Original subtitles

do you know someone who procrastinates

yeah maybe it's a friend

A co-worker family member maybe it's

somebody you see when you look in the

mirror

but that's okay because everyone

procrastinates at some point right

in fact

the research suggests that almost one in

four people procrastinate on a fairly

regular basis

and the rates are even higher amongst

college and university students

with 50 yes that's five zero fifty

percent procrastinating regularly and

eighty to ninety five percent doing so

occasionally

now because procrastination is so common

we tend to be very light-hearted about

it

oh listen to that podcast or read that

book on procrastination

later

what's the harm right it's just delay

well actually procrastination is not

your garden variety run-of-the-mill

delay

it's a particular form of delay that by

definition is harmful

now researchers like myself Define

procrastination

as a type of delay

that is voluntary

unnecessary and involves an important

task that you intended to do

but you put this task off despite

knowing that it's going to have harmful

consequences for yourself and others

people are often surprised to learn just

how debilitating and harmful

procrastination can be

now if you procrastinate managing your

finances or completing your academic or

professional work dealing with

relationship issues or managing your

health and well-being yes you can expect

to have some negative consequences in

those areas

but what we often don't consider is the

collateral damage of procrastination

take for example Tom's story

now Tom was a well-read highly educated

add a bit of a perfectionist

despite this Tom struggled with

procrastination in his work and in his

life

he would put off some small task but

then this would snowball into him

scrambling to trying to meet but often

miss important deadlines

eventually this pattern of

procrastination

would cause irreparable damage

to his work projects his co-workers and

his prospects for advancement

the stress from constantly chasing and

missing deadlines

quitting three different jobs

trying to be but failing to be a

published author eventually caught up

with Tom and his partner

unfortunately at age 47

Tom died from cancer

to his partner Tom left a legacy

of Unfinished books

and a deep sadness for knowing that his

procrastination was never effectively

addressed

procrastination stole from her quality

time she could have had with him had he

not been consciously focused on chasing

missed deadlines

or worrying about unfinished tasks now

sadly Tom's story is actually consistent

with much of the research on the toll of

procrastination

in our research we found that

procrastination has reputational damage

people don't like working with others

who procrastinates they see them as

unreliable

but that's not all

in one study of over 22 000 U.S

employees those who chronically

procrastinated

had greater employment instability and

lower annual incomes

in fact for every mean one point

decrease or sorry increase in

procrastination

annual income went down by 15 000 US

dollars

that's about 12 000 pounds a year

okay so research by myself and others

over the past 20 plus years has also

found that procrastination is associated

with poor physical and mental health

people who chronically procrastinate

they tend to have poor Sleep Quality

they practice fewer healthy behaviors

and they also report having a greater

number of physical ailments despite

making fewer medical visits

they have higher levels of depression

Stress and Anxiety

now one study of over 750 people

I found that people who chronically

procrastinated were at greater risk for

having poor heart health

for every one point increase on a

measure of chronic procrastination

the risk for having cardiovascular

disease or hypertension increased by 63

percent

and this was after accounting for a

number of different social and

demographic factors and personality

factors that are known to predict poor

heart health so if it's so harmful then

why do people do it

now many people think that it's about

laziness or poor time management

something looks like the crowd cross

Nation doesn't mean that it's a Cause

when it comes to cross Nation

appearances are very deceiving

okay so when we're procrastinating it

looks like we're wasting time and not

managing that time well because we're

not meeting deadlines

but poor time management is actually a

symptom of procrastination not a Cause

and so if we only treat symptoms that

underlying cause is going to remain

procrastination isn't about laziness

either

right when we feel lazy we don't feel

like doing anything at all

good no energy

but when people procrastinate they often

get very busy with a number of

non-essential tasks

such as completely cleaning and

reorganizing the kitchen or the office

curating their digital music library or

even advertising their spice rack

they'll do anything but fat task that

needs to be done okay so if it's not

laziness and it's not poor time

management then why do people

procrastinate

from a psychological perspective

all behaviors have an origin story

for procrastination that origin story

focuses on emotions

and specifically negative emotions and

an urge to cope with them through

avoidance

so one writer I spoke to

he confessed to me that he really didn't

like cleaning at all

but when he was a student if he had an

exam coming up that he was stressed

about cleaning his flat from top to

bottom became his go-to activity instead

of studying

why

because it made him feel productive not

lazy

it gave him relief from his exam stress

and from his feelings of guilt and shame

about not studying

his procrastination was not a character

flaw

it was the only way he knew how to

manage his exam stress

so what this illustrates then is that

procrastination is about poor mood

management not for time management

now this makes sense if we look to below

the surface of what appears to be

procrastination for somebody not getting

things done or wasting time

and view procrastination from the lens

of psychological science

when we do so it becomes very clear

why emotions are Central in

understanding whether somebody both

starts to procrastinate and whether

they're going to continue to craft Aid

as well okay so how do we get started

with procrastination well

procrastination starts when we have a

task that's aversive unpleasant right

but we have to do it

and

we use procrastination then as a way to

get relief from those negative emotions

associated with the task

so procrastination is not necessarily

about avoiding a task it's actually

about avoiding the negative emotions

that we associate with a task

okay so you've got this thing to do and

it's really stressful and you're really

concerned about it but you just don't

feel like you can manage those feelings

right now so what do you do you take

that task

you put it aside and you get immediate

relief mission accomplished you've just

coped with those negative emotions by

procrastinating

it's quick it's easy and it works at

least for a little while

okay so can you think of a time when you

had a task to do

that you felt really uncertain about

maybe it was something that you hadn't

done before or something that you had

very little guidance on

and you may have started out sort of

imagining okay

what's this task going to be like

and you started thinking of it being a

really stressful and time consuming and

frustrating and the more you thought

about what you thought the task might

actually be

the more worked up and worried you got

about it so much so that you wanted to

do anything but that task

so you procrastinated

but then later

you actually did get around to doing the

task

discovered that in reality it actually

wasn't that time consuming or

frustrating or difficult at all

in fact you may have even enjoyed it

you see when we make emotional mountains

out of mole Hills

we're more prone to use procrastination

as a way to get relief from that

now people will make emotional mountains

out of mole Hills mainly because we're

just not very good at predicting our

future emotional states

numerous Studies have shown that people

tend to overestimate how bad they'll

feel when they're in a challenging

situation

and for some people

that faulty of emotional forecasting can

be a precursor to procrastination

okay so once somebody started to

procrastinate they're also at more risk

for continuing to procrastinate

when you use procrastination to manage

your mood you're actually rewarding that

procrastination Behavior

and because we tend to repeat behaviors

that we are rewarded for this can easily

feed into a cycle of procrastination

the problem is that your relief you get

from procrastinating doesn't often last

it's soon replaced by feelings of guilt

shame and self-blame for knowing that

you let yourself and others down

these types of negative thoughts and

feelings though don't actually motivate

you taking action

research is found as all they do is

layer on an extra layer of negative

emotions to a task that you're already

dreading doing which will only increase

the chances that you're going to

continue to procrastinate okay so how

can we help ourselves and others

navigate the emotional landscape of

procrastination without getting lost in

a cycle of

guilt and shame and further

procrastination

if you're the one procrastinating

it might be easy to think oh I'll just

downplay that my procrastination make a

joke about it right

but that won't make the damage to your

reputation self-esteem relationships or

health and well-being go away

procrastination is harmful

if it's somebody else is procrastinating

you may be tempted to come down hard on

them and think that letting them know

just how harmful the procrastination is

to you to others and themselves might be

a way to get them to stop

but all that's going to do is make them

feel worse about themselves and the

tasks they're procrastinating and

therefore procrastinate more

instead we need to find ways to diffuse

the negative emotions and break the

cycle of procrastination

so one evidence-to-based approach for

reducing procrastination is to view our

tasks from the lens of meaning

when we view our tasks as meaningful and

asking ourselves why is this valuable to

me how is it important what will I learn

about myself from doing this task

it helps dial up our positive feelings

about the task as well as reduce the

some of the negative motions we have and

give them more context

counter-intuitively

being compassionate and forgiving to

ourselves and others when we

procrastinate are also effective

strategies for reducing procrastination

both of these approaches reduce the

negative emotions we have both about

ourselves and our procrastination

now you might be thinking this is like

giving people a free pass for when they

procrastinate

it's actually not at all

when we're forgiving and compassionate

we acknowledge and accept that people

are suffering when they're

procrastinating and that we're human and

we all make mistakes

where we're self-compassionate we remind

ourselves that we're not the first

person to procrastinate nor will we be

the last

but more importantly the research shows

that being forgiving and compassionate

in response to procrastination is

actually effective for reducing

procrastination and boosting people's

motivation to improve themselves and

reach their goals

so if we want to find Sustainable

Solutions

to reduce our own and others

procrastination we need to stop buying

into the myths of laziness and other

character flaws that only serve to make

us feel worse and procrastinate more

we need to accept the procrastination as

harmful on many levels but then be

forgiving and compassionate

only then can we help others and

ourselves get that task done

reach our goals and reduce the

collective toll of procrastination

on our physical social and mental

well-being

thank you

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