Science has something to say about procrastination: 5 keys to not falling into the “later I do it”

There is a room full of old clothes, books and electronic devices that are not used, but they are not given away, reused or sold either. There is a desire to study a different professional career for decades, but there is never a decision to enroll and start developing a vocation. It is known that a monograph has an exact deadline, and you have to start reading works and sit down to write, but today watching a film is more appetizing. It is known that bad cholesterol is high and you have to change the type of food and do more physical activity, but spending many hours on the couch in front of the TV and with your cell phone seems more fun. Procrastination, the habit of postponing tasks and dreams until later, triumphs.

There are many factors that lead people to avoid doing activities that they must do today and leave them for later, but most of the time this postponement has emotional costs, and from the different disciplines it is a matter of understanding the reasons and giving tools to get out of the tangle and not be distressed. Living by procrastination can mean suffering, but also having to do something that was being avoided can also generate a bad time.

For clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States, Becky Tilahun, procrastination can cause chronic stress, which over time can build up and cause health problems. “If you're always completing tasks at the last minute, you're always under pressure,” he warned.

Professor Marcus Eckert, from the Department of Psychology and Education at the Apollon University of Applied Sciences in Bremen, Germany, is one of the researchers studying procrastination and its impact on human life, especially on students, who are among the groups of people who suffer most from procrastination. When asked by Infobae, Professor Eckert explained by e-mail that “procrastination is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the world.

“All people have two information processing systems. A system is fast, automatic and prefers to reduce tension. He pursues short-term goals, such as avoiding aversive emotions and feeling better, but he is not able to plan, pursue long-term goals and regulate the self,” Eckert explained. On the other hand, “the other system is slow, but it can regulate its states consciously. And it needs a lot of mental energy,” he added.

In this context, the German expert pointed out that if a person has to do an aversive task, the automatic system says “let's reduce those states with pleasant activities”. Thus, Eckert stressed, “there is the short-term positive emotion generated by procrastination. Moments later, the other system says, 'If you postpone this task, you will regret it later. ' This thought increases negative emotions. But system one suggests a 'good' solution: 'Hey, I know how to repair the mood. We can have fun. ' Thus, negative feelings can encourage the postponement of tasks. System one is faster than system two. In addition, aversive emotions impair the functioning of system two. Thus, system one often wins.”

Meanwhile, Eduardo Keegan, tenured professor of psychotherapy and director of the specialization in clinical psychology and cognitive therapy at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Buenos Aires, told Infobae: “We talk about procrastination when postponing is worse than starting action immediately. There are people who procrastinate because they feel that taking the actions that lead to what they dream gives them anxiety or embarrassment, such as asking someone out, entering a contest or competition, or taking an exam.” In such cases, according to Keegan, “procrastination has the function of avoiding an unpleasant emotional experience.”

Procrastination is also observed in people who have a low tolerance for frustration. “They choose to initiate actions that have immediate gratification rather than initiate those that they need to implement for the purposes they pursue, but they are not as entertaining,” he said. Other times - Keegan noted - procrastination is related to a failure in the regulation of one's own behavior: the person wrongly estimates the time it will take to execute a plan of action.

“It is often referred to as the planning fallacy. Some people deceive themselves into saying that leaving everything to the last minute helps them generate a state of activation that will produce better results. But scientific research shows that this is not related to better results,” Keegan warned.

For Guillermo Bruschtein, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, member of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association (APA) and Association of Argentine Psychiatrists (APSA) and supervisor of psychiatric residents of the San Isidro Maternal and Child Hospital, “procrastination is a very common symptom and occurs both in work and home activities, such as postponing cleaning or tidying up in the house. In the case of university students, this is a frequent reason for consultation. The problem is sometimes that there is a resistance to starting and continuing. There is a very strong ideal with regard to the task to be achieved and it has a feeling of impossibility. Thus procrastination starts as an escape and the task is avoided.”

In some cases, Bruschtein commented, procrastination may be associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder. For example, there are people who open many windows on their computer and delay the main task they have to do at that time. “Despite the desire to do the task or a project, they feel afraid and find a pleasant replacement for another action. In some cases, it leads them to miss opportunities and affect human relations,” he said. “While he knows that doing homework today would benefit them, people have unconscious mechanisms with insecurities that don't allow them to do it,” he added.

How then to deal with procrastination? For Jorge Castelli, Associate Professor of Psychoanalysis and Education at the University of Buenos Aires and Full Member in Didactic Function of the APA, “procrastination is based on a defense mechanism in which people postpone the realization of certain goals, since they unconsciously fear the closeness of realization of a desire. An unconscious risk is put into play that could imply a 'failure to triumph', having an achievement, in purely Freudian terms.”

Here are more recommendations from the experts consulted to go through the postponement of tasks and dreams and take action:

1- Practice mindfulness meditation

-” The conditions of the information processing system two can be improved with sufficient regeneration and self-care. This is good for the 'mental battery' and helps the second system to have enough capacity to regulate in line with long-term goals,” Eckert advised from Germany. He recommended the practice of “mindfulness” meditation or mindfulness. “Meditation doesn't help immediately, it takes a few weeks, but it changes the hardware. The effects can be shown in changes in specific regions of the brain, which are associated with planning and the pursuit of long-term goals.”

2- Visualize the long-term goal and its benefits

You can visualize the long-term goal and the benefit of that goal, according to Eckert. In addition, one can recall situations in which the person did manage to overcome procrastination. “This will increase your self-efficacy, a good indicator for overcoming procrastination.”

3 - Activate slowly

“You have to be careful when you want to avoid procrastination because each subject can be played differently,” Mr. Castelli told Infobae. “In some cases, avoiding procrastination - that is, trying to do things today - can generate a lot of anxiety because of personality traits or characteristics limited to a specific time or time - such as the pandemic - or it may be because of a symptom that points to a serious pathological situation,” he said.

“It would not be advisable to push the action of the other in the desire to win that procrastination if it is not the product of an elaboration. Because we would run the risk of such rapid action causing other mental disorders. To move towards tasks and dreams, you have to go slowly. Because for some people it can mean the collapse of a part of their lives if they reach it, it is necessary to achieve previous psychic elaboration,” said Castelli.

4- Be honest with yourself

People who postpone may wonder what is the function of their procrastination behavior, Dr. Keegan suggested. “What is it that is “achieved” when a task or project is procrastinated or avoided? From that question, the advice is to be honest with yourself and be careful with pretexts and excuses,” he said. In many cases, you can start the action without thinking about it.

“It is recommended to act in the direction of what is really important to that person in their life and right now rather than acting in terms of what is easier or more emotionally tolerable,” he added.

5- Beware of the screens

For Keegan, people shouldn't “wait to be motivated to act.” Instead, “you can see how motivation increases when you start doing what it takes to achieve a goal,” he said. Many of the procrastinators fall into technological traps. “Cell phone and computer screens are dangerous enemies,” Keegan said. It is advisable to turn off your phone or uninstall online games or other applications that capture attention and distract from what is important.”

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