8 main triggers of procrastination and how to deal with them

Popular productivity tips tend to focus on how to maintain focus while completing tasks. Although in fact it is important to find the answer to another question - what prevents you from concentrating. Meanwhile, procrastination triggers are difficult to analyze because they are often associated with our emotions.

Timothy Peachil, author of Don't Put It Off Tomorrow, believes that procrastination is a purely instinctive, emotional response to something we don't want to do. And the stronger this feeling, the more often we postpone things for later. This behavior has several main sources.

How procrastination begins

Researchers highlightP. M. Gollwitzer. Action Phases and Mind-Sets / Handbook of Motivation and Cognition Foundations of Social Behavior There are four main steps you need to go through to complete a task: start, plan, take action, and end. We begin to procrastinate when one or more triggers interfere with this process.

1. Boredom

Sometimes we have to deal with tasks that don't stimulate our brain in any way. These are any cases that seem monotonous and uninteresting to us. For some it is boring and tedious to clean the apartment, but someone loves to bring cleanliness and order - everything is individual.

But whatever these things are, the very thought of them makes us bored. And now we are lying on the couch, deciding to postpone everything until tomorrow.

2. Despair

Imagine that you need to solve a work problem using a confusing online program or find information on the Web, but the application constantly freezes, and Internet connection - is interrupted.

Over time, in each of these situations, you will experience one feeling - despair. It will soon be joined by a feeling of loss of control and powerlessness, and then procrastination.

3. Complexity

Sometimes we have to deal with particularly difficult tasks, such as making complex calculations, memorizing a large amount of data, or figuring out how to use some tricky apparatus.

The harder the task, the more likely we will choose easier tasks or drop everything and return to procrastination.

4. Stress

Timothy Pichill considers it to be one of the main triggers of procrastination, since it is stress that slows down the first stage - the beginning of the task.

No matter what the reason is, being overwhelmed and tired is unlikely to give you the opportunity to get to work.

5. Uncertainty

To complete a task, you need to understand how to do it. Vague instructions and explanations, misunderstandings and uncertainties lead to a significant decrease in productivity.

6. Randomness

Even when the goal is clear, another problem may arise - the lack of an idea of ​​how exactly to go towards this goal. If uncertainty is associated with a lack of understanding of what to do, then chaos is associated with a lack of understanding of how to do it. Both options can quickly lead to procrastination.

7. No award

Let's say you are writing a long, detailed report. It's a tough and time-consuming job, but your boss probably won't thank you or appreciate your efforts at all. Unsurprisingly, procrastination comes into play. When we do not get any return, all efforts seem to be just a waste of time and energy.

8. Meaninglessness

If the task doesn't make any sense to us personally, procrastination is inevitable. As with boredom, it all depends on the person.

For some, even such a trifle as cleaning the desktop is full of meaning - it is an opportunity to update the space and feel comfortable. And for some, the same cleaning is a senseless waste of time and an occupation that you have to rather than want to take on.

How to deal with procrastination triggers

Boredom, despair, difficulty, and stress occur at any stage of a task. Uncertainty, randomness, lack of reward and meaninglessness usually make themselves felt at the stages of initiation and action.

The good news is that it is very rare for all eight triggers to occur at the same time. Most often we are dealing with a combination of several of them, so that it is quite possible to deal with them. In the end, procrastination is just a signal that you need to change your attitude towards the task. There are three ways to do this.

1. Find a source and share goals

Before you fight procrastination, you need to understand why it has arisen. Analyze your feelings and determine which triggers interfere with your actions.

Then compose the Eisenhower matrix. This classic time management trick is to break things down into four categories:

• urgent and important;
• non-urgent and important;
• urgent and unimportant;
• not urgent and unimportant.

It only makes sense to start the fight against procrastination with urgent and important tasks.

3. Assess your strength

Determine how best for you to work on the task. You may find it more convenient for you to deal with it in a few hours without unnecessary interruptions - or it will be much easier to break it down into simple subtasks.

Most often, the beginning is the most difficult stage. This is where it comes in handy rule of 10 minutesthat allows you to get started immediately and keep them in the spotlight.

3. Change the task

Each of the triggers of procrastination can help fight it effectively if you give it the opposite meaning.

If the task is boring, try to get creative with it. For example, you need to sort papers. Add some fun to this rather tedious job. Buy colorful stickers, tap into your creativity and create your own original document organization system.

If you are dealing with a difficult task, ask for help. And when you feel like you're doing a thankless job, treat yourself to something yourself, like a delicious dinner. This will help you easily go through all the stages of any task.