I am a follower of a sect with the largest number of followers in the world: the Procrastination Sect.

No one came forward to establish an official church (perhaps because of the terrible procrastination of its members). However, studies show that at least 50% to 80% of people around the world claim to be followers of the Procrastination sect.

What does postponement mean?

Procrastination is defined as moving a task that should be done now to the future (according to the Oxford English dictionary). This definition simply describes a type of action.

In fact, procrastination is often given a negative connotation. The experience of procrastination is filled with emotions such as guilt, anxiety, shame, conflict, etc. The consequence of procrastination is not only that work is not completed on time but also a decrease in energy. physical and mental health.

However, being prejudiced against procrastination is not helpful to you. To effectively deal with procrastination, you first need to understand its symptoms, common causes, and finally understand your own procrastination.

According to Steel (2007), procrastination is proactively moving an action that needs to be done to another time in the future despite knowing that there will be negative consequences. This definition from a psychological perspective emphasizes the irrational element of the decision to delay. Research in the field of behavioral science tells us that irrationality in human decisions is more common than we think.

Procrastination is an emotional issue (not a personality issue as people often think). According to Dr. Judson Brewer, procrastination is a habit related to anxiety. Here is an example of a procrastination habit loop:

• Signs: Anxiety in the morning when you see how much work needs to be done
• Behavior: Procrastinate by going online and surfing Facebook for 30 minutes
• Reward: Feeling temporarily relieved of work-related anxiety

However, the more you postpone, the worse you feel. The bad feeling comes from self-critical thinking when you realize that you want to postpone. You explain your postponement in a negative way instead of understanding it like a friend. The habit becomes stronger when the reward is greater. The reward here is avoiding the bad feeling each time you postpone. The more you postpone, the worse you feel because you have postponed.

The cycle of postponement continues like this.

How can we replace this loop? According to the principle of the habit loop, if you want to change any habit, you need to change one of the three elements of the loop and continuously experiment until you find a solution that works for you.

One tip from Dr. Brewer is to change the cue from feeling bad to feeling curious when procrastination hits. The new loop goes like this:

• Sign: You say to yourself, “I will allow myself to delay and observe what it wants to tell me.”
• Behavior: Procrastinating by going online to watch cat videos 🐈‍⬛ for just 5 minutes
• Bonus: Feeling more relaxed, and realizing that you procrastinate because you are uncertain about an issue while writing a report. Solution: Write down a list of articles to read in your next work session.

This reading list will act as a clear sign so you don’t procrastinate during your next session. Instead, when you have the urge to procrastinate because of the uncertainty of writing a report, you will read the articles in the index one by one and take notes. The reward is a feeling of confidence as you gradually have specific ideas and references to write a report.

Four causes of procrastination

Professor Piers Steel of the University of Calgary (Canada) conducted a meta-analysis in 2007 titled “The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure”. Steel analyzes more than two decades of research on procrastination and related factors ranging from personality to motivation and many other variables. His research shows that there are four main causes of procrastination, including:

• Perceived value of the task. How important, useful, interesting, or meaningful is the task to you?
• Feeling of one’s own ability to do the task (self-efficacy). How much do you feel you have the knowledge, skills, or information necessary to do that job?
• Impulsiveness tendency. Are you in an environment with many distractions or many factors that help you stay focused on the task at hand? Are you in a good mental state to maintain effective focus or are you tired, stressed, or exhausted?
• Time limit for completing the task (delay). How long does it take for you to complete it? Is it longer than a week, a month or a year?

These four elements work together and form The Procrastination Equation:

Probability of procrastination reduction = (Perceived value x Perceived competence)/(Impulsivity x Deadline)

In other words, for any X job that I am doing, if I find and not too far away, then my probability of procrastinating on X drops significantly.

Five steps to help you deal with procrastination

Step 1. Don’t take for granted other people’s advice on how to reduce procrastination

Each person has different reasons for procrastination.

You can’t just listen to any advice and apply it to yourself, then fail and blame yourself. Because procrastination has different causes and manifestations for each person and each situation.

In fact, the common advice you hear about how to overcome procrastination is often based on misunderstandings about procrastination in particular and changing habits in general. For example:

• Just stop procrastinating and you’re done. (Procrastination is a trait)
• Be determined! (Procrastination is a rational action)
• Let’s focus! (Procrastination is due to laziness)

Step 2. Identify your harmful thoughts.

Meditation, yoga, and journaling habits can help you increase your ability to recognize and name negative thoughts about procrastination as they arise.

It’s one thing to procrastinate, but it’s another thing to torment yourself with judgments, criticism, and blame. Imagine someone constantly telling you how bad you are, how you procrastinate 24 hours out of 7, how can you be wise and act in a positive and productive direction? useful anymore?

Example of a harmful thought: “I’m terrible, and I won’t get anywhere with this procrastination!”

Step 3. Press the STOP button.

Imagine an image that illustrates the action “Stop” so that your mind can easily adapt to the new command (eg, the image and sound of the car’s brakes…).

The mind is used to letting previous negative thoughts run wild and out of control. Therefore, you need to retrain it in strict military style until it gets used to a new, healthier way of thinking. A voice command, an image, an impressive sound will help the brain not only quickly learn but also remember what you want to teach it, even in stressful situations when you easily fall into old habits.

Step 4. Replace harmful thoughts with helpful thoughts.

Think of procrastination as your brain’s way of letting you know something is wrong or a need is not being met.

For example: If you constantly procrastinate sitting at your desk, then perhaps you really need a proper break, or you are having a problem with the work that you are procrastinating. Is it because you’re doing too much? Or what does that job mean to you? What information do you need to be able to continue that report? If I’m always procrastinating by doing Y instead of doing X, what does Y mean to me?

Step 5. Find out the cause of YOUR procrastination to come up with a suitable solution

Based on Steel’s equation, determine for yourself what is causing you procrastination in a certain task or situation.

Cause #1. Perceived low value.

Solution: Increase the feeling of value by creating rewards or incentives.

Not everything you do will be interesting, exciting, or deeply meaningful to you. For example, I put off tax filing and administrative procedures as long as possible because to me these tasks are boring. However, if I delay beyond the specified time, I will suffer unpleasant consequences. So I need to create my own tangible rewards for these tasks.

In addition, a word of encouragement and recognition of your efforts is enough to increase your sense of worth about the work you are doing. If you keep procrastinating on a task, ask yourself: “Why do I need to do this? What does this mean for me? If it’s necessary but not interesting to me, can I ask or hire someone else to do it for me?”

Cause #2: Perception of low competence.

Solution: Increase your sense of competence by creating small wins.

Oh when some tasks are too big and beyond your capabilities. For example, a 20-page report cannot be completed in one session, a blog post needs more research, a career change plan needs a step-by-step roadmap over the course of a year, etc.

For example: You always dreamed of becoming a designer. But that thought is beyond your current imagination, so you are paralyzed and continue to procrastinate by jumping into the marketing manager job at your current company because you are familiar with it and feel comfortable there. and have a good income. Unconsciously, you avoid your dreams.

At that time, divide your goals into smaller time periods of years, months, weeks, and days. Daily tasks also need to be divided into appropriate parts. The more you practice writing goals, the better you will become at writing achievable goals, thereby reducing the probability of procrastination.

Cause #3: Increased impulsive tendencies.

Solution: Reduce impulsivity by designing environments that are low in temptation and high in support.

The less distracting elements in the environment, the less effort it takes to resist procrastination. When you are healthy, you are full of energy and determination. But when you are tired, have back pain, neck and shoulder pain, sit for a long time, have poor posture, or are exhausted, the more likely you are to fall into the trap of procrastination. This procrastination when you are too tired will make you choose activities that do not help you relax, but instead deepen your fatigue and feelings of guilt. Set your clock to take a break and stretch at least once every hour and before you get too tired. The environment should be conducive to concentration, such as a quiet place without distracting elements like phones or TVs.

For important tasks, design and find an environment where everyone is doing what you want to do, and everyone talks about it every day. This way, it won’t be hard for you to do the work you need to do.

While working, sometimes you can’t avoid procrastination because you just encountered some interesting information that is not directly related to what you are doing. At that time, allow yourself to save and quickly jot down the information in your notebook or online note-taking software, then continue with the current task.

Reason #4: Long term.

Solution: Reduce the deadline by dividing the deadline into smaller pieces.

You break down the timelines for completing each piece of work (as in item 2) so that you can solve them sequentially in each certain work session every day. If you have to write an email in 30 minutes, that’s all the time you have, no more. Parkinson’s Law states that the time it takes you to complete a task will be as long as the time you have available. So, set a time budget for a task instead of letting it drag you on endlessly and take up all your time.

Epilogue

Procrastination is a habit that can be changed.

The four main causes of procrastination are low perceived value, low perceived competence, environments that tempt impulsivity, and long deadlines. To overcome procrastination, accept it without judgment, find out the cause, and create your own solution.

You know, the most creative and productive artists are sometimes the most avid followers of the cult of Procrastination. They have many unfinished works at the same time. Whenever they get stuck on a certain work, they will immediately start working on another work. On the contrary, when they are working on one work and get useful ideas for another work, they will pause and immediately write them down.

Perhaps the real secret lies in this: How to build a life where, every day, you only have to procrastinate from one important work of your life to the next.

The most impressive people I know are terrible procrastinators.

Don’t condemn procrastination. Please understand it.