Why Do We Procrastinate?
People put things off for all sorts of reasons.
Give me a minute, and I’ll tell you why and what to do about it…
My grandmother used to say, “don’t put off to tomorrow what you can do today.”
All through high school and college, I pretty much lived the opposite of my grandmother’s advice.
Which sucks. Because chances are, when you’re procrastinating, you’re not doing your best work. You’re feeling stressed and rushed.
When you’re putting a project off (deferring it with no clear plan of attack other than “later”), your brain won’t let it go. You’re operating at a sub-optimal capacity because you’ve got this weight of the undone project and its undefined plan of attack.
You know this. I know this. Yet still we procrastinate. Why?
Why do we procrastinate?
All sorts of reasons. Here are a few…
- Because we lack motivation.
- There are other things we’d rather be doing.
- We don’t know what the first step to get started is.
- We’re afraid.
- We’re easily distracted.
- We think we lack the resources to start / complete the task.
- The project feels overwhelming.
- We’re stubborn.
- We have a history of procrastinating and not seeing our tasks through to the end.
Surely the most common reason to procrastinate is a lack of motivation. If you were motivated (or, instead of “motivated”, use the word “excited”) to accomplish a task, then you’d be going full-steam.
Oftentimes it takes that looming deadline or some other external force to motivate us to finally take care of the task. Or, if it’s a task with no deadline, we may find ourselves putting it off for months, if not years. “I’ll get to it someday,” we tell ourselves.
Meanwhile, there are other things we have no trouble staying motivated to do. Such as making time to eat, sleep, be with our family, read a book, watch a movie, go to our job, play video games, etc. And oftentimes it is these other tasks and hobbies that we turn to when we are procrastinating. For example, instead of cleaning out the garage like we’ve been meaning to, we watch a movie. Or instead of working on the next chapter of our book, we play a video game.
How then do we beat procrastination?
Is the answer to only ever work on projects we’re excited about? If you were making a living from your passion, would you never deal with procrastination again? Nope.
The adrenaline we get from fresh motivation only lasts so long. It’s awesome while it lasts, but it comes and goes.
Don’t blame your tendency to procrastinate and your lack of motivation on external circumstances.
As I mentioned in regards to Benjamin Franklin’s daily routine, is that one big myth about creativity is that it cannot be harnessed.
Here’s some advice from well-known painter and photographer, Chuck Close:
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
My all-time favorite Benjamin Franklin quote is: “Little strokes fell great oaks.”
In a blog post about his writing process, Seth Godin concluded with the sentiment that there is no “right way” to write. He says: “The process advice that makes sense to me is to write. Constantly. At length. Often.”
And, to quote Ray Bradbury, “Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.”
Procrastination robs you of this.
Procrastination keeps you from showing up every day.
Procrastination tells you that instead of showing up every day, you can just cram at the last minute.
It tells you that there is always tomorrow. It lies to you, saying that just because you’re ignoring this task again and again doesn’t mean you’ve quit. But the only difference between a quitter and an habitual procrastinator is that the latter is lying to herself.
Procrastination is perhaps the greatest enemy to producing meaningful work.
Because procrastination robs you of the process — the process of sitting down every day to be creative and to think and to do the work.
The path to success (both in our career and in accomplishing our life goals) is rarely glamorous. It’s usually mundane and repetitive.
Underachievers will waste their time daydreaming about when their big break will come while they procrastinate doing work they don’t see as important. Meanwhile, true achievers will do the work, day in and day out, with vision and strategy and consistency.
Don’t Let Your Procrastination Gain Momentum
The longer you put something off the easier it becomes to keep putting it off.
And that unchecked procrastination will bleed over into other areas of your life.
Have you ever noticed how people who are disciplined with their finances are usually disciplined with their time and their diet their relationships as well?
Having structure and focus in one area of our life gives us clarity and momentum to bring structure to the other areas.
That’s why building the right habits and routines are so important.
The difference between motivation and routines
For me, the best part of a project is everything before and after. I love to dream and brainstorm about it. And I love it when I’m done…
But the whole part in-between — the actual doing of the project — that’s hard work.
Yet the hard work is the only part that counts. That’s why you must make a doing the most important work part of your regular routine.
By making it part of your normal schedule to show up and do the work every day, you blast through the mundaneness of it.
Doing the hard but rewarding work – your best work – simply becomes part of what you do every day. You don’t have waste energy thinking about if you’re going to show up or not, you just do. And that routinization helps you focus your decision-making energy for the work and choices that matter most.
Build a Better Schedule
On July 26, I’m hosting a free, live workshop. You should check it out.
At This Free Workshop, You’ll Discover…
- How your schedule and your habits work hand in hand to accomplish your life’s goals.
- Why most people struggle to balance all the areas of their life.
- The framework I use to keep my work and life in balance.
- The biggest productivity misunderstanding out there.
These are all the foundational ideas lifted right from my flagship product, The Focus Course.
What: A one-hour workshop (hosted online)
When: Wednesday July 26, at 3pm Eastern
If you can’t make it live, no problem! We will be recording this workshop and making a replay available. So even if you can’t make it to the live event, you should still RSVP below and we’ll send you the replay video for you to watch on your own time.
RSVP to the Workshop here…