Do you beat yourself up for not being productive enough or not nailing those long time goals?
Did you know that there are actually some psychological factors at play that prevent us from taking action on our goals?
While we blame ourselves for being unproductive, not getting results or not showing up for our goals, it’s often not our fault!
There are reasons backed by neuro-science on why we are unable to take action and these reasons might surprise you!
Procrastination due to overwhelm
Does this ever happen to you that there is a task that’s really important, but you just can’t muster up the courage to do it, and you just keep waiting for the last moment?
Well, that’s procrastination, and I’ll tell you why we procrastinate and how we can beat it.
One reason is that we get overwhelmed. The task appears too big. It’s such a mammoth task that we feel scared to do it. We can beat that with a five minute rule.
The five minute rule says that you have to start doing that task for just five minutes every day. Within a short span of time, you will see that momentum would have built up and you will be able to continue with this task that appeared so impossible in the beginning.
Why is that? Because your mind gets conditioned to do this task. It doesn’t appear unfamiliar or scary or big anymore. It’s doable and that is why you are able to continue with this task.
Procrastination due to decision fatigue
Did you know that we often procrastinate because the task in front of us has multiple unrelated steps that are too confusing to even begin with ?
We get tired thinking of what to do first and land up with decision fatigue.
Because of this, we are unable to even start in the first place.
How can we beat that?
There are two simple techniques to beat procrastination due to decision fatigue.
The Pomodoro technique
In the Pomodoro technique, we can break our entire task into four different parts and then we can schedule every part for 25 minutes and take a five minute break between tasks.
In this way we will be able to complete a task a defined span of time without getting burned out and without getting overwhelmed.
Batching
This is another method to beat decision fatigue.
Another reason why we procrastinate is because the task in front of us is Boring – it’s not something that you want to do, it’s something that you have to do. Not fun, no excitement. No personal gain.
In batching, you make a list of all the different steps involved in the task. Then schedule the steps for each day, say three steps everyday or two steps everyday.
You’ll be tempted to start with the smallest or the easiest step first. However, I would advise that you start with the most important step.
In this way, when you’re done with the most important step, you’ll feel that a huge load has lifted off your shoulders and you can breathe again. The rest of the steps will also not look so scary anymore.
Also, track your progress daily to keep the motivation high.
Procrastination due to boredom
Another reason why we procrastinate is because the task in front of us is boring.
It’s not something that we want to do, it’s something that we have to do. There’s no fun or excitement involved in doing this task. Also, there’s nothing in it for us – no personal gain and no learning opportunity.
It is very difficult, almost impossible, to keep the motivation high for any such task.
But if it’s something that you have to do, how do you set yourself up for it?
Make it interesting to make it work
Make it interesting. Pair it up with an activity that you like, or do it with a friend to a make it more fun. Or set up a reward for yourself.
Say “After I’m done doing this boring task, I’ll do something that I actually love doing, to reward myself.”
Revenge procrastination
Does it ever happen to you that it’s late night, you’re tired and sleepy, you know you should have slept already by now, but you don’t want to sleep.
You want to do something exciting. And because there’s nothing exciting to do at this hour, you end up scrolling your feed, for, you know, maybe two hours before you go to sleep.
There’s actually a term for it. It’s called revenge procrastination.
You know when you don’t have any control over your day during daytime, or you don’t engage in something that you a love during the day. Your brain wants to have some control over your time at night and you want to engage in something fun.
But this causes sleep troubles and you’ll wake up feeling tired, not having enough rest.
To beat that, schedule something fun everyday. Engage in things you love doing. Show your brain that you have it under control.
Easy peasy or too difficult!
One common reason why we procrastinate at tasks is because it’s either too easy for us or too hard!
Psychologists say that we would enjoy a task or engage in tasks that have a difficulty level that matches our capability or capacity to work at it. This means that we will find something exciting or interesting to do only if we know that we can finish it with some effort, like it’s challenging but do-able.
If it’s too easy, we’ll find it boring. And if it’s too hard, we’ll find it too challenging and scary.
How do you beat that?
If it’s boring pair it with an activity you like.If it’s too scary, follow the five minutes rule.
Procrastination is a huge roadblock to productivity. But if we adopt the right strategies that work for us, we can develop some routines that help us beat procrastination and get smashing on our goals.
Which of these different types of procrastination do you find yourself suffering from?
Which of these strategies do you think you can adopt to work on your goals?
Let me know in the comments section.
If you found this advice useful, don’t forget to share 😇
