Understanding the difference between procrastination and wise delay could leave you reaping all the creative benefits of ‘putting off’ your work, writes Amerley Ollennu

Are you a secret (or not so secret) procrastinator? Well, with studies showing that 50 percent of adults procrastinate, and 20 percent of these procrastinators do it chronically - you’re clearly not alone. But do we really understand what procrastination actually is?

Dr Fuschia Sirois, reader in Social and Health Psychology, at the University of Sheffield knows all too well, as she has spent 20 years investigating the health-related consequences of chronic procrastination. ‘Procrastination is the unnecessary and voluntary delay of an intended and important task – despite knowing you’ll be worse off for doing so,’ shares Sirois.

Sounds irrational right? Well, it is, which is why ‘it’s such a complex condition that’s deeply rooted in mood regulation rather than the common misconception that people who procrastinate are just lazy, have poor time management and lack self-control,’ adds Sirois.  

A form of short-term unconscious mood regulation, procrastination, sets in when we attempt to avoid aversive tasks. ‘We all do it to some degree, but when a person is prone to regular procrastination it’s a clear sign that they don’t have healthy internal coping mechanisms to manage the negative and uncomfortable emotions aversive tasks throw-up. This inability to regulate emotion leads people to find external ways to cope, setting aside the task they dread for something else entirely. This helps regulate mood but is simply a temporary fix, as thoughts of the task linger in the mind – no matter how much we try to forget about it – and lock the procrastinator in a cycle of emotional highs and lows,’ explains Sirois. 

So, why do some of us end up cleaning the house from top to bottom, or watching countless hours of tv in a bid to avoid a task, while others simply get on with it? According to studies parenting style plays a major role on the developmental pathway to procrastination. ‘Overly controlling parents, with high expectations, or those who are very harsh on their kids, can leave children so anxious that they choose to avoid tasks altogether. While perfectionism is linked to procrastination too. So, if you were brought up in an environment that enforces perfectionism, you’re very likely to procrastinate as an adult,’ says Sirois. Over time, procrastination can impact your productivity at work, but also effects your mental and physical health, leading to issues from depression and anxiety, to chronic stress related illness such as headaches, digestive issues, colds and flus, insomnia and even hypertension. 

With all this in mind it’s hard to fathom that there are any up sides to procrastinating, but according to organisational psychologist Adam Grant, there are. In his 2016 TED talk, Grant shared that there is a sweet spot between pre-crastination – when you start a task immediately to finish before the deadline - and extreme procrastination – when you start far too late. Citing a study https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2018.1471 by his former student and now University of Wisconsin professor Jihae Shin. Grant shared that participants who were allowed five minutes of procrastination time after being given a task were able to submit 28 percent more creative ideas than those who were asked to start right away. According to Grant this indicates that when a task has been set and you then begin to procrastinate, it’s ‘still active in the back of your mind incubating. Which gives you time to consider divergent ideas, learn and reflect on setbacks, and then incorporate those lessons into your final work.’

While classed by Grant as procrastination, this is dubbed ‘wise delay’ by the likes of Sirois. It’s a strategically planned delay that isn’t a by-product of the negative emotions, like fear and self-doubt that tend to be the precursors of procrastination. So, if you want to ‘procrastinate’ guilt free and reap the creative benefits of wise delay without experiencing a full-blown procrastination spiral, you’d be wise to adopt Sirois’s procrastination busting practices. 

Break down your task

By breaking down your task into manageable chunks you’ll find it easier to get started – which is half the battle. Plus, once you start and succeed in completing each chunk of work, your overall anxiety surrounding your task should wane along with your self-doubt.

Self-Audit

When you feel the desire to procrastinate, try to tap into your internal dialogue. Ask yourself how the task makes you feel, and why. You may find that you have a general fear of failure, or that your self-esteem needs a boost. Whatever the deeper reasons, being able to recognise and understand the underlying cause of your procrastination should help you rationalise your fears and get to the task at hand. 

Ditch perfectionism

Perfectionism can be debilitating, and since reaching perfection is an ever-moving finish line, it will serve all procrastinators to nip it in the bud. Easier said than done of course, but the best place to start is by practicing self- compassion. Procrastinators have lower levels of self-compassion and higher levels of stress which is further exacerbated by the act of procrastination. Try journaling, mindfulness and meditation as these can all increase self-compassion and help you ditch perfectionism educed procrastination.