Procrastination

2 min read

Just before our recent workshop on Procrastination, a friend mentioned that
she has re-framed procrastination as pre-preparing time. Cleaning the
bathroom or walking the dog gives her time to think about what she's going
to do next and completing even a simple, routine task gives her a dopamine
boost which makes getting on and doing the thing so much easier.

It was interesting then to notice how many of our participants came to the
workshop with a lot of self judgement about procrastination. We might think
that it's something we DO but it turns out that there are quite a lot of
FEELINGS attached to procrastination and not many of them were positive.

“Hiding, avoiding, feeling bad.”
“Running away, self-sabotage, overloading.”
“And for many of us, it's a cyclic pattern that we don't seem to
learn from.”
“Wait until it builds up, feel increasingly shameful that I'm not
doing it, then it becomes unavoidable, I do it and realise it wasn't that
bad after all.”

When a behaviour is that embedded, it's interesting to find out what we're
doing it for. Are we thrill seekers, and we get a genuine kick from leaving
things until the last minute.

Or is it a fear of not being good enough, a fear of failure, a need for
perfection that puts us off starting?

For some people, it's simply a question of clearing space in their diaries
or in their heads, getting all the little tasks out of the way so they can
concentrate on the big one. But sometimes everyday life keeps getting in the
way and there was a realisation for some that there's a difference between
processing and generally having too much to do

We could have spent so much more time finding out our processes, but we
decided to focus on tips and strategies that we'd be taking away from the
session. Here’s some of the things that participants said:

“I’d like to be able to focus on the satisfaction of completion and
be motivated by that rather than being motivated by failure or the safety of
avoidance. To focus on how good it will feel to get it done, rather than on
what anyone else might think of it.”
“I’m going to lighten up, worry about the little things less, say no
more, laugh more, I probably just need to lessen the load and organise it
better.”
“I need to embrace the procrastination a bit, do the dog walk with
the plan to do the work on my return etc. Put some structure in the
procrastination.”
“I need to break it down into achievable chunks and allocate the time
to do 1 chunk, then the next. Focus on the positives from each step towards
the overall achievement.”
“I procrastinate when I'm overwhelmed. I need to work on helping
myself to come down from overwhelm to do the task.”
“Knowing it's a shared struggle is a comfort and knowing we all want
to feel better about it and give ourselves that chance is hopeful and
motivating too.”

Did you miss out on our workshop? Watch Sarah Scarratt and Rachel Gilmore reflect on the workshop below.

Check our Evenbrite page for our next workshop and all our upcoming events.