Procrastination: Deconstructed

 

Everyone at some stage or another faces procrastination. I for one have it creeping in on me every Tuesday. As ridiculous as that sounds, its common to find yourself procrastinating and putting off meetings, tasks and initiatives. One thing for certain is it can be induced by circumstances, emotional condition, environment or purely exhaustion. When one lives day in and day out, one may find themselves constructing a plan or thought that they feel they must commit to and accomplish however it is not those showers or 2am thoughts that accomplish them but the will you generate to make the first steps towards your tasks. Here I would like to provide my insights on how one could self-assess, acknowledge and move forward past the desire to not do as they wished for.

The best way to define procrastination would be to term it as a phase of failure to self-regulate brought on by irrational delays despite the risks of potentially negative consequences. So let us work backwards here. You procrastinate because you feel you have time, you feel you have time because you had a deadline, you realized the deadline and outweighed the need to complete the task against another task or state of existence, you chose this state of existence because it provided you with ease and comfort. Now the cycle comes into the picture, you chose this comfort because you felt you had time to accomplish your task. The cycle can be truly vicious and detrimental to your mental health because the task which you have at hand was outweighed by one involving you staying in your comfort zone. All acts and decisions one make have a way of coming back around at us. Tasks that initially feel too much to do right now can often be easier done then, than later. We are often blinded by our comfort zone that we cease to look outward and forward into the repercussions a delay may cause us. In a world of instant gratifications, we are all measured by our commitment and dedication to long term goals. All tasks that we accomplish, however small or large, quick or long are a culmination of small steps the define the longer road ahead. Procrastinating in itself, can be a hurdle we place ourselves, right Infront of us. Jumping, hence may take a lot more out of us than having just walked past.

Most who procrastinate, myself included feel the need to do so because of a lack of motivation or inspiration. The truth on the subject is, if you wait for that right state of mind to come around to do tasks, even the most undesirable tasks, you will find that the right time never comes and the task just gets pushed on and on until our very minds are pushed to a limit of frantic disarray. One thing I find most common across people I’ve met who complain about having procrastinated, is they thought about doing it but never got to put down their devices and sitting down with their thoughts about how important it is to complete the tasks before the deadline. As I write this article, I am procrastinating myself on a task that is due before the end of the month. You would find, jotting down your thoughts and tasks for later perusal helps in prioritizing. Should that fail, the need to try and sit down with starting the task, again or for the first time still arises. No one, no one can force you to do something or against without your own mind and guilty conscience. Step out of that comfort zone and see what you can accomplish. Sit down with your thoughts, note down your tasks, plan a routine and incorporate them into its slot one day at a time, if not, one week at a time. Stop telling people what work you have to do; you’d spend a lot more energy and time telling people about it than accomplishing the task itself.

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