A brief view on procrastination and how to combat it.
Why do we procrastinate?
It's the June holidays, and that means a bunch of homework assignments or coursework. And we all know too well the feeling of boredom that looms when we are faced with the prospect of starting such huge mounds of work. To cut it short, we procrastinate because of 2 reasons. 1) The work we want to do is too difficult and mentally challenging. 2) The work is too large in quantity and we crave perfectionism. If it is of any comfort, I fall victim to these every now and then, but there are a few solid steps we can take in order to combat these issues. Let's go on.
Ideology of Procrastinators
"I can probably finish it later, I have a lot of time," "It is too difficult, I don't know where to start, so I'll just sit back until I know what to do," " "I only have 20 minutes left to finish that assignment, so I probably won't do much. I'll finish it all at one go tomorrow,".
How many of you can relate to these excuses? Well, if you didn't know, these ARE excuses made by your subconscious mind to not start on any activity. Our primitive brains crave instant gratification, instead of working on high effort long term goals that benefit us as a human, we are inclined to choose present moments of high dopamine activities like junk food, gaming, binging on Netflix etc. Despite knowing that finishing the workload early is beneficial, the Law of Least Effort makes us choose the easiest path to gratification. That does not mean we can't control it, instead we can use it to our advantage.
"The pain of regret is higher than the pain of discipline"
Ways to combat procrastination
I put forth the 2 most common reasons to procrastination early on. I will now offer a solution to each of them, to the best of my experience.
1) Too Difficult: This for example may be learning a new topic to get an essay done. We know nothing about the topic, and hence do not even know where to start. Let's break the issue down. Let's say you have an essay to write about "The 5 most famous physics concepts". Simplify the question from its keywords. Understand what it is trying to achieve. In this case it is asking for physics theories which you have not learnt of. Next step, where can you obtain relevant sources to get yourself well-versed with the subject? Google? Britannica? A teacher? A friend? Once you have approached the sources and learnt enough, you're ready to go. Never be afraid or egotistical to ask for help, remember we are all students in progress.
2) Too much, Too lazy: I feel this is the one almost ALL of us can relate to. Too much to do, too lazy, there is a lot of time. The BIGGEST culprit behind this is the energy required to overcome the friction of starting the work. Interestingly, a physics phenomenon explains this quite well, the static friction of an object is higher than its kinetic friction. Put simply, its harder to start moving the ball than to make it continue to move. I am also sure many of you felt that initially when you were about to start, you dreaded the work, but once you started, you are astonished to find it was not as hard as expected.
I used 2 ways to combat this:
- The 10 minute rule: Tell yourself that no matter what, I will only do the task for 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES ONLY, but I will give it my fullest attention, then I'm free to do whatever I want. This helps overcome the initial friction of getting started. After 10 minutes, if you feel like continuing and you are well warmed up, PLEASE continue. Don't let the flow state dissipate. If you do not however, there may be other reasons. My advice, take a good break: Go to the gym for some time, take a walk, cook up your favorite food, meet up with friends, take a nap. Once you are refreshed, start with renewed motivation.
- The Brain Dump: Another extremely effective method. If I'm just not feeling like getting serious work done that day, all right no problem. But I will get work done, screw the quality of work and perfectionism. Take a piece of paper or a word document, and transcribe everything in your mind onto that Brain dump, as the name suggests. Dump everything about the subject on your mind in a material source. Remember, you DO NOT need to perfect it, the aim is simply getting out the core of the workload and what is on your mind down. This usually works for free typed assignments like essays and coursework documents. How about answering structured questions like math and science assignments? The prospect of doing the tedious super long working makes us groan, so I usually just jot down how I think I will approach the question, and what topics and methods are required. So when I return to those questions later on, I am very familiar and prepared with what to do.
Conclusion
Just remember that the biggest culprit to procrastination is the rationalizations made by our subconscious that craves instant gratification, and that we dread the prospect of starting. Utilize techniques like breaking down the task, using a Brain Dump or the 10 minute rule to get started. All said, I truly hope this has helped you significantly in becoming more productive and stop procrastinating. Please leave any opinions you have about this article below, or any improvements you would like to see on Student's Spot. Help a buddy out by subscribing, and sharing this to those who need this, if you think this is helpful.
Signing out, Arshath