Procrastination

2 min read

Just before our recent workshop on Procrastination, a friend mentioned that she has re-framed procrastination as pre-preparing time. Cleaning the
bathroom or walking the dog gives her time to think about what she's going to do next and completing even a simple, routine task gives her a dopamine boost which makes getting on and doing the thing so much easier.

It was interesting then to notice how many of our participants came to the workshop with a lot of self judgement about procrastination. We might think that it's something we DO but it turns out that there are quite a lot of FEELINGS attached to procrastination and not many of them were positive.

“Hiding, avoiding, feeling bad.”
“Running away, self-sabotage, overloading.”
“And for many of us, it's a cyclic pattern that we don't seem to
learn from.”
“Wait until it builds up, feel increasingly shameful that I'm not doing it, then it becomes unavoidable, I do it and realise it wasn't that bad after all.”

When a behaviour is that embedded, it's interesting to find out what we're doing it for. Are we thrill seekers, and we get a genuine kick from leaving things until the last minute.

Or is it a fear of not being good enough, a fear of failure, a need for perfection that puts us off starting?

For some people, it's simply a question of clearing space in their diaries or in their heads, getting all the little tasks out of the way so they can concentrate on the big one. But sometimes everyday life keeps getting in the way and there was a realisation for some that there's a difference between processing and generally having too much to do.

We could have spent so much more time finding out our processes, but we decided to focus on tips and strategies that we'd be taking away from the session. Here’s some of the things that participants said:

“I’d like to be able to focus on the satisfaction of completion and be motivated by that rather than being motivated by failure or the safety of avoidance. To focus on how good it will feel to get it done, rather than on what anyone else might think of it.”
“I’m going to lighten up, worry about the little things less, say no more, laugh more, I probably just need to lessen the load and organise it better.”
“I need to embrace the procrastination a bit, do the dog walk with the plan to do the work on my return etc. Put some structure in the procrastination.”
“I need to break it down into achievable chunks and allocate the time to do 1 chunk, then the next. Focus on the positives from each step towards the overall achievement.”
“I procrastinate when I'm overwhelmed. I need to work on helping myself to come down from overwhelm to do the task.”
“Knowing it's a shared struggle is a comfort and knowing we all want to feel better about it and give ourselves that chance is hopeful and motivating too.”

Did you miss out on our workshop? Watch Sarah Scarratt and Rachel Gilmore reflect on the workshop below.

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