How (I plan) to Overcome Procrastination

I woke up almost an hour late today. You’d think getting all that extra sleep would make me feel good, but nooooo. My stupid brain won’t let me enjoy it because it thinks of sleeping in as a bad thing.

Procrastination is one of those things that is held on a par with wrath, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, and pride. And I know that one reason why I sometimes have problems with goals is that I am, about some things, a procrastinator. It’s awful, I know, but I AM one of those people sometimes.

It turns out that we’re actually hard-wired to enjoy achieving goals. The way it’s been explained to me, our brains release dopamine when we achieve a goal which causes us to enjoy the act of successfully completing a goal. Conversely, our brain starves us of dopamine until we achieve our goals which causes us to be anxious until the goal is achieved. That’s all just a really geeky way of saying that it makes me feel good when I check an item off my to-do list. (I knew there was a reason for that!)

So, if we’re basically built to enjoy meeting our goals, why do we procrastinate?

Here’s a short list of my own reasons:

1. I am busy with other things and don’t track my time well.
2. I do the things that are convenient.
3. I do the things that are enjoyable instead of the things I need to do.
4. I question the importance of my goal and rationalize that I really don’t need to do it.
5. Someone else questions the importance of my goal and I cow to peer pressure.
6. I have a poor memory and forget to do something that helps achieve my goal.

I’m sure you can think of other things as well.

For me, the most common form of procrastination probably comes from #1 in my list: distraction. With all of the other things that require my attention during a typical day, I sometimes tend to find lots of other seemingly useful things to do that really just serve to distract my attention from working toward my goal–and in some cases, even setting a goal.

The second most common cause of procrastination for me is being forgetful. I am always forgetting something. I don’t know if this is because of a lack of focus or just because I have a poorly trained memory. Either way, I know that I HAVE to make lists.

So what am I going to do to help prevent myself from getting distracted this year?

Well, one thing that has always helped me with other tasks is creating rules for myself.  I’m a rule follower. For example, I used to lose my keys all the time. So I made a rule for myself that I would always have my keys in my right, front pants pocket. If they weren’t in my pocket, they should be hanging on a special hook. As long as I follow this rule, I always know where my keys are.

So, I’m going to create some rules to see if they help me from getting distracted and forgetting things.

To keep me from getting distracted, I’m going to try to make a rule that if I have a goal, I have to also schedule appointments with myself for working toward that goal. I know that I’m generally pretty good about sticking to appointments, so I’m going to try to use that to my advantage.

To help me from forgetting things, I’m going to try to make sure I have a list of everything I want to get done. I’m going to schedule a time every week to update the list to make sure I’m still on track.

Will these things work? I don’t know for sure, but I think analyzing my procrastination behavior was a big help. I sure understand it better now.

Will they work for you? Possibly. I think it’s the process of analyzing your own behavior that works best. Ask yourself why you have trouble meeting your goals? Then see if there are things you can do to help change your behavior.

What other strategies do you have to help make sure you’re going to meet your goals this year?

photo credit, Emilie Ogez