Guest Voices

Why We Procrastinate When We're Overwhelmed
By Unzilah ShakeelIt is night and your head is full of all the tasks you did not finish today. You promise yourself you will start tomorrow and you pick up your phone to set an alarm. An hour and a half later you are still scrolling.You wake up in the morning at 10 or 11 to the long list now sprinkled with guilt. You reach for your phone again because the phone is the thing that makes you feel slightly better.Then a voice inside you tells you to go to bed because you're lazy and undisciplined. Procrastination is not always due to a lack of motivation but a desire to cope with unpleasant feelings that come with tasks that are boring, challenging or confusing (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013).Researchers call procrastination short-term mood repair, which is choosing to feel better in the here and now instead of working towards long-term goals (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013). Tice and Bratslavsky (2000) call procrastination giving in to feel good. That feeling does not always last.People often end up feeling worse after procrastinating than they would have if they'd just started. When you are tired and overwhelmed it is much harder to get going. The voice inside your head tells you that you will feel much better when the task is done.Getting there will cost you a lot of effort and procrastination wins. We tell ourselves that tomorrow we will be a motivated and competent person who will deal with the task at hand without any issues. The costs of procrastination will fall on that self, who will find it much easier to get going.What can you do to reduce procrastination? Take a step to get unstuck and focus on progress rather than the task itself. Tell yourself that you will work for 15 minutes instead of all at once.Many people find it much easier to get unstuck if they promise themselves to do a little bit. If you change your mind and want to stop after 15 minutes, that is fine.Be kind to yourself. Since procrastination is sometimes a response to feelings, it makes sense that dealing with responsibilities when you are overwhelmed with tasks is so challenging. Would you shame a friend for the behavior? Probably not, because we are all human and being human comes with being irrational and flawed.Take the tiny step, however, and let go of the guilt that comes with procrastination.Sources: Sirois & Pychyl (2013); Tice & Bratslavsky (2000).
This piece is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional help.About the author
Unzilah Shakeel is a BS Psychology student at Virtual University of Pakistan who writes plain-language, research-backed articles on psychology and mental health, and is building toward a career in UX research. Connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/unzilah-shakeel-ahmed-719649403/

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