Procrastination Is Not Just Laziness

We’ve all put off important tasks, delaying them as much as possible and distracting ourselves with anything else—without being able to explain why. Later, we’re left with guilt over missed deadlines and letting others down. The author of a book on procrastination, having experienced its pitfalls firsthand, thoroughly studied the problem, identified its causes, and suggested several simple and effective ways to overcome it.

What Is Procrastination?

When we can’t convince ourselves to do necessary or desired tasks, we’re procrastinating. Instead of meaningful work, we do trivial things: binge-watch shows, water office plants, play computer games, scroll through social media, eat (even when not hungry), clean again, wander aimlessly, or just stare at the ceiling. Later, self-reproach and frustration set in, leading to a sense of helplessness and more inaction.

But beware! Procrastination is not just laziness. A lazy person doesn’t want to do anything and feels no anxiety about it. A procrastinator would love to get things done but just can’t start. Procrastination is also different from rest. Rest recharges us, while procrastination drains our energy. The less energy we have, the more likely we are to put things off indefinitely and do nothing.

Many people claim they work best under pressure and leave things until the last minute. In reality, procrastination breeds stress, self-blame, and inefficiency. Remember the saying: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

The History of Procrastination

People have struggled with procrastination since ancient times. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote about it in his poem “Works and Days”:
“Do not put off your work till tomorrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work; industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.”

Today’s procrastinator is the same as the “dawdler” or “delayer” of the past. The Roman philosopher Seneca warned, “While we are postponing, life speeds by.” This highlights the main reason to fight procrastination: it’s one of the biggest obstacles to living a full life. Regret over missed opportunities and the resulting self-blame waste more time than it would take to complete the task. Recent research shows that, on their deathbeds, people regret what they didn’t do more than what they did.

Procrastination robs us of time we could use productively. If we overcome it, we can accomplish more and realize our potential more effectively.

Modern Times: Decision Paralysis

How does procrastination look today? There are more opportunities than ever to procrastinate. Learning to overcome it is one of the most important skills for modern people.

In the last hundred years, average life expectancy has nearly doubled. Child mortality has dropped tenfold. We live in a world with less violence and war than ever before. Thanks to the Internet, we have access to almost all the world’s knowledge. We can travel the globe with few restrictions. Knowing foreign languages helps us connect in other countries. We carry mobile phones more powerful than supercomputers from 20 years ago.

The opportunities available to us are enormous. Imagine them as a pair of scissors: the more opportunities, the wider the “scissors of possibilities” open. Today, those scissors are wider than ever.

Modern society is built on expanding individual freedom, with the belief that more freedom leads to greater satisfaction. According to this theory, as the scissors of possibilities open, we should become happier. So why aren’t people happier than their ancestors? What problems does this expanding range of choices create?

The main issue is choice overload: the more options we have, the harder it is to decide. This leads to decision paralysis. Considering all the options takes so much energy that we end up choosing none. We put off making decisions—and the actions that follow. We procrastinate.

The more complex the options, the higher the chance we’ll delay deciding. With multiple choices, we may regret our decision no matter what, imagining what could have been or noticing flaws in our choice.

Have you ever known you needed to do something but did nothing? When was the last time you put off a decision or action? Have you ever been unable to choose among several opportunities? How did you feel?

As decision paralysis grows, so does procrastination. Delaying tasks lowers productivity. Realizing we’re not using our potential leads to self-blame and frustration.

Simple Tools to Overcome Procrastination

There are simple techniques and methods that can help you use your potential every day. They take just a few minutes but can add several productive hours to your day. These methods help you use your brain more effectively and overcome natural or learned inefficiency. A bonus of fighting procrastination is more frequent activation of your brain’s pleasure centers, leading to more positive emotions.

Think about how you felt when you truly lived a day to the fullest. When was the last time that happened? The book referenced here explains why using your potential daily is the most effective way to achieve lasting satisfaction.

Let’s Get Started! How Motivation, Effectiveness, and Satisfaction Really Work

Motivation

We’re born, and one day, unfortunately, we’ll die. Our time is limited. That makes time our most valuable resource—not money, which we can borrow, save, or earn. Every moment of time is unique and gone forever once it passes.

Steve Jobs put it this way in his Stanford commencement speech: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Realizing life is finite makes us value our days more. We start searching for what we truly want to spend our time on—our personal vision.

If we find this vision, it becomes our most powerful motivational magnet. It helps us do what matters in the present and pulls us toward our ideal future.

Self-Discipline

Self-discipline has two main components: productivity and effectiveness. There are only 24 hours in a day. Subtract sleep, and you have your productive time.

• Productivity is the percentage of your time spent on actions aligned with your personal vision. Regular sleep, time management, and positive habits can significantly increase this percentage.
• Effectiveness measures whether your actions are key steps that move you forward. This includes prioritizing, delegating, and breaking big tasks into smaller ones.

Imagine your vision as a path. Productivity is how long you walk that path each day. Effectiveness is how big your steps are. Self-discipline is your overall ability to act in line with your personal vision.

Results

As the saying goes, “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” Many people have a vision but do nothing to pursue it. Others act but see no meaning in what they do. Ideally, we need both vision and action. When we combine them, we get emotional and material rewards:

• Emotional reward comes from dopamine, the neurotransmitter that creates a sense of satisfaction.
• Material reward is the tangible result of our work.

Objectivity

The final key to personal growth is objectivity. For example, Anders Breivik, who killed 69 people on Utoya Island in 2011, likely had high motivation and self-discipline, which brought him emotional and material “rewards.” This extreme example shows how far you can go without objectivity.

Objectivity is a tool for checking our often flawed intuition—a way to understand the true nature of things. Increasing objectivity means getting feedback from reality about our beliefs and actions. Since our brains tend to believe things that aren’t true, we must constantly look for areas where we might be biased.

As Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell said, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Key Takeaways

• Procrastination is not laziness, but the inability to make yourself do necessary or desired actions.
• People have been procrastinating since ancient times.
• Modern life encourages procrastination, so we must learn to fight it.
• The range of choices available to us is greater than ever—the “scissors of possibilities” are wide open.
• More choices often lead to decision paralysis.
• Because of decision paralysis and hesitation, life can pass us by, causing negative emotions.
• There are simple tools to overcome decision paralysis and procrastination.
• When we use our potential, our brain’s pleasure center is activated, dopamine is released, and we feel positive emotions.