The Scientific Approach to Understanding Procrastination

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. You all may be aware with the term procrastination and many of you may be facing this problem. According to the oxford dictionary, procrastination is the act of delaying something that you should do, usually because you do not want to do it. Procrastination is not a new phenomenon and it existed for ages. We can find many evidences from the past that shows that procrastination is an age old phenomenon. But the things only have worsened through the course of history. According to Dr. Piers Steel, one of the leading researchers in the world on the science of motivation and procrastination, there's been about a 300-400% growth in chronic procrastination in the last 40 years.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

But why do we procrastinate despite knowing the fact that it is bad for us and at some point in time we have do that task. Why a person does something which is harmful to them despite knowing that it is harmful. You may blame social media and other distractions for this but the fact is procrastination has existed even before social media and smartphones came into existence. A better explanation to procrastination can be laziness. Let's take a look at the things where we procrastinate to understand more about this phenomenon. We procrastinate on the things that seems boring to us and do not give us instant pleasure. For example, preparing for an exam or doing a college project. But we don't procrastinate on things like scrolling on social media or watching our favorite show. Basically, we procrastinate on things that requires effort, whether physical, emotional or mental effort and tend to replace these tasks with the things which are more convenient to us. One of the main reasons for this is that the reward which we will get by doing these tasks is not instant and we think that the effort required in the process of doing the task is more than the reward which we will get by doing it. When the chances of getting the desired result by doing any task is low, the person is less motivated to do that task and they start procrastinating.

Effects of Procrastination

Many people who procrastinate do not start doing the task until the deadline comes very close and they are left with no other option rather than doing the task. This is very similar to a student who studies at the last night before the exam to pass the test. This can lead to a lot of problems. Whenever any work is done at the last moment, the chances are that the work done is not good. Procrastination is often associated with the feeling of guilt. Procrastinating in studies may lead to getting low score in exams which will have negative effect on your career in the future and procrastination in exercise can make you obese and have a negative impact on your health. In the things where there is no deadline, procrastination may continue for years and even infinitely. If you procrastinate a thing for a very long time, there are chances that you could no longer do that task. For example, if you procrastinate something which you want to do for your parents and suddenly one day they passed away. Now you will never get a chance to that thing. Procrastination lead to a lifelong regret and can even cause depression. A person having a dream in their youth may regret it their older age because they never put efforts in that direction and lifelong procrastinated it.

How to Overcome Procrastination?

So what are the ways through which you could overcome procrastination? There are no clear answers to this question. For an alcoholic, the only way to quit drinking is to avoid drinking alcohol. There's no other way around. He could take whatever route he want to achieve that target but ultimately he has to refrain from drinking. In the same way, the only way to avoid procrastination is to do the work on time, no matter what you do to achieve it. There are a lot of ways which you could try to overcome procrastination if you really want to achieve your goals otherwise the people who have to procrastinate may be even procrastinating reading his blog post. Watching motivational videos may help you to remain motivated for a short span of time and after that you start procrastinating again. To prevent procrastination, you need to be self-motivated.  You have to ask question to yourself "Do you feel happy while procrastinating? Don't you have to that task at some point in your life anyways?" One solution which I could give you and which worked for me is being consistent. Try to do the task regularly even if you do a small amount of that work in a day. Start by taking out a small amount of time in a day for the important tasks and try to increase that time over time. Remember that the consistency is the most underrated skill.

Thank you for reading. Please share your valuable feedback in the comments section.