Stop Procrastinating by Understanding Your Personal
Procrastination Style
Procrastinating is a very common problem in our society today.
It seems to be more of a problem especially in the workplace.
There are many factors that play a part in procrastination and
why humans do it.
So how do we stop procrastinating?
We need to realize that we are doing it in the first place.
Human nature allows us to do things and then disguise them as
other issues. We tend to make excuses for our bad habits and
usually end up blaming them onto other things or people. So the
first step in learning to stop procrastinating is to identify
that we are procrastinating.
So what exactly is procrastination? Procrastination is when a
person literally avoids doing a task that they know they should
be doing. It could be any task, from making a simple phone call
to someone, or losing weight, to more important issues such as
finishing a duty in the workplace that may cause you to lose
your job if it isn't completed.
Procrastination is a bad habit that usually has bad end results
from doing it. If this sounds familiar, then it may be time for
you to learn to stop procrastinating.
Why do People procrastinate? There are many, many reasons why we
do it. A Study at a prominent University showed that 90% of the
college students enrolled there were guilty of procrastination.
The dropout rate of students that procrastinate is high, as well.
The reasons range from many different problems, however,
Laziness is not one of them. We tend to think that people who
procrastinate are lazy and that is just not the case. There is
usually an underlying problem.
One of the most common reasons why people procrastinate is
perfectionism. These people are so afraid of making a mistake
that they avoid doing the task at all. Their way of thinking is
that if they don't do it, they won't have to face any mistake
that they have made.
Fear is another reason why people procrastinate. If someone is
put outside their comfort zone, they avoid it. An example of
this would be asking someone to write a speech to give in front
of a group of people.
If this person is afraid of speaking in front of people, then
they will more than likely put off writing a speech until the
last minute. Little do they realize that it makes them feel
unprepared and doesn't probably go as smooth as they would like
it to.
Another common reason why we procrastinate is out of anger. If
someone is forced into doing something that they do not want to
do, they rebel by avoiding the issue. This is so common during
the teen years. The task is usually poorly done, if done at all.
So to stop procrastinating we must first set goals in our lives.
We need to figure out what it is that we want to achieve, and
then make a list of goals. They need to be realistic goals that
we can achieve. If we set them too high we are setting ourselves
up for a disaster.
After we set our goals we need to commit to doing them. That is
the hard part, but if we can understand that we are
procrastinating and why, it will be much easier to learn to stop
procrastinating.