You know it needs to be done.
You have written it on your list.
Moved it to tomorrow.
Moved it to Monday.
Promised yourself you would finally take care of it this morning.
And now it is evening.
Still not done.
So you reach the conclusion millions of people reach:
I have a procrastination problem.
Maybe.
But I want to suggest another possibility.
Maybe procrastination isn’t your problem.
Maybe procrastination is the evidence that there is a problem you haven’t identified yet.
And as long as you keep fighting the procrastination instead of discovering what is underneath it, you may spend years trying to solve the wrong problem.
Five People, One Unfinished Task
Imagine five employees have been asked to prepare an important report.
All five have had two weeks.
All five keep postponing it.
All five tell themselves the same thing:
I procrastinate too much.
But now let’s look inside their minds.
The first employee doesn’t really understand how to begin.
Every time he opens the document, he feels confused.
The second knows exactly how to begin.
But she is terrified that the finished report won’t be good enough.
The third isn’t particularly afraid of the report at all.
He knows that once he submits it, his boss will call him into a meeting he has been dreading.
The fourth thinks the assignment is enormous. She can imagine the finished product, but she cannot see a manageable first step between here and there.
And the fifth?
He doesn’t believe the report should be written in the first place. He disagrees with the approach but hasn’t admitted that even to himself.
From the outside, all five appear to have the same problem.
Procrastination.
But they don’t.
One has confusion.
One has fear of failure.
One is avoiding what happens after completion.
One is overwhelmed.
One has an unresolved disagreement.
Calling all five problems “procrastination” is like five people walking into a doctor’s office with headaches and assuming they must all have the same illness.
The symptom may look identical.
The cause may be completely different.
We Keep Treating the Symptom
This may explain why so much advice about procrastination can feel frustrating.
Set a timer.
Make a schedule.
Break the task into smaller pieces.
Put your phone away.
Give yourself a reward.
Just start for five minutes.
Those strategies can certainly help in some situations.
But suppose you aren’t beginning because you don’t understand what you’re supposed to do.
A timer doesn’t give you clarity.
Suppose you’re terrified that your work will be judged.
A prettier schedule doesn’t resolve that fear.
Suppose finishing the task forces you to make a decision you’ve been avoiding.
A productivity app doesn’t make the decision for you.
We keep developing better techniques for making ourselves move without first asking:
What is making me resist moving?
That question can change everything.
Procrastination May Be Information
Think about a smoke alarm.
When it starts screaming, you don’t stand underneath it saying:
“How do I make this irritating noise stop?”
Well, you might.
But first you want to know:
Why is it making noise?
Maybe there’s a fire.
Maybe something burned in the oven.
Maybe the battery needs replacing.
The alarm doesn’t tell you exactly what is wrong.
It tells you:
Look.
Perhaps procrastination sometimes deserves to be treated the same way.
Not as a moral failure.
Not automatically as laziness.
Not even necessarily as the primary problem.
As information.
Something about this task is producing resistance. Find out what.
Ask a Better Question
Most of us ask:
“Why do I keep procrastinating?”
I don’t love that question.
It’s too broad.
And because we’ve already labeled ourselves procrastinators, the answers come quickly:
Because I’m lazy.
Because I have no discipline.
Because I’m terrible at getting things done.
Because this is just who I am.
None of those answers tells you what to do next.
So try a different question.
Put the task you’ve been avoiding in front of you.
And complete this sentence:
If I did this right now, the part I least want to face is __________.
Don’t answer quickly.
Think.
What exactly are you resisting?
Maybe:
I don’t know how to start.
Good.
Now we have something to solve.
Maybe:
I’m afraid I’ll put in all this work and it still won’t be good enough.
Now we have something to solve.
Maybe:
I have to ask someone for information, and I’m embarrassed that I waited this long.
There it is.
Maybe:
Once I finish this, I have to show it to someone whose reaction scares me.
Interesting.
Maybe:
This is going to take forever.
Good. Now we can examine whether that’s actually true and find the smallest definable piece.
Maybe:
I don’t want to make the decision that completing this requires me to make.
Then perhaps your unfinished task isn’t really a productivity problem.
It’s a decision problem wearing a productivity costume.
Find the Problem Behind the Problem
This is where the entire approach changes.
Don’t solve “procrastination.”
Solve the reason for this procrastination.
If you don’t know where to begin, don’t demand more discipline.
Find the first step.
If the task feels impossibly large, don’t yell at yourself to work harder.
Define one piece small enough to begin.
If you’re missing information, get the information.
If you’re afraid of someone’s reaction, acknowledge that the reaction—not necessarily the task—is what you’ve been avoiding.
If you are terrified of doing something badly, then the real conversation may need to be about your fear of producing imperfect work.
If you don’t actually want to do what you’ve committed to do, stop spending three weeks calling yourself lazy and decide whether you should be doing it at all.
Suddenly something that has been sitting on your list for a month can become understandable.
You weren’t necessarily doing nothing for no reason.
You simply hadn’t found the reason.
The Task You Have Been Avoiding
Let’s try this right now.
Think of one thing you have been postponing.
Not ten.
One.
Something that has been following you around.
The email.
The application.
The phone call.
The paperwork.
The appointment.
The project.
The conversation.
The decision.
Now forget, for a moment, about getting it done.
I want you to become curious about why it isn’t done.
Ask:
If somebody told me I absolutely had to do this in the next hour, what part would make me most uncomfortable?
Then ask:
What would have to change for that uncomfortable part to become easier?
You may discover that you need information.
You may need help.
You may need a decision.
You may need to tolerate imperfection.
You may need to have a difficult conversation.
You may simply need to admit that the task is boring and remove the distractions that are more rewarding.
But whatever the answer is, you have accomplished something important.
You have replaced a label with a reason.
And reasons can be worked with.
Stop Calling Yourself a Procrastinator
There is another danger in repeatedly saying:
“I’m a procrastinator.”
A behavior slowly becomes an identity.
You stop saying:
“I have been putting off this project.”
And start saying:
“This is the kind of person I am.”
But imagine discovering that you consistently postpone only certain kinds of tasks.
Maybe you promptly do things when the path is clear, but freeze when expectations are ambiguous.
Maybe you can work for twelve hours on difficult things but postpone anything involving confrontation.
Maybe you don’t mind enormous workloads but delay tasks where someone will evaluate you.
Maybe you’re incredibly efficient until you have to make a choice that closes another door.
That isn’t random information.
Your pattern of procrastination may be telling you something about the situations you find difficult.
So instead of using procrastination as evidence against yourself, use it as evidence about yourself.
Study it.
Your To-Do List May Be Hiding a Different List
Look at five things you have been postponing.
Next to each one, don’t write when you will do it.
Write:
What am I resisting here?
You may end up with something like this:
Call accountant — I’m embarrassed that I waited so long.
Finish proposal — I’m afraid they’ll reject it.
Schedule appointment — I’m worried about what I might hear.
Clean basement — I don’t know where to begin.
Answer email — I have to tell him no.
Now look at that list.
It is extraordinary.
Five items that appeared to be evidence of one character flaw—
procrastination—
have suddenly become five completely different problems.
And now you can work on them one by one.
Maybe You Never Had One Big Problem
Perhaps that is the mistake.
We take hundreds of postponed actions across decades and put them into one giant box labeled:
MY PROCRASTINATION PROBLEM.
Then we try to become a different kind of person.
More disciplined.
More motivated.
More productive.
Maybe sometimes that’s necessary.
But before trying to rebuild your personality, open the box.
Take the tasks out one at a time.
And ask what each one is doing there.
Because perhaps you don’t have one enormous procrastination problem.
You may have twenty small problems that have never been properly named.
And twenty properly named problems may be much easier to solve than one mysterious character defect.
The next time you catch yourself saying:
“Why can’t I just do it?”
Don’t attack yourself.
Don’t immediately set another timer.
Don’t make another schedule.
Stop.
Look at the thing you’re avoiding and ask:
“If I did this right now, what is the part I least want to face?”
Then listen carefully to the answer.
Because the thing you’ve been calling procrastination may have been trying to tell you something all along.
You may not suffer from procrastination.
You may suffer from not knowing why you’re procrastinating.
And once you identify the real problem, you can finally stop fighting the symptom—
and start solving the reason.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
