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Confession: Sometimes I procrastinate on my work by researching techniques for overcoming procrastination.
In the case of writing this article, I spent an embarrassing amount of time procrastinating on researching procrastinationâââand that was before I even started to procrastinate on writing about procrastination!
Iâve never dreamt about procrastination, but Iâm sure an Inception-style dream about procrastination within a dream about procrastination is right around the cornerâŠ
Everybody struggles with procrastination
I get a little consolation from all this by reminding myself that Iâm not alone in my difficulty with procrastination: âHow to stop procrastinatingâ turns up 1,560,000 hits in Google, and searching for âprocrastinationâ on Amazon offers up 2,581 books on the topic.
Weâre awash with advice on overcoming procrastination, but somehow⊠it feels like weâre struggling more and more with procrastination.
What gives?
Maybe there isnât ONE cause of procrastinationâŠ
Read enough How to Stop Procrastinating articles and youâll start to notice something:
We often assume that there is a single cause of procrastination, and therefore a single solution. Every productivity guru and shrink out there has their pet theory about what causes procrastination, along with a custom-built solution based on that theory.
But for a problems as complex and persistent as procrastination, it unlikely that thereâs a single cause of procrastination. And by extension, there canât be a single cure.
This is part of why we struggle so much to stop procrastinating:
By desperately clinging to the idea of a silver bullet solution for procrastination, we end up never really making any headway because no one strategy is really sufficient to really help.
The idea that nobody really knows what theyâre talking about or doing when it comes to overcoming procrastination was starting to get a little discouraging until I stumbled upon a very interesting research paperâŠ
The Science of Procrastination
In 2007, University of Calgary psychologist Piers Steel wrote paper called The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure.
The paper was fascinating because it showed scientifically what I was starting to sense intuitivelyâââthat the causes of procrastination are actually multiple, and that many of the popular notions of what caused procrastination were either simply not true or had extremely small effects.
Nerdy Side Note: Steel used a technique called meta-analysis which allowed him to combine all the data from decades worth of research on procrastination and show which factors are significantly and reliably associated with procrastinating.
Interestingly, Steelâs research showed that the two oldest psychological theories for why we procrastinateâââanxiety and rebelliousnessâââin reality had only a weak connection with the tendency to procrastinate.
On the other hand, four primary factors stood out as by far the strongest true predictors of procrastination.
The 4 Causes of Procrastination
1) âExpectancyâ: A personâs belief and expectation that they are capable of completing a task. When we donât have much confidence in our ability to complete a task (or to complete it well), our likelihood of procrastinating goes way up. This shows up most commonly when weâre uncertain about how to start a task.
1st Cause of Procrastination = low Self-Confidence.
2) âValueâ: How enjoyable or painful is the task at hand? In general, the more enjoyable or meaningful a task, the less we procrastinate on it. Although, it seems that mildly painful and boring tasks are actually more likely to lead to procrastination than extremely difficult tasksâââwhich helps explain why we tend to procrastinate so much on busywork.
2nd Cause of Procrastination = low Enjoyment.
3) âImpulsivenessâ: Difficulty maintaining focus in the face of immediate and more appealing distractions. If weâre vulnerable to lots of distractionsâââor work in a highly distracting environmentâââand have a hard time resisting those distractions, weâre much more likely to procrastinate.
3rd Cause of Procrastination = high Distraction.
4) âDelayâ: How much time there is in between the decision to take on a task and the point when it must be completed. Basically, the longer you have to finish a task, the longer youâll wait to get started on it.
4th Cause of Procrastination = distant Deadlines.
The Getting Sh*t Done Equation
Besides clarifying these four as the most influential factors in procrastination, Steelâs research also showed that they work together in particular wayâwhat he calls, The Procrastination Equation.
The Procrastination Equation says that our likelihood of overcoming procrastinating on a given task will be equal to the product of our expectancy and the value of the task divided by the product of our impulsiveness we are and how long we have to accomplish the task.
In my head, I translate this into The Getting Sh*t Done Equation, which says that if youâre struggling with procrastination, you have 4Â options:
- Increase Self-Confidence đȘ
- Increase Enjoyment of the task đ€©
- Decrease Distractions đŻ
- Create Deadlines đ
Before we get to how to effectively adjust each of these variables, thereâs a crucial point to understand:
The equation is important because it shows us how to tackle the problem of procrastination in an individualized and situation-specific way.
For most of us, we donât struggle with all four factors equally. In fact, we may have a strength in one factor, but a weakness in another, which can still lead to difficulties with procrastiantion.
The point is: We all procrastinate a little differently.
Because there are multiple, situation-specific factors that lead to procrastination, the reasons I tend to procrastinate may be very different than the reasons you procrastinate. Which means we all have to custom-build our own solutions to procrastination.
And this is where The Getting Sh*t Done Equation really comes in handy. It gives us a simple model for thinking about and working on procrastiantion in an individualized way.
A few tips for getting started.
1) Identify your unique vulnerability to procrastination.
The next time you find yourself procrastinating, think about the four factors in The Getting Sh*t Done Equation (Self-Confidence, Enjoyment, Distraction, Deadlines) and try to determine which one tends to be strongest for you personally.
- Have plenty of Self-Confidence, but swamped by distractions?
- Maybe you really love the work you do, but the deadlines and constraints on getting them done are so loose that you canât help put them off and off and off...?
Start to notice patterns and trends in your own tendency to procrastiante in terms of these four variables. Once you start to understand your unique vulnerability to procrastination, youâll be able to address it in a much more specific and targeted way.
2) Use targeted anti-procrastination strategies.
Once youâve identified which of the four factors is the most impactful in your case, implement a strategy to combat that specific factor.
Here are the four factors along with some suggestions for how to address each:
- To address problems of Self-Confidence, CREATE SMALL WINS. Procrastinating on that big report you have to write? Break it down into smaller sections and commit to just completing one doable section. Still procrastinating on your smaller section? Break it down even more. By giving ourselves small, quick wins, we build up our self-confidence and belief in ourselves, which increases our odds of getting started on future elements of the task.
- To address problems of Enjoyment, BUILD REINFORCEMENT ROUTINES. Ideally, all of our work would be incredibly meaningful, interesting, and enjoyable. Sadly, this isnât the case for any of us all the time. And when a task is not intrinsically enjoyable, the next best thing is to make it artificially enjoyable. Hate processing a weekendâs worth of work emails Monday morning at the office? Create a Monday morning routine where you go to your favorite coffee shop, order your favorite fancy coffee drink, and process your weekend emails there before even getting to the office. Once you pair an aversive task with something enjoyable, itâs overall value increasesâââwhich means your likelihood of procrastinating on it decreases.
- To address problems of Distraction, CHANGE YOUR ENVIRONMENT. Addicted to facebook but have an important afternoon project to complete? Leave you phone in your car until itâs done. Social butterfly but need to turn in your TPS reports by Friday at 5:00? Work on them in the smelly basement conference room nobody will dare visit you in. TV junkie but need to get your taxes done by the end of the week? Unplug your TV and put it in the garage until theyâre done. The key element will all of these is this: Donât rely on willpower to resist distractions; change your environment instead.
- To address problems of Deadlines, SET âMICRO DUE DATES.â Similar to Step 2, when the due date on a task is far away by nature, we have to artificially make it sooner. Do this by breaking down a project or task into reasonable chunks, and making each chunk itâs own task with its own specific due date.
3) Remember that procrastination is highly situation-specific.
Just like different people tend to be vulnerable to different causes of procrastination in different ways, different situations or contexts can make us differently vulnerable to procrastination (I just used the word different 5 times in one sentence đŹ).
For example, while low Self-Confidence may typically be your issue when it comes to procrastination, itâs still possible to procrastinate in an area youâre very talented inâââin which case the factor you need to address may be Enjoyment rather than Self-Confidence.
Similarly, you may be someone whoâs typically pretty good about maintaining focus and avoiding distraction, but when youâre around a specific person, your ability to resist distraction crumbles. Rather than getting down on yourself about this, try to anticipate it.
Wrapping Up
Procrastination is a complex phenomena with four primary factors that contribute to it: low Self-Confidence, low Enjoyment, high Distraction, and distant Due Dates. The key to overcoming procrastination is to understand how we are uniquely vulnerable to procrastination given both our own personality and our ever-changing environment, and then to tailor our strategies to those unique vulnerabilities.
Did you enjoy this article? You can find more like it, plus other guides, books, and resources for working smarter at your personal development goals at my website: NickWignall.com
Resources and Further Reading
- If you only look at one resource on procrastination, Iâd recommend Pier Steelâs The Procrastination Equation. Itâs easy-to-read, contains a wide range of practical strategies for managing your procrastination, and most importantly, is based on what I consider the best scientific understanding of procrastination that we have.
- Probably the most Internet-famous take on procrastination, Tim Urbanâs three articles on procrastinationâââWhy Procrastinators Procrastinate, How to Beat Procrastination, and The Procrastination Matrix, plus his more recent Ted Talkâââare all incredibly illustrative in alternatingly hilarious and poignant fashion. While a little light on the how to overcome procrastination angle, I think this series is arguably the best real-world description of procrastination out there.
- Jameâs Clearâs Procrastination: A Scientific Guide on How to Stop Procrastinating is a nice compliment to the above articles because it focuses much more on the pragmatic how-to side of procrastination. Heâs got some great tips on effective anti-procrastination strategies like Temptation Bundling, The Ivy Lee Method, and Commitment Devices that are pretty useful. Good one if you want to simply jump in to working on your procrastination.
- For a slightly more high-brow expose of procrastination and the various theories about where it comes from and what to do about it, Later is a New Yorker piece by James Surowiecki that I thought was really well written and thoughtful, especially in its description of Hyperbolic Discounting (the Delay part of The Procrastination Equation), which is a pretty key factor in procrastination.
- The Salzberg brothers over at njlifehacks have some great articles on procrastination that dispel a lot of common myths and misconceptions about procrastination and give some good, practical strategies for making progress. They tend to have a stoicism bent to a lot of their work, which is fascinating.
- Why I Taught Myself to Procrastinate by Adam Grant is a piece for the Times arguing that while there are definite downsides to procrastination, one potential upside is to use it as a means of cultivating creativity. He also talks about Pre-crastination, the little known alter-ego of procrastination.
- In a similarly contrarian vein, Marc Andreessen writes in his Guide to Personal Productivity about various counterintuitive productivity hacks like the Anti-Todo List and Un-Schedule, including a nice summary of a method called Structured Procrastination which is all about how to use the urge to procrastinate on Task A as motivation to take care of tasks B through Z.
- Rounding things out is an Essay by Paul Graham entitled Good and Bad Procrastination which argues that the key to accomplishing important things is to ruthlessly procrastinate on unimportant things.
An Equation for Getting Sh*t Done was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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