Man : Tomorrow (Procrastination)

Procrastination

Psychologically, Procrastination.       
 refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority,

       doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and
       thus putting off important tasks to a later time.

  
             According to  Freud Pleasure Principle: humans do not prefer negative emotions, and would ward off a stressful task. The concept that humans work best under pressure provides additional enjoyment and motivation to postponing a task.

        In accordance with Freud Pleasure Principle: humans do not prefer negative emotions, and would ward off a stressful task. The concept that humans work best under pressure provides additional enjoyment and motivation to postponing a task.

Psychological 

    Procrastination is strongly connected with lack of self-confidence (e.g., low self-efficacy, or learned helplessness) or disliking the task (e.g., boredom and apathy)and impulsiveness.

Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago, and Timothy Pychyl, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada views:

1. 20% of human are chronic procrastinators. It is a lifestyle and cuts across all domains of their life.

a.    don't pay bills on time

b.   miss opportunities for buying tickets to concerts

c.    don't cash gift certificates or checks.

d.   file income tax returns late.

e.   celebrative shopping until the eve.  

2. A serious problematic culture. A profound problem on self regulations. And there may be more of it in the U.S. than in other countries because we are so nice; we don't call people on their excuses ("my grandmother died last week") even when we don't believe them. 
3. It is not a problem of time management or of planning. It is their inability to estimate time, more optimistically than others. "Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up," Dr. Ferrari.
4. Procrastinators are made not born. It is a learned in the family, but not directly. A response to an authoritarian parenting style.

a.       A harsh, controlling father retard the  developing ability of children to self regulate themselves, their own intentions and then learning to act on them.

b.      A form of rebellion, turn more to friends than to parents for support, and their friends may reinforce procrastination because they tend to be tolerant of their excuses.

5. Procrastinators drink more than they intend to—a manifestation of generalized problems in self-regulation. The effect of avoiding coping styles that lead to disengagement via substance abuse.
6. Procrastinators tell lies to themselves.

a.       Such as, "I'll feel more like doing this tomorrow." Or "I work best under pressure." But the fact is under pressure they do not get the urge the next day or work best. Protecting their sense of self belief by saying "this isn't important."

b.      Time pressure makes them more creative. Unfortunately they do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way and squandering their resources.

7. Look for distractions, which don't take a lot of commitment on their part. Checking e-mail is almost perfect for this purpose. They distract themselves of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure. 
8. Different flavor of procrastination:
• arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
• avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
• decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.
9. The costs to procrastination.

a.       Health is one,  college students compromising immune systems as more insomnia, colds and flu and  gastrointestinal problems.

b.      It shifts the burden of responsibilities onto others, who become resentful. Procrastination destroys teamwork in the workplace and private relationships.

10. Procrastinators can change their behavior—but doing so consumes a lot of psychic energy. And it doesn't necessarily mean one feels transformed internally. It can be done with highly structured cognitive behavioural therapy .

Reason for Procrastinating  

Procrastination depend you and the task.

    i.         Unpleasant Chore

One reason for procrastination is that people find a particular job unpleasant, and try to avoid it because of that. Most jobs have unpleasant or boring aspects to them, and often the best way of dealing with these is to delay, so that you can focus on the more enjoyable aspects of the job.

     ii.      Disorganized

Another cause is that people are disorganized. Disorganized person tempt  to procrastinate, because they don’t have a prioritized to-do lists  and schedules  which emphasize how important the piece work is, and identify precisely when it’s due. Identifying when they need to get started in order to avoid it being late.

  iii.      Overhelmed by Task

Even if you’re organized, you can feel overwhelmed by the task. Doubting that you have the skills or resources you think you need, they feel trouble in doing tasks capable of completing. Unfortunately, the big task isn't going to go away – truly important tasks rarely do. You may also fear success as much as failure. For example, you may think that success will lead to you being swamped with more requests to do this type of task, or that you’ll be pushed to take on things that you feel are beyond you.

    iv.      Perfectionist

Surprisingly, perfectionists are often procrastinators, as they can tend to think "I don't have the right skills or resources to do this perfectly now, so I won't do it at all."

      v.      Underveloped decision making skills

One final major cause of procrastination is having underdeveloped decision-making skills. If you simply can’t decide what to do, you’re likely to put off taking action in case you do the wrong thing.

Reactions to procrastination

Individual coping responses to procrastination are often related to emotional avoidance  task or problem-solving. The emotion coping avoidance is designed to reduce stress. Putting off important personal goals, providing for immediate pleasure and is a habit to impulsive procrastinators.

According to Freudian, there are hundreds of emotion oriented strategies, similar to  defence mechanisms, coping styles and self-handicapping . These procrastinators include using the following:

·   Avoidance     

Avoiding to take actions on the task given (e.g., a graduate student avoiding going to University).

· Distractions     

Engaging ourselves in other behaviors/actions to prevent taking actions to the task (e.g. internet surfing and internet games playing)

·Trivialization          

Rephrasing  the intended action as being not that important (e.g., "I'm putting off going to the dentist, but you know what? Teeth aren't that important.").

·    Counterfactuals:

Comparing our situation with those even worse (e.g., "Yes, I procrastinated and got a B- in the course, but I didn't fail like one other student did."). Considering what would have happened if we didn't procrastinate.

·Humour 

Making a joke of one's procrastination, making fun of achieving and striving  inspirational goal.

·  External attributions:

External forces beyond our control (e.g., "I'm procrastinating because the assignment isn't fair").

·  Reframing:

Pretending that getting an early start on a project is harmful to one's performance and leaving the work to the last moment will produce better results (e.g., "I'm most creative at 4:00 AM in the morning without sleep.").

·Denial    : 
Pretending that procrastinator behavior is not actually procrastinating, but a task which is more important than the avoided one.

Methods for wasting time

Professionals and creative methods that can waste time without even making them feel guilty:

a. Checking your mail:

Checking your mail takes 3 minutes and doing it 3 times/hour : a waste of 10 minutes every one hour. Losing one year each six years!! If you don’t have a strong reason to check your email then simply don’t do it

b. Social networking websites:

Visiting social networking websites for 15 minutes/hour. Losing 1/4 of their time everyday : to check their inbox or to see the new friend requests. The problem is that most of the people return back feeling bad after they visit that site because they don’t usually find anything that they wished to find

c. Doing other things in between:

Doing small useless tasks within the bigger tasks are time wasting champions.

i.                     10 minutes for refreshment,

ii.                   another 10 minutes to search for pens :

iii.                  another 10 minutes to think in the end they may work for

iv.                 15 minutes then stop again because of some noise that is distracting them.

d. Answering your mobile phone:

Phone calls are random, non controllable and attention destroyers so make sure you avoid them while working. Have periodic times to  answer your phone and never do it while working.

e. Not being practical:

The less practical you become the more time you will waste and the less productive you will become.

a.       Fancy finding their special blue pen or their fancy rubber.

b.      Hours searching for a good place to sit,

c.       Driving their cars to find a good spot where they can work,

f. Perceived difficulty:

Mentally deciding that some tasks are difficult, boring or stressful and keep visualizing the difficulty of the task without daring to approach it.

g. The sense of security :

Mistakenly think that most of task assigned can be done on time: a false sense of security. A few of them manage to complete the task in the last few minutes most of them fail to do so and only end up feeling guilty.

h. Waiting for ever:

Waiting for the right mood before starting a task : waiting forever for their moods to change and usually their moods never change.

 Overcoming Procrastination     

Recognize That You're Procrastinating

Here are some useful indicators that will help you know when you’re procrastinating:

• Filling your day with low priority tasks from your To Do List.
• Reading e-mails several times without starting work on them or deciding what you’re going to do with them.
• Sitting down to start a high-priority task, and almost immediately going off to make a cup of coffee.
• Leaving an item on your To Do list for a long time, even though you know it's important.
• Regularly saying "Yes" to unimportant tasks that others ask you to do, and filling your time with these instead of getting on with the important tasks already on your list.
• Waiting for the “right mood” or the “right time” to tackle the important task at hand.

Adopt Anti-Procrastination Strategies

Procrastination is a habit – a deeply ingrained pattern of behavior. That means that you won’t just break it overnight. Habits only stop being habits when you have persistently stopped practising them, so use as many approaches as possible to maximize your chances of beating procrastination. Some tips will work better for some people than for others, and for some tasks than others. And, sometimes, you may simply need to try a fresh approach to beat the “procrastination peril”!

a.      Motivation

·         Make up your own rewards. For example, promise yourself a piece of tasty lunch if you've completed a certain task. And make sure you notice how good it feels to finish things!

·         Ask someone else to check up on you. Peer pressure works! This is the principle behind slimming and other self-help groups, and it is widely recognized as a highly effective approach.

·         Identify the unpleasant consequences of NOT doing the task.

·         Work out the cost of your time   to your employer. As your employers are paying you to do the things that they think are important, you're not delivering value for money if you're not doing those things. Shame yourself into getting going!

b.      Get Organized

·    Keep a To- Do list so that you can’t “conveniently” forget about unpleasant or overwhelming tasks.

·         Use an Urgent/Important Matrix would be acceptable to put off doing something on the grounds that it’s unimportant, or that you have many urgent things which ought to be done first when, in reality, you’re procrastinating.

·         Become a master of scheduling and proect planning, so that you know when to start those all-important projects.

·         Set yourself time -bound goals : that way, you’ll have no time for procrastination!

·         Focus on one task at a time.

c. Overhelming Task

·         Break the project into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks. You may find it helpful to create an action plan.

·         Start with some quick, small tasks if you can, even if these aren't the logical first actions. You'll feel that you're achieving things, and so perhaps the whole project won't be so overwhelming after all.

d.      Unpleasant Job

·         Many procrastinators overestimate the unpleasantness of a task. So give it a try! You may find that it’s not as bad as you thought!

·         Hold the unpleasant consequences of not doing the work at the front of your mind.

·         Reward yourself for doing the task.

Excerpt with thanks taken from:

Hara Estroff Marano, published on October 01, 2003 - last reviewed on November 25, 2009

Published on January 12, 2011 by Jennifer Baker, Ph.D. in For the Love of Wisdom

Timothy Pychyl, published on September 01, 2009 - last reviewed on June 06, 2012

Wikipedia

http://www.mindtools.com