In his book, The Procrastination Equation, Piers Steel, Ph.D. says there are three main reasons we procrastinate:

• Some of us don’t expect to do too well on the task so we avoid it.

• Some of us don’t value a task so we avoid it.

• Some of us impulsively do lots of other things besides the task we need to do.

After working with lots of procrastinators over the years, I would also add that some of us can get a lot of things done at the last minute, and over time, this becomes a reason why we procrastinate.

If you are a true procrastinator, you know that the urge to procrastinate is extremely difficult to control. The more we try to control that urge, the more we focus on it, and it becomes more likely that we will procrastinate. Have you ever wondered why?

The Urge to Procrastinate is Brain-Based

Our urge to procrastinate is wrapped up in the parts of our brain that involve stress management and motivation. Most of these parts of our brain function automatically: they are hard-wired to do one specific task. For example, our brain’s safety system was designed for us to fight, freeze, or flee when we faced dangerous and stressful situations. For some of us, expecting not to do well is a threatening stressor that we try to avoid.  As a result, we put off completing our taxes or other difficult projects. Similarly, our brain’s motivation center struggles to produce the drive needed to get started on a task we don’t value.

These parts of our brain typically have one job: to respond to threats, rewards, and motivations and they perform this one job all day every day. These parts of our brain are very good at what they do. They are like a professional boxer who is totally focused on boxing. Just as fighting the professional boxer and winning is impossible for most of us, fighting the urges produced in these automatic parts of our brain and winning is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In order to win, we need to develop a different plan.

Take Action Overcome the Urge to Procrastinate

A while back, I was using a research-proven technique – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – to help a teenager struggling with a different difficult urge to control when I realized that this same process could work for the urge to procrastinate. Over the past few years, I’ve tried it with a number of procrastinators and when they take the steps outlined in my next posts, they can start to overcome procrastination.  I believe that you can too!

• Accept Your Urge to Procrastinate. Accepting the urge doesn’t mean agreeing to procrastinate, but it is an important step to overcoming this problem.

• Deal with Low Expectations.  If you are not expecting to do well on a task, it can be helpful to identify these negative thoughts and then asking yourself some questions to disprove those thoughts.

• Commit to Acting on Your Values. Focusing on your values allows you to ignore the urge to procrastinate.

• Take Action to Address Your Struggles.  If you often find lots of other activities to do besides doing the right thing at the right time, try these suggestions to address these distractions.

Need Help Applying these Concepts?

Contact us to make an appointment.  Dr. Davenport has lots of other strategies to help you deal with this most difficult of the executive functioning difficulties!

(c) 2014-2019, Monte W. Davenport, Ph.D.