Procrastination is the act of not doing things you need to do. This always applies to tasks the person finds undesirable or uncomfortable and by avoiding the uncomfortable task they tell themselves they will do it tomorrow. But when tomorrow becomes today, they repeat the performance and keep forwarding the time of doing into the future infinitely. If the task has a deadline then this habit usually means the deadline runs out and the procrastinator finds themselves forced to do the task in extreme time pressure, never doing a well enough job, and having a horrific experience with very low quality results.
Logically, one would expect that a procrastinator would learn from the previous experience and ‘start early’. Often that is the case, they vow to themselves up and down that they will get going as soon as possible. But when faced with the next undesirable task and a long due date, they usually slip back into the same procrastination habit again.
Why you can’t ask a Procrastinator about Procrastination meaning
Very few understand the complex biological details (the working of muscles, the physics of bones and the neurology) in making your hands work. We just use them. Knowing all microscopic details were not needed for our survival; in fact, the extra information is just a distraction. In much the same way, the operation system of our mind is largely invisible to us. The way our brain can process information from 5 different senses is so seamless we are unaware of its operation at all. Despite its invisibility, each person has a different way of filtering and interpreting the world. People who witness the same event often come away with very different accounts. Though the fallibility of eyewitness testimony is well known, we still hold the belief that the “world we see” is the “world that is.” This leads to a problem in the study of psychology. To expect people to understand the operations of their mind is like expecting them to have a solid working knowledge of all the biochemical interactions involved in making their hands operate.
There is an additional level of difficulty in talking to a procrastinator about procrastination. The procrastinator filters all questions about their psychology through their interpretations of the world. So when a teacher asks a student: “Why do you procrastinate?” The student hears: “Why didn’t you do X assignment?” The student may then respond by saying: “Oh, I wasn’t procrastinating, but this happened, then that happened, and I was blocked so I couldn’t do blah blah assignment, but I wanted to. Then this other totally other unrelated thing happened, as you can plainly see, nobody could finish under such circumstances… So how about an extension?”
What My Students Taught Me
I assigned journaling as a regular homework assignment for a writing class I was teaching. Habitual journaling allows language students the opportunity to integrate grammar, increase the range of their expressions, and new vocabulary can be used in a natural context. At the end of each week, I would collect journals to mark, provide feedback, and issue individualized assignments. The students were only required to write four sentences per day, requiring less than five minutes of work. This was to establish a habit of regular writing. Once established, we could scale up the quantity as they became more confidence with expressing themselves with writing. Many students understood the aim behind the assignment and got on board with journaling to improve their writing skills. Within a few weeks, many were doing page long entries and their writing skills skyrocketed.
The best laid plans of mice and men…
At the end of the first week I asked for journals. Out of 20 students, only two to four journals turned in. Half of those looked like they were penned a few minutes before class started. Was I mad, disappointed, or going to berate the class? No. But I wasn’t about to let it go either.
The other 16 to 18 students couldn’t wait to tell me their wonderful, logical, well-practiced excuses. They always believed their situation was unique, and surely the teacher would see reason. After teaching the same course 4 or 5 times, the excuses became something like reruns. The trusty “I didn’t have time” excuse was hard to fly as I was only asking for 5 minutes per day. Variations of ‘I didn’t know, I wasn’t told, or I forgot my journal’ were the most common. Students started with their opening excuse expecting me to argue with them about it, then bitching and whining, and begging and pleading and eventually they would banter the teacher into mental submission where he would give an extension.
My aim was to encourage them to learn a habit that would improve their writing and make a positive impact on their academic career. Arguing with them wouldn’t help. So I smiled. Without question, I accepted all excuses at face value. There was no need to worry, and they didn’t need to catch up. No journal on Friday meant a zero mark for homework for that week. They had already lost 2% off their final grade, but never fear, there is always next week (and another 2% at risk).
Next week, around 80% had something to hand in. Those who didn’t had more excuses, but they were weaker and less well practiced. To these, I asked why they thought they should do a journal; also if they really didn’t want to do a journal, I was open to suggestions for a different daily homework assignment. The typical response was to parrot back the reasons they thought I wanted to hear. By the third week, most of the class was writing as a habit, with a few die-hards who refused despite my best efforts. Somehow they always got sick on Friday and skipped class when journals were due.
Students who signed up for a writing course knew they had poor writing skills and felt they needed to improve. Except the problem was never with their current skill level; it was with their attitude toward writing.
If you want to do something, you will find a way to do it. Even if there are dozens of obstacles blocking you, you will find a way around them. If you don’t want to do something, then the smallest obstacle becomes an insurmountable barrier. The first thing that makes the task difficult gives you an excuse for not doing it, so why bother finding a way past it.
Knowing you have a preference system operating in the background of your mind is far easier than controlling it. Early childhood shapes preferences we often keep for life. As you have new life experiences, preferences can change, but this also happens outside of our awareness. Not that we can’t control our preferences. Most are unaware they can, so they never try. If your mind designates an activity as a “YUM,” you will never need to motivate yourself to do it. You will just take to the activity like a fish to water. If it is a “YUCK” activity, mental resistance and procrastination kicks in.
Procrastination is a form of self-deception. It allows your conscious mind to remain ‘honest’ but still gets out of doing something you don’t want to do. So when you say, “Yes, yes I really want to do it, but I can’t because of X, Y, Z” you believe you are telling the truth. You may be conscious has many logical reasons for wanting to do the job, yet systems outside of your awareness are going “No bloody way…” They punch holes in your balloon of motivation to do the job. Now your conscious mind has to work very hard, hyping itself up with positive tapes, inspirational videos, music, coffee and more coffee, to get motivated. This is why people think motivation takes lots of energy, effort, willpower, and perseverance; your conscious mind is working very hard pumping up a balloon of motivation while unconscious systems are quietly letting air out on the other side. Massive work, little productivity.
This is why you can’t ask a procrastinator about procrastination. They are less able to see their own motives than outside observers.
