Monday I got through 6 different things I had to pay (in the urgent and important bucket). But this week I also created the bucket of things that are on my management procrastination list. Don’t worry, they are not called that, but I know deep inside that is what they stand for. Exchanges, lost and found reports, updating my laptop, mostly things that I have not done before and I am not quite sure of the way to do it. So I know I won’t get them done in one go. And that frustrates me. Which means I don’t start them. I want them done and dusted, ticked off my list. What is the point of starting if they can’t get done?

Pro tip: Break it down further – for this week, maybe only sit down and figure out what are the first 2 steps that you can get done to do that will, like getting layer recommendations, or listing all your assets. You can do a bit more in a couple of weeks.

Part II – The stuff that is so important

The other group of stuff that I am truly awesome at procrastinating has to do with the stuff that is REALLY important for me. And whilst you may find my assignment of importance off with yours, I will be honest and share some examples of what it includes, because I am sure you have your pet projects of your own:

• My family photo albums – my excuse is I want them all in the same format as a few I have done years ago, and I don’t know which tool to use now. I want one that can be used on the phone but also on laptop. And one that I can add text and edit at will. I have also decided I will do them in small seasons rather than “A year in the life of” to help me process. I dream of the day. I have started the photo filtering on the phone. VERY baby steps. But I don’t feel I am close to anything just yet.
• My former writings reviewed – I make no secret of my passion for writing. Indeed I have done it from a very early age, in various formats. And I have started a few books and trials, always to leave them on a shelve for when I have time.  So my new procrastination technique is I decided to join a writing course! I will tell you if that gets me off the project and moves me any closer on this one.

Yes, these do not look like life changing things. But for me, they cause, not the frustration of the admin that does not get done, but a bit of sorrow for what I wish I could do. I joke around saying I will do the kids baby albums when I am 60, but indeed I wish I did them sooner.

But if it is so important?

I know, the obvious question is, if it is so important, why don’t we get to it. I have a few possible explanations, and then let’s look at the research:

• The projects are big – a bit similar to the important admin tasks, none of the above projects I describe is that straightforward to achieve from start to finish. They will take time, no matter how many hours I try to put into it. Pro tip: break them to the smallest possible task and just get one done. Whenever I do that, it moves.
• The projects are uncertain – And I don’t quite know what is the best way to start. As a recovering perfectionist, writing was the only way I found to deal with my writing passion, so at least I could write but not be waiting for the day I decide to write an actual book. I am not even sure what I want to write about some days. Pro-tip: Write down what you don’t know or what you would like to know to get started. That may quickly get you thinking about how to find answers – in people or god-forbid, even in chatgpt!
• The projects are seen as a nice to have – these are passion projects, so often they don’t deserve a place in our priority list. They may even generate some guilt over other things. Many of our so-called passions suffer from this. As happens to people launching side businesses or new projects “on the side” of their life. Pro-tip: write down the why. If it is important, that will help you remember and prioritize. And also helps if you need to justify your time investment to others.

Research and Practice

Tim Psychyl identified seven triggers that make a task seem more averse – boring, frustrating, difficult, ambiguous, unstructured, not intrinsically rewarding, lacking in personal meaning, or a combination thereof.

Arguably, a way you could avoid procrastination is to identify which of these triggers is making you procrastinate on a certain task or project. Again, awareness is important, so you could try and reverse it. But if something is boring, I am not sure what can be done to reverse it. Sometimes you just need to get something done. There will never be anything fun about doing my taxes.

One advice I do agree with in this HBR article is to “Do something”. I have always found that breaking things to the lowest level and get started with one tiny step is the best way to get going. Suddenly it does not seem so daunting anymore. And you do get a reward in the form of relief that you got something done.

I procrastinate about writing some times. What is the point? Why do I write? What will I write about? Will people care? Funny enough, that is how writer’s block manifests itself to me. How I start? When I first started and it was big, daunting and uncertain, I started with one article and then I made it a habit. Every week at the same time and same place. But when a few years into it, that failed, as my routine and life changed, I was more often stuck and thought “perhaps next week”. as there was no real deadline. Procrastination again. How again? I remembered my why. I am a writer. That is part of my identify. I open the laptop. A theme comes to mind, like it did today. And then I type a few words. I improve it if I can. I don’t perfect it. Procrastination is gone. (and I just managed to procrastinate on a whole bunch of other things).

You know something funny? Just a year ago, I seem to have written an article about procrastination, maybe February is my official procrastination month? Or maybe it is part of a cycle we all come back to sometimes.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash