PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished by a certain deadline, despite knowing it might have negative consequences. IT IS A COMMON HUMAN EXPERIENCE meaning, it’s a daily battle that most of us struggle with. We do procrastinate on academic matters, meeting with a counselor, saving money, publishing a book, and starting a new growth-track and so many other things.

WHAT TYPE OF A PROCRASTINATOR ARE YOU?

Before you unlearn a certain behavior, you first have to know what drives that particular behavior. The same applies to procrastination; before you start conquering procrastination you have to know in what aspect do you procrastinate so that you can be able to stop. Therefore, the following are the three types of procrastinators;

·      Arousal type; these are the ones that wait until the last minute in order to reap a euphoric rush. If you have ever experienced college life, you can relate how many students wait until the last minutes of the deadline to do their assignments.

·      Avoiders type; these are the ones that put off tasks because of fear of failure or even fear of success. Let's take an example of a business launch; you have a business that you need to launch but you keep on procrastinating every time because you are afraid that the business isn’t good enough or maybe you are afraid of the responsibilities that you will start having.

·      Decisional type; these are the ones that struggle to make decisions. 

WHY DO WE PROCRASTINATE?

We all have reasons as to why we procrastinate and the following are some of the common reasons:

ü  FEAR; I won't be able to explain why some of you are afraid of doing something and as a result, you end procrastinating but some of us feel like what we want to do isn’t good enough or it won’t be good enough. For instance, I have written an article but I haven’t published yet and I keep on procrastinating every day on whether I should publish or not. The reason why I’m doing that is that I am afraid of how shallow it is or how my readers are going to comment. So maybe you are about to do something huge and you are afraid and you forget that sometimes you can just take baby steps. The more complicated an action step is, the more fear is capable of producing. “SIMPLICITY REDUCES FEAR”

ü  DECIONAL DEPENDENCY; some of us our decisions or our next moves are being made by somebody else (a parent mostly). This means that we do not have the freedom to decide on what we want to do, where we want to go and so many other things. So you might find a person having these legit ideas that she or he needs to put them into action but you find out that the parent refuses and she or he decides to procrastinate what she or he wanted to do until she or he is having her/his own place to live. Whereby by that time, nobody will be making decisions for him or her.

ü  LAZINESS; some people are just lazybones and sleepyheads. I believe if you are intentional about what you want to do, you stop being lazy and get to work. There has to be something that pushes you or that motivates you to keep going. LAZINESS IS A LAME EXCUSE TO PROCRASTINATION.

ü  FINANCIAL CRISIS; some of the things that we need to do require money and there are times that we don’t have it. This means that it reaches a point where we get to procrastinate on doing something due to our financial status. Still, if you are determined to do something I don’t think if not having money will be a serious excuse not to do what you want to do or to go where you want to go. A determined person always finds a way out!

Some other reasons might be spiritual wise (devils work on dragging you back not to reach your goals or not to be successful)

SO HOW DO WE STOP FROM PROCRASTINATING?

First of all, you need to have people who hold you accountable or you can just find an accountable partner in every goal you set. This person will help you to achieve or fulfill your goal or activity depending on the timeline for each activity you have set. Secondly, you have to minimize distractions. Whatsoever is distracting you from doing what you want to do you have to minimize it or cut it for the meantime. Thirdly, Commit to the task. Commit yourself to do the task; invest most of your time in it.

Furthermore, there are so many ways on how to stop procrastinating like rephrasing your internal dialog, promising yourself a reward, but I find those three above crucial. To wrap this up, remember that;

 every day spent procrastinating is another day spent worrying about that thing. Do it now, and move on with your life.

"TO MAKE EACH DAY COUNT" 

                                                                                                                Jajaapsycho.