How to Deal with Procrastination Effectively
I. Introduction:
Procrastination refers to the act of delaying or postponing a task or a set of tasks. The word originates from the Latin procrastinatus, which itself evolved from the prefix pro- meaning "forward" and crastinus meaning "of tomorrow" (Wikipedia, N.D.). It can be further expressed as a habitual or deliberate delay in starting or completing a task. Although it is known that it may have negative effects, this is a common human experience involving delays in daily chores, or even delays in completing important tasks such as attending appointments, submitting work reports or academic tasks, or discussing stressful events with a partner. Strictly speaking, procrastination is not a disease, but it is indeed a behavior that might cause troubles in our lives.
II. Problem (Background):
Actually, everyone has more or less procrastination, yet the degree is different. According to International Procrastination Research (2019), almost one billion people in the world have procrastination. The phenomenon of procrastination is becoming more and more common in modern society. Procrastination is not a simple time management problem, character problem or purely laziness. In truth, there are complex psychological factors behind procrastination, and usually the factors involve a series of related thoughts, emotions and behavior patterns, such as strong feelings of self-blame, guilt, constant self-denial and depreciation, and may be accompanied by mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. In 2007, Pierce Steele, a psychologist at the University of Calgary, published a commentary summarizing the results of nearly 800 studies on procrastination. In the end, he summed up the four most probable reasons for procrastination: lack of confidence in success, hatred of being delegated, lack of concentration, and inconsistent goals and rewards. To better explore this issue, we conducted a survey and found that 65％ of respondents often procrastinated in their daily lives (Figure 1). For the sake of searching out the most effective approach to solve procrastination.we analyzed the feasibility of three alternative solutions one after another based on the survey results.
Ⅲ. Evaluation of alternative solution 1:
The first possible solution is to develop a schedule. The greatest advantage of this solution is that it can help you set a clear time management. This is especially useful for people who lack time awareness and self-control because it explicitly lists what to do at what time and people only need to work according to the schedule. Many books and articles teach us how to formulate a perfect schedule in order to maximize the efficiency of your day. In fact, there is no "perfect" schedule that is suitable for everyone to use. Each person has his/her own strengths and weaknesses in terms of production capacity and time management on different projects. Applying one's schedule to another may be a disaster since everyone has his/her competence. From our survey, one of the participants asserts that once attempted to make a schedule but failed to complete due to overestimating the competence. Hence, if we want to create a schedule that suits us, we should know our own productive capacity first, and then we’ll be able to form a schedule. Nonetheless, this method also has disadvantages. The greatest shortcoming is that "the plan cannot keep up with the changes". There are too many unexpected things in life, and almost no schedule can cover all situations. One of the respondents of the survey commented, “I often cannot follow the planned schedule because of something more urgent.” As a result, although the chart appears to be evenly distributed among the second, third, and fourth options; in fact, this is the least effective of the three methods with an effective degree of only 2.9 out of 4 in total. (Figure 2) (Effectiveness quotient calculation method: The score multiplies the amount of people, then being divided by the total number of people.)
Ⅳ. Evaluation of alternative solution 2:
The second alternative is to work in a suitable environment. As the old saying goes “You can grow up only if you step out of your comfort zone.”, and this saying is also accepted in overcoming procrastination. Imagine you are always working in a very comfortable environment, and you may be constantly disturbed by the surroundings. For example, if you are doing tasks in the bedroom, and the bed simply next to you is so appealing, you may want to lie down for a few minutes; however, the truth is you take several hours to lie down. Or your cell phone is within reach, and it frequently makes message notification sound that makes you want to switch on your phone to have a look. These will all become sources of disturbance and afterwards lead to procrastination. Thus, if people want to improve work efficiency and concentration, the best way is to find a quiet place and of course it would be better if there is no internet so that they can be more focused and get things done quickly. Nevertheless, among the three solutions, only 40 participants have tried it (Figure 3). Since some people claimed that their work couldn’t be separated from the Internet and cell phones, it is difficult to stay concentrated unless someone is pushing them. Yet, in this way, people may be used to relying on others. Moreover, you can’t always find someone to supervise you. Consequently, for reasons outlined above, this method is more difficult to implement than other methods.
Ⅴ. Evaluation of alternative solution 3:
The last method is to break down the project into small and clear goals, which means to tear down the big project into more detailed and specific pieces. In figure 4, it shows a positive correlation between the degree of effectiveness and the number of people. Also, in the light of carefully analyzing our survey, we assume that “break down the project into small and clear goals” is the most efficient one. The effectiveness quotient comes to 3.14 out of 4, which is the highest score compared to the other two methods, 2.91 of “make a schedule”, and “create a suitable environment for working” which is 3.04. According to Gratias (2020), a workplace productivity coach, she assumes that sometimes people fail to take actions because they have no idea about how to start; thus, breaking tasks down to specific pieces makes the goal more achievable and doable so that people are more likely to do it. Same as stated in Goal -Setting Theory by Locke (1968) also points out that people who set a specific goal turns out to have a higher performance. He illustrates that a clear, specific, and difficult enough aim will be easier for people to start, focus, and put effort into the task because they know exactly what to do, how to do, and what to attain. Otherwise, if the target is too vague, there are multiple interpretations to define how far you will achieve your goal.
Ⅵ. Recommendation ＆ Conclusion:
In summary, since “break down the project into small and clear goals” is a bottom-up, step by step, and little by little method to finish the whole project, it stands out to be the most effective way to improve procrastination among the other two methods,“make a schedule” and“create a suitable environment for working”. By making a schedule, people may overate his/her own ability and find it hard to finish the goals. Meanwhile, by creating a suitable environment for working, where it would be better if without the digital devices and no connection to the internet, it might be difficult for people to conduct because nowadays most of the work depends on the internet. “If you can overcome procrastination, you can have things 95% of other people can’t” (Moore, 2020). When it comes to defeating procrastination, we suggest you can separate your task into smaller, clearer, and more specific goals based on your own capability to help you to carry out and to attain your goals gradually.
References:
Boogaard, K. (2019, January 03). What's Micro Productivity? The Small Habit That Will Lead You To Big Wins. Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/5rl7VR
Gratias, M. (2020, November 23). “Break it Down” v.s. “Dive Right In”. Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/5rqqxn
Indeed Editorial Team (2021, February 23). What Is Goal-Setting Theory? Definition, Principles, Disadvantages and Advantages. Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/En7qgK
Moore, A. (2020, March 7). If You Can Overcome Procrastination, You Can Have Things 95% of Other People Can’t. Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/lRVEYj
Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
Wikipedia (N.D.). Procrastination. Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/9rOg18
創咖學院 (2019, June 24).解讀《戰勝拖延症》，心理學家18年研究成果，教你5步改變人生。每日頭條。Retrieved from https://reurl.cc/4aRkbX
Survey Link: Solutions of Deal with Procrastination 拖延症的解決方法 - Google 表單