Why People Procrastinate: The Real Reason You are Always Procrastinating

 Do you sometimes write a to-do list and never push through with the tasks?

Do you sometimes feel like working out every day is boring?

Do you sometimes spend more time and energy doing one specific task?

Well, if this sounds familiar, you are not alone. We all procrastinate from time to time because of different reasons. Heck, procrastination has been there from the beginning of time. 

The old-time philosophers gave it the name Akrasia. Which means acting against your judgment. I like to define procrastination as this:

Unnecessarily delaying or postponing important or any other type of task. 

Now that you've known what procrastination is, we'll dive right into the root causes of procrastination.

The Building blocks of procrastination 

There are 5 main causes of procrastination. They identify themselves as:

Perfectionism 

Does this sound familiar?

You've been working on an assignment for two weeks but you don't still think it's good enough. Instead of submitting it, you keep asking for more time. You still feel like it has flaws. 

Believe it when I tell you your perfectionism is causing you to procrastinate. 

This is because you've set some unrealistic standards here. To put it simply: you're afraid of failure. You're afraid of what people might think and say about your work. This leads us to the second point.

Fear of failure 

Perfectionism causes you to procrastinate by instilling the fear of failure in you. You worry so much about what other people will think of your work. I won't blame you for your fear of failure. After all, social platforms have set unrealistically high standards. 

Let's say you want to be an article writer, the first thing that you'll read in almost all articles is this: If you want to get clicks write a captivating headline.

A captivating headline here is not the problem. The problem is you're a beginner. As a beginner, your headlines are likely to be unattractive at first.

This standard that has been set for you is what makes you fear failure. As a result, you turn out to be a perfectionist. You're trying to avoid any flaws in what you do.

Anxiety 

It's a few hours before the deadline for your assignment. You're anxious about the results. You start self-questioning.

Will I pass?

Will I fail?

Should I copy John's work?

Will I  be discovered if I copy John's work?

So many questions right? 

You decide to make an impulse decision. That is to procrastinate. Email your supervisor an empathetic message about how you didn't have access to blah blah. If you're lucky enough, you get another chance. 

What do you do with this chance?

Work on the assignment well? Probably not. Chill out with your show on Netflix as you snack. More time right? Because the deadline is still far.

Distractions 

Do you sometimes start small talk in the morning but never get back to your main task?

Yeah, that time when you were debating who the lead actress should end up with. Before you realize it, you've spent 5 hours debating! You decide to put off that task.

Sometimes these distractions come from our phones. We scroll through social media for hours on end. The reason we do this is because we trying to avoid the stressful work awaiting us. We want to feel good in the short term.

Disconnect from the future self 

Do you sometimes go to bed hyped and motivated to achieve your goals?

What happens the following day is something completely different. You feel bored, tired, or even demotivated. This is because your future self and present self are not in cohorts.

Your future self is willing to put in the work to achieve your goals. The present self, which should be taking action, doesn't feel like putting in the work. 

This is also the reason it's easy for us to fall back into the pattern of procrastination.

For example, you've set the goal of saving $120 every month. Your future self knows how beneficial this money will be to you. By the time you retire, you'll have your financial freedom. 

Your present self, on the other hand, values buying new clothes and shoes with this money. 

After all, the benefits of not being financially fit are far, right?

Feeling overwhelmed

At one point or another, you've probably procrastinated doing the activities on your to-do list. One of the reasons for doing so is that you felt intimidated by the amount of time each task required. 

When these tasks have overwhelmed you, decide to procrastinate. You procrastinate on important and urgent tasks. By failing to organize your tasks correctly, you are disorganized.

Abstract goals 

Do you sometimes wake up and decide that you want to clean your entire, messy house in 3 hours?

Most of the time, you don't bring yourself to finish cleaning, right?

This is because you've set a general goal here. Maybe you could be more specific by deciding to start with a small section first. Perhaps, your kitchen cabinets. By doing this, you've made it easy to start cleaning the house. 

Because starting with the kitchen cabinets, you've set a specific goal. This is not a generic or abstract goal.

Conclusion 

Procrastination is caused by;

1. Setting abstract goals.
2. Feeling overwhelmed.
3. Having a disconnect between the future and present self.
4. Anxiety.
5. Perfectionism.
6. Fear of failure.

Now that you know the causes of procrastination, what are you waiting for? Check out this next post to see how you can overcome procrastination.