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Why Do You Procrastinate, and How Do You Stop? ♡

By Avery Rose

Have you ever caught yourself scrolling and searching for distractions instead of getting your work done?

Hello everyone! Today’s post is about procrastination and how you can stop it. We’ll also dive into some other topics, including what procrastination is, what causes it, and the steps you can take to prevent it. Whether you’re a student with a heavy workload or someone who is just overwhelmed by life, this article will help you overcome procrastination.

Let’s begin!

What is procrastination?

Procrastination is the act of putting off, delaying, or avoiding tasks. An example could be something like watching videos or doodling to avoid your really intimidating research project, simply because it is not a top priority for you, something you feel overwhelmed by, or perhaps even a fear of its result.

Why do we procrastinate?

As stated above, the main reasons for procrastination are low priorities, feeling overwhelmed, and fear. If you are constantly procrastinating and putting things off to the very last minute, you’ve built a habit, and habits can be challenging to break. Therefore, you are likely to continue to struggle with procrastination. However, don’t think you can’t overcome it just because you’ve built a habit around it, because you definitely can! We’ll touch up more on this later. For now, let’s explore these reasons to gain a better understanding.

  • Low Priorities: This one is self-explanatory; the task simply doesn’t matter to you. It’s not that you’re afraid of it; you genuinely just don’t want to complete it. However, this makes sense because you can’t constantly prioritize everything all at once; some things seem more important to you, and others don’t. It’s not that these low priorities don’t matter; you just have other tasks that you feel are more significant to you, which is normal. Your brain likes to put off these “less important tasks” so that you can have the mental energy to function without feeling overworked or stressed out. If this is you, you don’t have to feel bad; it’s just something your brain naturally does, and you’re not the only one whose brain does it. Also, the fact that you’re trying to resolve this problem is already a huge first step, and you should be very proud of it!
  • Overwhelmed: There are some days (or even weeks) when we have so much to do that we shut down and push our tasks aside to avoid the stress and overwhelm surrounding us. This is how your brain responds when there is too much going on. For example, you might have a couple of huge papers due, maybe you have kids to look after while also trying to pursue your passions and go to college, or perhaps you set too many goals for yourself with too little time to complete them. There are endless reasons for this, and, similar to low-priority items, your brain shoves these things aside so you don’t have to worry about them. And again, this is not just a you issue; it’s a struggle many people face, so don’t think you’re alone.
  • Fear: You might fear a task because you are nervous about what its outcome will look like or what will come from it. An example of this could be not wanting to submit your history paper because you’re afraid you might fail, so you avoid doing it until you eventually feel forced to. Procrastination is a natural way we use to ease the distress we feel from the fear of completing a task. However, it’s important to note that the longer you avoid something out of fear, the worse your procrastination and anxiety about the task will become.

How do I stop procrastination?

I’m glad you asked! First, as I mentioned previously, it’s essential to understand how to break a habit to break procrastination, since most people who procrastinate have built a habit around it. A habit is an action we do so often that it becomes second nature to us, a response that we don’t have to think about; we just do it. Specifically, here, we’re talking about “bad habits” because the word “habit” refers to a repeated action, and it can be good or bad. Procrastination, however, would be an excellent example of a bad habit. Bad habits are similar to regular habits, but they promote unhealthy patterns that lead to immediate satisfaction and also long-term consequences.

To break a bad habit, you must first recognize what the habit is and what triggers it. An example of this is leaving your phone on your nightstand by your bed, allowing yourself to hit snooze instead of getting up. To resolve this struggle, you could put your phone somewhere that’s out of reach from your bed, but close enough that you can hear it, so you are required to get up to turn off your alarm. That way, you don’t fall into your regular pattern of sleeping in late. You must understand the roots of your bad habits to resolve them. 

Another well-known thing that promotes bad habits is anxiety. When we feel stressed or anxious, we often return to our bad habits because they are both familiar and comforting. The best thing you can do about this is to be aware of it. By recognizing this anxiety, you are more likely to follow the other steps and take control of your actions.

An important thing to keep in mind is that breaking habits takes time, usually more than it does to build them, which is around 66 days. It’s not going to go perfectly on your first try. You must allow yourself room to make mistakes so you can improve. You can’t get better at something if you don’t make the mistakes to learn from first. If you mess up, take a deep breath and try again. You will get it eventually; you just need to be patient with yourself.

Lastly, have someone to support you on your journey. It’s essential to have someone who will be there for you when you mess up and to help you persevere. This person could be a friend, family member, teacher, mentor, therapist, etc. Just someone who you can rely on to hold you accountable for your actions, but also help you when you need it most. 

Steps to End Procrastination:

Now that you understand what a habit is and how to break it, you can apply that to breaking your bad habit of procrastination with the following steps in order:

  1. Identify what is causing your procrastination.
  2. Recognize the consequences of this act of procrastination.
  3. Make a list of your tasks in order from least to hardest.
  4. Break down complex tasks into smaller tasks to make them less daunting.
  5. Start on the simpler tasks, since they’ll be easier to fly through.
  6. Then move on to the broken-down, more challenging tasks.
  7. Look back at what you did better this time, and what you would like to do even better in the future. (This helps you to not view procrastination as a failure, but as something you can learn from, so you can do better next time until procrastination becomes only an occasional occurrence.)

Outro

All in all, procrastination can be a very challenging struggle and a bad habit that is hard for us to break. But now that you understand what procrastination is, what a habit is, how to break bad habits, and the steps to resolving your procrastination issues, you can overcome them and learn how to better manage the stress caused by procrastination. Remember, sorting out this challenge will take time and patience, which you must allow yourself so that you can grow. 

You’ve got this, I believe in you! 

avery rose ♡

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