Have you ever missed a deadline or two? Did you spend a day without showering just because you were home all day? Do you find yourself stressed last minute because you must submit last minute even though you had enough time to do it? This may not be news to you but you are a procrastinator.
A procrastinator is his/ her own enemy. They fully know what they are supposed to, how and when but they will continue putting it off until the very last minute.
Fear, dread or anxiety that comes to a person when they think of a certain activity or work are the main cause of procrastination.
Feeling as though you won’t do a good enough job with the work you have been tasked with and putting it off over and over again until it is time to submit the work or past the time to deliver the work, practically marks an individual as a procrastinator.
The ‘I don’t care attitude’ is typically the push procrastinators need to finish the task they were handed.
Once a procrastinator feels as though it doesn’t matter what people think of their work, which mostly is close or after the deadline, they will start rushing to finish up the work.
In a way we will procrastinate at some point in our lives; in school, work, relationships, or with simple to-do lists.
There are those moments that we are fully motivated and wake up with all the energy to do all the things that we had put off and there are also those days where we start a task and quit halfway through.
Looking at my computer right now, there are so many to-do lists, from different years that are waiting to be completed and the more I read them, the more I think, ‘oh that one is easy enough’ but as soon as I start it, it is also as soon as I quit it.
Self-destruction occurs in different ways and procrastination is one of them.
A person can limit their chances of moving on in life because they are scared of the journey ahead, because sometimes we would rather say we did not try, rather than say that we tried and failed.
The same way a bully could make you feel small, bring out negative feelings that are from within you, and make you feel uncertain about who you are and what you do.
Wondering if what you are doing is going to be impactful to anyone, if anyone is going to understand the effort that was poured in this, makes one choose to delay the task.
Sometimes, this is also a sign that one is overconfident in their abilities, thinking they can do it at the last minute and it would still turn out perfect.
Procrastination makes a person find more enjoyable, easier tasks to complete, which makes them feel and look busy, while ignoring urgent matters.
Most of us would rather spend hours browsing through social media rather than complete a task. The funny thing is, we remember the tasks we have been putting off while putting off the new ones.
While delaying when I will remember my clothes, I will all of a sudden remember that I have been putting off cleaning my cupboard. This is because at that moment, it is much easier for me to clean my cupboard since it sounds a little more enjoyable.
Procrastination is not a healthy way of living. The stress that we put our minds and bodies through while trying to complete tasks that were designed to take more than a week and doing them in a day, is definitely going to affect us.
To let go of procrastination, a person has to let go of the idea of perfectionism, it is important to understand that even if we think of something as perfect, to someone else, it might be mediocre at best. Once that perfectionist mentality is no longer, it will be much easier to complete tasks.
Procrastination deals with one’s emotions not their time. It is how you feel about doing a task that makes you delay. It has nothing to do with not knowing how to manage your time.
Learning how to handle your emotions when you receive a task that you do not want to do will help so much more than making any list.
When procrastinating, a person is not avoiding the work. In fact, there is a little excitement that comes with knowing how challenging the task is. However, the moment we start the task and we feel it is not good enough, the fear comes in that we will fail, the anxiety that people will know that we failed, and other factors will lead to procrastination.
So, the next time you see someone procrastinate, understand that they might just be frightened of failure which also happens to be their bully.
