7.2 Procrastination
Procrastination is the thief of time. We all procrastinate, but when you have dyslexia (or other learning difficulties that reduce attention span), reading and writing can take longer and require more effort. This makes getting started even harder. Understanding these feelings and developing some strategies can help.
Remember!
Procrastination is an emotion management problem – not merely a time management problem.
If we have negative emotions about a task, we want to avoid it. But that’s a short-term solution – the task doesn’t go away. Guilt and shame are some of the most common emotions associated with procrastination. Awareness, understanding, acceptance/tolerance, coping ability, and the ability to modify emotional experience can all help to regulate emotions.
Keep these points in mind:
- Everything doesn’t need to be done in one sitting, or even ten. Making a start can look like writing 30 words – but this could give you the motivation you need.
- Getting started and successfully completing one task can build motivation for more, raising self-confidence.
Here are some strategies to help beat procrastination.
| Self-efficacy | Motivation | Perfectionism | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positive self-talk: prevents ego depletion and promotes self-belief | Don’t wait for motivation or to be in the right mood – just act! | Lower standards a little: perfectionism and fear of failure can paralyse you | Inhibit multi-tasking, and reduce your number of tasks |
| Success encourages feelings of accomplishment and the motivation to do more | Activity often inspires more activity – action comes first, motivation comes second | Be more relaxed to be more creative and more productive | Break up tasks into small, manageable units and link study to small rewards, and studying will become a more positive experience |
| Mindset: imagine yourself doing the task and finishing the task, remember/visualise a past success. | Completing a project builds more confidence and motivation to do it again | Identify your fear | Consider your working environment, how and where do you work best… declutter. |
| Give yourself credit – procrastinators tend to do just the opposite | List everything you’ve achieved in a day | Failure is a stepping stone to success and a necessary human leaning tool | Work in short spurts with breaks – use a timer |
| Find something interesting in your work | Make a plan, and include timings. | ||
| Very specific intentions in the form of ‘when… then’ can make a big difference to success | |||
| Accountability – tell someone what you will be doing and when you will be starting |
Apps
Here are a few apps that might be helpful:
- Focusmate – helps you with productivity by connecting you with a partner.
- StickK, Habit Tracker and HabitShare – free apps that help with tracking habits.
- The Noise App – this could be useful if you feel your study or workplace are noisy, and would benefit from recording audio or video evidence.
One more suggestion
Try asking ‘how’ instead of ‘why’. Think about how to reach your desired outcome and ask yourself questions like:
‘How can I move forward?’
‘How can I stop procrastinating?’
‘How can I do this?’
‘Why’ questions stop you seeing the solutions. They can lead to overthinking or sole focus on the problems themselves.
‘How’ questions make your brain search for solutions and try to achieve those outcomes. These are more action-oriented and solution-focused, as you’re thinking about the strategies involved.
So: try asking ‘how’ questions more often, and see what changes over time.