Break the Procrastination Habit

Here are 3 key takeaways from the article about breaking the procrastination habit:

Procrastination is contextual and is a habit that can be broken. It often only appears in specific areas of your life, but its impacts can spread to other areas, affecting your well-being and relationships.

Not all delays are procrastination. True procrastination involves purposefully delaying action even when it creates hardship. Understanding this difference helps identify when you're really procrastinating versus making necessary schedule adjustments.

Breaking the procrastination habit requires:

Identifying your procrastination triggers and contexts

Evaluating your procrastination events honestly

Creating and following a clear schedule for tasks you tend to procrastinate on

"Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest diseases, and its toll on success and happiness is heavy." WAYNE GRETZKtY

Procrastination is a productivity killer‼️

For those of us who struggle with the act of procrastination, we know that the penalties can be great. Yet, we still procrastinate.

Procrastination is the purposeful delay in taking action, even when the delay creates hardship (Steel, 2007). Procrastination can and often is contextual. You may be very disciplined about work specific actions and always complete work in a timely manner and without delay.

However, academic work may not be as easy for you, and this leads to the action of inaction. Procrastination is really just a habit that we can fall into and then struggle to break away from in some areas of our lives.

Because procrastination tends to be contextual, you more than likely only exhibit this behavior in certain areas of your life or with certain types of work within that area. Understanding where you are likely to delay taking action is an important step to breaking the habit.

But wait! Not all delays are really procrastination. Some delays or changes in your schedule are necessary and make sense. If there is no hardship created by the delay, then this is not procrastination. It is a purposeful decision based on a holistic review of your responsibilities and a realistic option under the circumstances. Understand the difference between the two and get clear on when you are really engaging in the act of procrastination.

There are underlying reasons for true procrastination. Adult learners in online graduate programs are self-directed learners. There are specific competencies that are important for effective, self-directed learning. Procrastination management is one of these competencies (Khiat, 2017).

In adult learners, procrastination might be caused by:

an inability to get organized,

fear of doing the work wrong,

a focus on perfectionism,

or a lack of drive to complete specific work.

In other words, the content doesn’t trip your trigger.

Understanding what drives your engagement in procrastination is a first step to getting control of this behavior. One of the challenges of procrastination is that it has a flow-on effect on the timeliness of your work. Even if you are able to meet deadlines, the work will suffer because of the delay in getting started.

If you have a paper due and fail to start early, outline the work, research effectively, write and edit before submission, then the work is not as strong as it could have been.

Procrastination means that the work you submit does not reach the level it could if you started earlier.

In addition, creating a consistent schedule for school work and sticking to it becomes a challenge if you always delay a start because you are falling into the Procrastination Trap.

There is always a reason not to get started.

The reality is that human beings are great at rationalizing behavior. We can rationalize the reason for the delay every time. You may be so good at this that you fail to realize that you have an underlying problem with procrastination.

You have fallen into the Procrastination Trap.

An additional challenge is that while procrastination tends to be contextual, when you procrastinate in one area of your life, there are impacts in other areas. For instance, you put off starting that assignment that is due in two weeks.

The clock is ticking. ⏰ 5 days before the assignment is due, your stress levels are rising, and that stress starts to impact your attitude, presence, and behavior with the people at work and home. Now the assignment is due in 4 days, and your spouse reminds you that one of your children has an important event that you are supposed to attend on Friday (the assignment due Sunday).

You can’t go! There is no way! 😓 have an important assignment due. Now your family is upset. You feel defeated and like you have failed your child. The assignment suffers because, while working on it, the guilt of what you are missing eats at you.

This is not a pleasant vignette, but it will resonate with many of you. The people and event may be different, but the feelings are legit.

Had you not procrastinated, attending the event on Friday night would have been no problem. At that point, you just need to do the final edits on Saturday before you submit the assignment. So, even though you only tend to procrastinate over assignments, that can negatively impact other areas of your life, including your feelings of well being.

The good news is that you are NOT a procrastinator. This is not a core component of your identity that will haunt you for the rest of your life. This is simply a bad habit that is causing a certain amount of grief at this point and time. Like with all habits that you form, this can be broken.

📌 How do you break out of the Procrastination Trap?

Identify your procrastination triggers: Keep a record for a two-week period. Write down every time you decide to delay starting (procrastinating). Make note of the activity and the context (work, school, etc.). Also, make note of any pain associated with this delay, considering emotional, physical (think rock hard shoulders because of the stress‼️), mental, and family (the argument with the spouse) aspects.

Evaluate your procrastination events: At the end of the two-week period, evaluate all of the procrastination events. Were these really procrastination or was it a needed delay? Be honest with yourself and remember that you are great at rationalization.

Identify context trends: Look for patterns in the contexts where you tend to procrastinate. This will help you understand where you need to focus your efforts to break the habit.

Understand the perceived gains from procrastination: Sometimes, we feel that we gain something from procrastination. Identify what you gained and why that gain meant more than the pain of the delay. This might be difficult and painful to identify, but it's crucial for breaking the habit.

Commit to breaking the habit: Ultimately, you have to decide to stop procrastinating and break the habit. Like all habits, it took time to form them, and it will take time to break them.

If you are willing to commit to breaking the habit, create a clear schedule of when and how you are going to address the work that you tend to procrastinate completing. For example, if you have an assignment due, plan to start an outline on Wednesday of the week before it's due, complete the first draft by that Sunday, edit on the next Wednesday, and do a final edit and submission on Saturday. Add this schedule to your task list for every assignment, and do not end the day without taking the planned action. Repetition of the new habit is crucial!

Breaking the procrastination habit will be challenging. You are moving through a learning phase that is difficult because the Procrastination Trap is familiar, even if the feelings are negative. You have to break that cycle. Forming a new habit and breaking old ones can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days (Lally et al., 2010), varying based on the person and the repetition in the context in which you need to form the new habit.

Are you really serious about breaking the procrastination habit?

Track your behavior.

Be consistent in following the schedule you set for the context in which you tend to procrastinate.

Be realistic with the schedule or plan you create to overcome the Procrastination Trap.

Keep at it every time this context comes up and you start to procrastinate.

How will you know when you have succeeded?

One day, you will follow your schedule or plan without thought, and with no consideration of delaying your start. You will have formed a new habit and broken out of that Procrastination Trap. CONGRATULATIONS 🥳

Conclusion

Procrastination is a habit that can significantly hinder productivity and cause stress in various aspects of life. By understanding the contexts in which you tend to procrastinate and the perceived gains from this behavior, you can take the necessary steps to break the habit.

The process involves identifying your procrastination triggers, evaluating your procrastination events, recognizing context trends, and committing to forming new habits. Creating a clear schedule and consistently following it is crucial for breaking the procrastination habit, even though it may be challenging at first.

Remember that forming new habits takes time and effort, but with persistence and dedication, you can overcome the Procrastination Trap and boost your productivity. Start tracking your behavior, be consistent in following your schedule, and celebrate your success when you find yourself naturally following your plan without the urge to procrastinate. By breaking the procrastination habit, you will not only improve your work and academic performance but also reduce stress and enhance your overall well-being.

References:

Khait, H. (2017). Academic performance and the practice of self-directed learning: The adult student perspective. Journal of Further and Higher Education. 41(1). p. 44-59. doi: 10.1080/0309877X.2015.1062849.

Lally, P., vanJaarsveld, C., Potts, H., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modeling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology. 40(6). doi: 10.1002/ejsp.674

Breaking the Procrastination Habit: A Step-by-Step Guide to Boost Productivity