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Procrastination: why some people always live on the edge
Psychology
Postponing tasks until the last minute is a very insane way of managing time and work.
It’s one thing to be lazy, it’s another to procrastinate. And although the two start from the same base, that last action has something that makes it a little different, because we are not only talking about giving ourselves body and soul to inactivity, but about doing it while we are fully aware that we should be taking advantage of the time with some responsibility.
And why do we avoid our responsibilities even though we have to take care of them? Many times it has to do with the fact that we feel unmotivated and tired, and we feel that we do not have the strength to carry out the necessary tasks. One of the problems with procrastination is that it can take its toll on us in the long run. The psychologist Irene López Assor comments that to delay
a task in time not only entails a waste of time but also, «a increased stress and poor academic and professional performance». Also, this phenomenon can be a paralysis derived from the stress we feel. “There is something that paralyzes us and that is making us be irresponsible with ourselves,” says the psychologist. Therefore, it encourages us to identify why we postpone a task, because normally there is always a reason.
On the other hand, the professional comments that procrastination is a trait of lack of responsibility, both of our time and with those goals that we set for ourselves in life, which may be motivated by the aforementioned unease. Likewise, procrastination is often caused by proposing goals that are what others want from us, and not what we really want: “Being incoherent, we postpone it, we put it aside, and we don’t do it,” says the psychologist. .
It is interesting to analyze what it is that robs us of that time when we talk about procrastinating. If we talk about distraction at work, it is easy for other people to be the cause, interrupting us for help or chatting with during our working hours. Not only at work, but in general, one of the main distraction factors is usually social media and electronic devices.
What kind of procrastinator are you
Garland Coulson, a lecturer who teaches about productivity, explains in the book ‘Stop wasting time’ (Dome Books) that there are several types of procrastinators:
1. The squeamish. These types of people spend a lot of energy thinking that they will not be able or do not have time to finish the job. In this way, when it comes to work they no longer have energy.
2. The perfectionist. These people need each project to be ‘perfect’, so they spend a lot of time reviewing the work over and over again in an attempt to improve it, and the consequence is that they never get anything done.
3. The complacent. They are people who seek to help, that is why they always answer yes to everything without assessing how this will affect the planning of their work.
4. The hummingbird. These people do ‘a little bit’ of everything, but they don’t get to finish anything. Thus, they are always busy, but they do not bring anything to fruition in the long term. They can’t handle longer jobs that involve deep concentration.
5. The disguised procrastinator. These people always arrive on the scheduled date, but with a lot of effort: it is with a last minute (and overwhelming) push that they achieve it.