Almost all of us postpone something we need to do.
Not just anything, but something important.
Even now, while reading this article, it is very possible that there is something else you were supposed to be doing, something more important, that you would have preferred to do instead.
Procrastination is a series of behaviors in which we delay an activity that we perceive as important. We do something less important instead of the important task.
Task postponement may be interpreted as laziness, but most people who procrastinate are far from lazy.
For them, procrastination is a behavior accompanied by negative emotions, feelings of pressure, anxiety, and distress.
Thus, a student may postpone studying for an exam out of fear of not achieving a sufficient grade.
A teenager may avoid forming social connections out of fear of not entering a desired relationship or fear of rejection.
A person whose dream is to write poetry postpones writing.
A person who fears discovering a serious illness postpones routine medical tests.
In fact, most of us postpone important tasks, some more and some less.
Why do we hesitate so much to try and do the things that are important to us?
After all, if we do not try, we will certainly be left with nothing.
Why do we postpone tasks, get hurt, and suffer, when we know that eventually we will have to do them?
Often, when it seems to us that we simply do not have the strength to deal with the task, procrastination serves as a defense against coping with something that threatens us, consciously or unconsciously.
That is, we avoid performing a task whose execution or outcomes may burden us and present us in an unfavorable light, in the eyes of others and in our own eyes.
We prefer to remain stuck, distract ourselves with less important activities or fantasies, without changing ourselves or the way we perceive ourselves.
We prefer to avoid the tests of life in which we may receive a grade that does not match our aspirations or the expectations and illusions we have of ourselves.
In the society in which we live, great emphasis is placed on achievement and personal responsibility. As a result, we often identify a person’s quality with their achievements rather than who they are, and we judge ourselves in the same way.
Similarly, many people adopt managerial models for their own lives and attribute exclusive importance to outcomes and the bottom line.
Thus, a student who fails an exam may view themselves as stupid, careless, or incapable.
In the tight, overly tight equation people make between achievement and personal worth, there is a distortion of reality.
After all, although a person’s character and skills contribute to achievements, it is easy to imagine additional influences on success, external, situational, or random.
Yet in a world where we seek control and maximization of achievements, we pay the price of threat and fear of bearing the consequences.
We fear performing the task lest the way it is done does not match the fantasy.
Some of us postpone completing tasks because of a similar threat posed by the next tasks in line, not necessarily consciously.
Every stage in our lives is an intermediate station on the way to a new one, and it is difficult to change and leave a place or situation to which we have become accustomed.
An example of this is a student who drags out completing a degree due to fear of losing the familiar framework and entering a world in which they will be forced to deal anew with professional, personal, and social challenges.
Still, some postpone tasks not out of fear but rather out of resistance to playing by the rules dictated by a society that emphasizes results and achievements.
For them, procrastination is a means of preserving their values against authority figures or an expression of anger and disappointment with society.
This rebellion is not necessarily based on conscious ideology.
Often, this reason underlies procrastinating behavior among those who previously tried to play by the rules, made efforts, and even succeeded, but did not receive recognition from significant others such as a parent, teacher, or supervisor.
These reasons are weighty.
However, many times, especially when it comes to postponing simple daily tasks such as cleaning the house or paying fines, we postpone simply because the execution itself is unpleasant and accompanied by negative feelings.
Almost all of us postpone such daily tasks because we prefer the short term sense of calm that comes from removing these tasks from our awareness over the price we will have to pay in the long term. Indeed, in procrastination, whatever the reason, there is almost always a small gain alongside a large loss.
The student who postpones studying for an exam will likely succeed less than they would have with organized study, but gains an excuse for themselves and for others.
After all, managing not to fail an exam with almost no studying may be perceived, in terms of self image and social image, as a greater achievement than receiving an average grade after much effort.
Similarly, the poems a person writes in their imagination can preserve the fantasy that one day, but not writing them in practice distances that day.
And yes, we are healthy as long as we have not been found ill, but early detection of illness can improve chances of recovery.
Therefore, procrastination often involves a kind of self deception, a distorted balance of gains and losses that ignores the full consequences of postponement. However, this self deception does not always succeed and does not manage to block feelings of dissatisfaction, emptiness, and even depression and anxiety. Thus, alongside impaired functioning, procrastination sometimes also substantially harms quality of life.
Still, since the vast majority of people tend to suffer from some degree of procrastination, it is not defined as a mental disorder.
Indeed, many people are not aware that at the base of their suffering lies a behavioral pattern that can be changed.
Unlike other mental states such as depression and anxiety, procrastination is a behavioral pattern that characterizes most people.
Therefore, when people who procrastinate compare themselves to others, they do not necessarily define their behavior as problematic, despite the emotional and material price involved.
They prefer to adopt an alternative explanation for postponement and attribute the difficulty to their emotional state or perceive it as an unavoidable aspect of efficient work.
Accordingly, procrastinators do not think the problem has a solution. Intuitively, it seems to the procrastinator that the solution is to force yourself, stop being lazy, or just do it, and they remain with the feeling that there is a simple solution that somehow does not work.
The high prevalence of procrastinating behavior does not necessarily indicate that these behavioral patterns cannot be changed.
On the contrary, this can be done within group or individual treatment.
However, before turning to treatment that involves financial cost, it is worthwhile to try to change these patterns independently.
The next article will explain the logic behind techniques that can help personal coping with procrastination and will present several simple and effective techniques.