The art science of procrastination
Time is ticking. Your heart is racing. You only have an hour left until the clock strikes midnight. “Oh no,” you thought, “I still need to write a few more paragraphs for my essay.” Your mind is filled with many words, ideas, and answers as you race to turn in the paper. Fifty minutes pass, and you find yourself at the finish line, ready to submit. “Thank goodness I submitted it on time. I probably could've done better or at least proofread my work if I started earlier (but oh well). At least I finished the task.”
Have you been in this situation or something similar before? Do you consider yourself a procrastinator, or do you find yourself regularly procrastinating? If so, you are not alone. Many other people also struggle with procrastination.
Procrastination is the act of delaying, avoiding, or postponing a task, preventing us from finishing the things we have to do. When we procrastinate, we know that we should be doing something, but we don’t want or feel like doing it. We put it off for our future selves to complete. Procrastination makes it difficult to properly complete tasks and meet deadlines.
But why do we procrastinate?
When we set future goals for ourselves, it is easy to see the long-term benefits of completing those goals. However, in the present moment, our minds and bodies are just not ready to do anything about it or are just impatient and want instant gratification. Yes, we want to lose weight, but do you want to miss out on eating the ice cream that has been sitting in your freezer? We set a goal, but we don’t fully commit to it.
The science behind procrastination is the ongoing battle between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is the part of our brain responsible for our behavioral and emotional responses. It is responsible for our fight-and-flight system (a reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening), as well as our motivation, emotion, learning, and memory. On the other hand, the prefrontal cortex is the region of the brain that is involved in reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, and many others. When it comes to procrastination, our limbic system is stronger than our prefrontal cortex, leading to our brain putting off our goals despite their urgency for instant gratification and fun. This leads to, you guessed it, procrastination.
Many procrastinators believe that procrastinating a task or set of tasks isn’t harmful at all. Some procrastinators believe that they work better under pressure. They think that as long as a task is completed, it should be fine. However, this is not true. Procrastination does not have any benefits nor does working under pressure give you a better quality of work overall. Studies show that procrastinators generally earn lower grades than other students. Procrastinators don’t just finish their work later, but the quality of their work also suffers. Procrastination is just the absence of progress and the reason why you scored low on your homework or test.
Not only does procrastination affect the quality of work due to shorter time constraints, but it also affects our health. Procrastination, which leads to stress, makes people more vulnerable to illnesses such as hypertension (having high blood pressure) or cardiovascular disease (a group of disorders of the heart or blood vessels, such as coronary heart disease). Constantly working under pressure and stress can lead to worsening mental health and even depression.
Knowing the negative impacts of procrastination on our performance and health, it is crucial to learn how to stop procrastinating.
First, to deal with the aforementioned “long-term” problem of setting goals, in which one isn’t willing to work towards future tasks in the present, one can make the rewards of taking action more immediate. Temptation bundling is a great way to make the rewards of doing something more immediate. Temptation bundling is pairing something we have to do to achieve our goal and something we enjoy doing (when applicable). For instance, only listen to music while doing your homework, or only watch Netflix while running the treadmill.
Second, one can also split up a large task into smaller tasks or create smaller goals to make the goal more achievable. Breaking down future goals into little, achievable tasks allows us to be more productive, working on each task, one by one, until we can reach the goal. Each small step helps us to maintain momentum over the long run.
Third, procrastinators typically struggle with starting a task. Once you begin doing a task, it’s usually easier to maintain momentum and keep working. One way to achieve this is to use the 2-Minute Rule. The 2-Minute Rule is starting a task by doing something that should only take less than 2 minutes to do. The 2–Minute Rule helps to overcome procrastination by making it easier to get started on a task.
Remember, procrastination is something that most people deal with in their daily lives. However, it is a habit that we must get rid of because it affects our performance, time management, health, and well-being.
However, as a wise procrastinator once said, “I’ll get this article done tomorrow.”
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