How to Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination has been the subject of extensive research over the last few decades with findings which may come as a surprise. We don’t opt for procrastination because we’re lazy or deliberately putting things off (even though, ultimately, it’s what we’re doing when we procrastinate); rather, it’s connected to our emotional self-regulation and we do it to make us feel better about ourselves. Even though we know we have something we need to complete, and know it will make us feel better about ourselves in the future, in the present, we choose the opinion which leaves us feeling better now and not then.

 

The reason procrastination can be so detrimental for us in business is down to our old friend dopamine, the chemical connected to the brain’s supposedly clever reward system. By giving in to procrastination - and since you’re here, I assume you’re like me and give in too often - you’re rewarding yourself every time. And guess what happens? Procrastination becomes habitual. 

 

I’m going to take us into behavioural theory now by briefly discussing research conducted by H.E Hershfield. We all have a present self and a future self. When our future self is too far into the future, it’s hard to identify with them and fully connect them to us. In fact, our brains treat this future version of ourself as more like a stranger than the being we are. It doesn’t matter how close or distant a future we take ourselves to, it’s more about where we see ourselves. Now I don’t know much about manifestation (and Hershfield didn’t mention it) but I suspect one of the reasons this works so well for people - and entrepreneurs in particular - is because the process of manifestation is to envision yourself becoming this person in the future; you’re creating a link between your present and future self and therefore eradicating your brain’s belief that your future self is a stranger.

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Returning to procrastination, we’re more likely to procrastinate when we view our future self as someone completely disconnected from ourselves. The reward that our brain craves will not come to us if we don’t believe we are the future self who’ll feel so much better when that task has been completed. However, the reward will come to our present self, and instantly, if we push the task to the side and instead focus on something we like doing better, particularly if it is still a job we need to get done.

 

There are a million ways to apparently deal with procrastination but most of them have one thing in common: they’re productivity hacks. I don’t doubt that time blocking, allocating specific times for tasks and having strictly structured days works for a lot of people; but for me, none of these methods work. Even writing lists doesn’t really work for me. I find it beneficial to write them because it reminds me of the things I have to do and I can virtually recall my list while I’m working but rarely do I return to them and I definitely don’t tick them off as I go. 

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Forming habits, however, is something that does work for me (and yes, I know you can train yourself to make a productivity hack a habit and I’ve probably never stuck with one thing long enough for it to become a habit…) If we view procrastination as a habit we need to change, our perception changes and it becomes more rewarding to reject procrastination than it is to succumb to it. 

 

It is difficult to reform a habit when it's so ingrained that we’ve lost sight of why or how it started in the first place. When you’ve conditioned yourself to believe that you don’t know how to start something, it’s often a real challenge to start at all. Instead of encouraging you, your brain’s reward system is pulling you towards tasks you do habitually. 

 

If we return to the idea that procrastination is connected to our emotional self-regulation, then we need to explore the emotions around why we procrastinate at all.