Procrastination

We've all experienced that feeling of knowing we're meant to me doing a boring or tedious task, but instead we do something else that's more fun or interesting. This is procrastination: doing something more fun instead of the important task that needs to be completed.

In this post I want to look at three important aspects of procrastination:

1. Why do we procrastinate?
2. Where does procrastination fit into the learning process?
3. How can we stop procrastinating?

With the aim that by the end of this post you'll have a better understanding of why we procrastinate and how we can become better learners by eliminating procrastination.

Why Do We Procrastinate?

Research involving Brain scans has shown that when we procrastinate we're basically avoiding pain. That is: when you think about doing that (seemingly) boring task such as you're accounts, maths homework or housework the part of your brain that deals with pain kicks into action.

So what do we do to soothe that pain?

We do something that's more enjoyable and causes the pain to drift away. We watch a YouTube video, play a game, talk to friends: we procrastinate.

So in a nutshell: procrastination is the process of avoiding a task which triggers a painful response in our brain and replacing that task with an activity that causes us to experience pleasure.

Where Does Procrastination Fit Into The Learning Process?

Procrastination is incredibly harmful to the learning process. This is because learning to master a new skill requires deliberate practice, that is: practising the parts you're not so good at (or the things you don't enjoy so much).

So deliberate practice involves practising the things you're not very good at in order to gain mastery. But the problem is: practising the difficult bits is often painful, and what happens when we have a painful task to complete? We procrastinate.

Here we have a vicious cycle: In order to master a new skill we need to practice the things we're not very good at. This can be a painful process and, as humans, we tend to avoid painful things and replace them with pleasurable (often less important) things.

In other words: procrastination is the Achilles heel of learning. You might have the greatest mind for learning new things in the world. But if you can't get past that painful deliberate practice stage, then you're destined for failure.

How Can We Stop Procrastinating?

Now we understand how destructive procrastination is, how do we stop it?

Research has shown that we often perceive a boring task to be more unenjoyable than it actually is. In other words, once you start a seemingly boring tasks (such as house work) it's actually not that bad once you get going.

So one approach to stop procrastinating is to re-thing the way we approach these seemingly boring tasks. Instead of thinking "I really don't want to do this task, it's boring" we could think "the benefit of doing this housework is a tidy, happy home, and I enjoy cleaning".

The only problem with this approach is that is requires a lot of mental energy and will power in order to get going in the first place. This is energy that's simply wasted and could be better spent on the task at hand.

This is where techniques like the Pomodoro Technique can be handy.

In a nutshell the Pomodoro Technique involves setting a timer for 25 minutes and focusing solely on that one specific task for the entire 25 minutes. This means no emails, no phone, no distractions. You just work on the task without interruption and without getting distracted.

I've personally found that once I start the Pomodoro timer I then get into the flow of work fairly quickly and don't require the timer for the rest of the session. I often use the timer to get me started into a working session after lunch or some time when I'm feeling a little lazy.

So there we have it: hopefully you now understand the science behind why we procrastinate, the dangers of procrastination to the learning process and how we can eliminate procrastination to experience better learning.