Let's Procrastinate Later!

There are a variety of strategies we can employ to stop procrastinating. Below, I'll outline and explain each concept, then I'll provide you with some examples of strategy in action. Option 1: Make the Rewards of Taking Action More Immediate If you can find a way to make the benefits of long-term choices more immediate, then it becomes easier to avoid procrastination. One of the best ways to bring future rewards into the present moment is with a strategy known as temptation bundling. Temptation bundling is a concept that came out of behavioral economics research performed by Katy Milkman at The University of Pennsylvania. Simply put, the strategy suggests that you bundle a behavior that is good for you in the long-run with a behavior that feels good in the short-run. Option 2: Make the Consequences of Procrastination More Immediate There are many ways to force you to pay the costs of procrastination sooner rather than later. For example, if you are exercising alo...

Most psychologists see procrastination as a kind of avoidance behavior, a coping mechanism has gone awry in which people “give in to feel good,” says Timothy Pychyl, a professor who studies procrastination at Carleton University, in Ottawa. It usually happens when people fear or dread, or have anxiety about, the important task awaiting them. To get rid of this negative feeling, people procrastinate — they open up a video game or Pinterest instead. That makes them feel better temporarily, but unfortunately, reality comes back to bite them in the end. Once the reality of a deadline sets in again, procrastinators feel more extreme shame and guilt. But for an extreme procrastinator, those negative feelings can be just another reason to put the task off, with the behavior turning into a vicious, self-defeating cycle. Tim Urban, who runs the blog Wait But Why, created an amazing and funny (if layman's) explanation of what may happen inside the brain of a procrastinat...

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We all procrastinate but most of us don’t really consider the reasons why we do it. There’s a tendency to assume that we procrastinate because we are weak or we’d simply rather be doing something more fun. In my experience, there are several types of procrastination and the key to beating them is to truly understand why we’re procrastinating in the first place. Here’s my guide to four different types of procrastination and how you can beat them. 1. Anxious procrastination Neil Fiore, the author of The Now Habit, defined procrastination as “a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.” Fiore suggested that people who procrastinate a lot are usually bad at managing their time and often end up scheduling in more work than they can actually do, leaving no time for fun activities or resting. Fiore suggested that not fulfilling these unrealistic expectations causes stress and anxiety which some people deal with by procrastin...

Hello everyone, It's Friday afternoon and the clock is ticking. You're working furiously to complete a task before the five o'clock deadline, while silently cursing yourself for not starting it sooner. How did this happen? What went wrong? Why did you lose your focus? Well, there were the hours that you spent re-reading emails and checking social media, the excessive "preparation," the coffee breaks, and the time spent on other tasks that you could have safely left for next week. " While we waste our time hesitating and postponing, life is slipping away. "   - Seneca Sound familiar? If so, you're not alone! Procrastination is a trap that many of us fall into. In fact, according to researcher and speaker Piers Steel , 95 percent of us procrastinate to some degree. While it may be comforting to know that you're not alone, it can be sobering to realize just how much it can hold you back. D uring our...