Episode Details

Procrastination plagues many of us. It seems we are endlessly creative at avoiding things that we know are important. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Hello and welcome to episode 100 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Procrastination plagues many of us. In fact, research suggests that around 25% of people have procrastination as a defining personality trait. But whether you procrastinate all the time or just every so often, I'm sure you would love to procrastinate a little less.

And that's not surprising, particularly given that procrastination is associated with a range of negative outcomes including low self-esteem, high pessimism, high anxiety, boredom, fatigue and detachment.

One definition of procrastination is "voluntarily delaying an intended task despite expecting to be worse off for doing so". This highlights a few key aspects of procrastination:

1. It's voluntary - procrastination is something that we choose to do

2. It gets in the way of our intentions - despite wanting to do one thing, we introduce something else as a replacement, even if that replacement is just staring at the ceiling

3. We know it will make things worse - procrastination never makes things easier, and we typically know that at the point we choose to procrastinate

So given all of this, why do we procrastinate? Researchers describe procrastination as "a form of self-regulation failure involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay of important tasks for the purpose of short-term mood repair." Put simply, procrastination is about prioritising short-term mood repair over long-term goal pursuit. We procrastinate because it makes us feel better in the short-term. In fact, research demonstrates that the more negative our mood, the more time we spend procrastinating. We use procrastination to feel better. Understanding this can help us to reduce how often we procrastinate. Once we recognise that we're actually delaying and amplifying negative mood, we can appreciate just how self-defeating procrastination can be. In addition, we can look for ways to boost our mood prior to undertaking a task where we think there is a risk of procrastination. Schedule those tasks where procrastination is a risk at the points of your day when your mood is typically most positive.

I think it's also important to consider how you think about procrastination. Consider someone who says "I am a procrastinator" versus another person who says "I procrastinate". The person who describes themselves as a procrastinator sees procrastination as an ongoing trait, part of their personality, and part of who they are. For that person to overcome procrastination requires a change of identity, not just a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour. In contrast, the person who says "I procrastinate" sees procrastination as a passing state, that it is task-specific, and that it is how they act sometimes. In that case overcoming procrastination requires a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour, but not a change in how the person sees themselves. If you want to reduce how often you procrastinate, start by thinking about procrastination as something you choose to do, rather than something that defines who you are.

We often fail in making meaningful change because we try to stop procrastinating rather than trying to pursue the opposite of procrastination. The opposite of procrastination isn't just getting things done on time, it's actually a state that psychologists call flow. Flow is a positive state which feels great, wh