Defeat The 4 Types Of Procrastination

Procrastination affects most human beings. Yes, even the most hard-working and accomplished people. Only the degree to which it affects you differs from person to person. And as we all know, it wastes a lot of time and resources. This habit is so strong that they even put off doing some of the essential things in their life.

In 2015, a peer-to-peer lending platform called RateSetter demonstrated this in a survey. They found that Brits spend 218 minutes procrastinating every day, which extended to managing their finances as well! This means, in a year, they end up wasting 55 whole days of work! If they could learn to curb their procrastination and make use of even half of that time, they could get an entire month back.

Now, you might understand the need to deal with this habit of yours. But often, you might fail to understand the root cause of why you keep putting things off. It’s incredibly crucial that you know the underlying reasons because that will provide you with concrete ways to address this issue once and for all. Otherwise, you will keep repeating the same old patterns again and again without ever realizing why you do so.

To understand the underlying reasons, we need to take a look at the four types of procrastination. Understanding these four types of procrastination will also help you know which type you belong to.

1) Perfectionist Procrastination

Many people in the world are perfectionists. These people make sure that anything they do is perfect. If you have seen how such people work, you would know that they could go to any lengths to achieve their idea of perfection. Even if their work seems impeccable to you, they will find ways to criticize it and then keep making refinements. Yeah, it must be a pain being in their shoes!

It’s not rocket science to figure out why these people are the best suited for perfectionist procrastination. Since any task or project they take up has to be completed with absolute sincerity and precision, perfectionists might demotivate them to take it up in the first place. I mean, think about it. You would be reluctant to take on a difficult task, wouldn’t you? Now, imagine if that task needs to be done perfectly. Can anything be more complicated than that? Of course, not! So, the result is putting it off forever.

How to overcome it:

Interestingly, if you are a perfectionist, procrastination might help you. If you don’t believe me, well, you might believe John Perry, a former professor and philosopher at Stanford University. In his book, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging, and Postponing, he writes, “As long as they have a lot of time to do a task, they fantasize about doing a perfect job. Leaving it till the last minute is a way of permitting oneself to do a merely adequate job. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a merely adequate job is all that is needed.”

2) Anxious Procrastination

If you have ever put off a task because you felt anxious due to the very thought of giving it a go, then you suffer from this type of procrastination. I think many people will relate to this. At your home or work, you might constantly be under pressure. On top of this, if you have to deal with an activity that is tricky to get done, you might instantly feel anxious. And as we all know, we are all hardwired to avoid feeling bad. We naturally want to gravitate towards a state of pleasure and pleasantness. The result is that we end up postponing it.

When you do this, it results in an instant change in your brain chemistry. The limbic system in your brain becomes satisfied, and thus, you feel better. But the fact remains. You have merely delayed the inevitable. You haven’t put it to an end. What you ignore today will come back to haunt you the next day and the day after that until you finally deal with it. So, how do you address this issue?

How to overcome it:

Since this type of procrastination is often due to other stressors, a good idea could be to craft your schedule accordingly. Let’s say you have to do a particular task the next day that you anticipate your brain might tell you to postpone. What you can do is, you can schedule some fun activities before that task. You can also prepare some rest before taking on the job. Planning periods of rest will help you relax and deal with the issue at hand without feeling overwhelmed. Author Neil Fiore mentions this strategy in his book The Now Habit.

3) Distracted Procrastination

Tell me if this has happened to you. You finally sit in front of your laptop and start working on that project you had been ignoring for a long while. And before you can even begin, your hand automatically opens up a new tab on the browser, opens up YouTube, and you start watching cat videos. Ok, that last part may vary, but you get the point! This type of procrastination happens because you keep on getting distracted by one thing or the other. Again, it happens because your limbic system wants to be entertained!

Before you know it, you have wasted your entire day and energy. The situation can get especially tricky if your project is time-bound and has a deadline. It leads to stress, anxiety, and your work most definitely suffers in terms of quality. If this becomes a habit, it can have more considerable consequences that you would want to avoid. Suffice it to say; you have to deal with this type of procrastination asap.

How to overcome it:

More often than not, it is that one task that you want to avoid subconsciously. Avoidance then leads you to a whole slew of distractions. So, what you can do is, instead of wasting precious time on useless cat videos and social media feeds, you could use it to deal with other tasks on your to-do list. Yes, this will still lead to the procrastination of the main task, but you will be better off by dealing with other items on your list!

4) Crisis Procrastination

This type of procrastination happens when a person keeps putting something off for two reasons. Either it doesn’t have a deadline or keeps pushing it until the last minute of the deadline. In both situations, the task at hand eventually becomes urgent, and you have a crisis on your hand. But chronic procrastinators just can’t bring themselves to start working on something when they perceive that there is a lot of time on hand. So, what does one do in these situations?

How to overcome it:

There is no doubt that deadlines are effective in curbing procrastination. Even if they are self-imposed deadlines, you could self-impose one for the tasks that don’t have a time limit. Deadlines or time-boxing will motivate you to complete it within that time frame. To make sure you go through with it, you could raise the stakes and make yourself accountable to a family member or a friend.

For those tasks that have deadlines, you could try and prepone those deadlines. So, even if you wait till the last moment to get stuff done, it will still be well within the original deadline. You will have finished your work with time to spare. Preponing deadlines might be pretty tricky, and you might have to get used to it before it starts becoming effective.

Final Thoughts

Most people know what procrastination is, and they acknowledge that they fall prey to it from time to time. However, they don’t realize why exactly they are doing it. And that too, over and over again. They fail to see the underlying reasons for their repeated behavior. In reality, many types of procrastination stem from various fundamental reasons. These reasons relate to people’s nature, personality, and basic biology.

Understanding the different types of procrastination will help you identify which category you fall under. Then, you can take concrete steps to deal with procrastination effectively. Who knows, by solving the inherent issues, you could open up other possibilities!

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