The Psychology Behind Why We Procrastinate: Here’s The Secret on How to Stop Procrastinating
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If you were to tell me ten years ago that on this very day, I’d be writing an article on why we procrastinate and how to stop, I would fall off my chair laughing.
Exactly ten years ago, I was the undergraduate student who would pull an all-nighter to study for the next day’s midterm. I was the one who would prepare a 30-page research paper over two sleepless nights.
But deep down, it bothered me. It really did. I procrastinated so much that when it came to writing an exam, I would ace the material I had studied for, but would flunk the questions on the chapters I didn’t have enough time to cover.
Why did I do this to myself?
I have no idea. Perhaps I didn’t care badly enough to be an A+ student. Perhaps I didn’t have the best habits—who am I kidding? I definitely didn’t have any self-disciple or good habits.
Ten years later, I wake up every morning to stretch, meditate and then sit on my chair and write.
I feel like I finally learned how to beat procrastination.
Do I still procrastinate? Of course!
(Confession: I procrastinated with writing this article).
But I learned how to control it.
Procrastination is the act of putting things off for no particular reason.
It’s saying “I’ll do it later” or “I’ll do it tomorrow” to whatever needs to be done today.
And when it comes to procrastination, there are several reasons that contribute to it. Here are some major ones:
Lacking a “why” or an intrinsic motivator as to why you need to do a task
Fear (of failure, of judgement, of the unknown)
Creating no sense of urgency
Nurturing of harmful productivity habits and distracting environment
Operating on low energy levels
Seeking perfection and waiting for “the perfect moment” to start
Feeling overwhelmed with tasks at hand
Untrained on how to focus and enter state of flow
Likewise, there are a number of strategies we can use to procrastinate less:
Clearly define why this task matters to you to drive intrinsic motivation
Re-channel fear into an equally-intense but empowering emotion
Set self-imposed deadlines to create urgency for the task
Redesign your environment to reduce distractions and boost your productivity
Exercise daily, sleep well, and eat healthy to maintain high energy levels
Focus on progress instead of not perfection
Prioritize your work and start small so you don’t overwhelm yourself
Train yourself on how to cultivate focus
All the above strategies have powerful implications—they help us procrastinate less and achieve more.
But before we expand on how we can stop procrastinating, I believe it’s much more effective to begin by first exploring why we procrastinate.
You can adopt all the productivity tips and “hacks” available, but at the end of the day, if you don’t address the underlying issue of why you procrastinate, you’ll always be held back by the very pattern of behaviour that leads to procrastination.
Agreed?
So in this article, I want to dig deeper into the science behind why we procrastinate.
Once we unravel it, we can figure out how to rewire our brain and change our behavioural patterns.
This is going to be an exciting ride.
So let’s get to it.
Our Brain Systems at Work
There’s more to procrastination than we might imagine.
It’s not just a game of discipline and willpower.
Procrastination is rooted in our biology and how the different parts of our brain work together.
As it turns out, procrastination is the result of a constant battle in our brain that’s sparked between two systems: the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex.
I’m not a neuroscientist, so I don’t want to get too detailed here because I don’t want to lose you (or myself) in the process of explaining the psychology behind procrastination.
So let’s agree on keeping this explanation simple and straight to the point.
Basically:
The limbic system is one of the oldest and most dominant portions of the brain. It deals with emotions and memory and it regulates and influences automatic behaviour that is triggered in response to emotional stimuli. This is where the amygdala sits (more on this below).
The prefrontal cortex is newer and less developed. It’s where we actively plan and make conscious decisions.
Because the limbic system is much stronger, it often wins the battle when we’re faced with a new activity. Automation beats conscious effort because automation is designed for one thing: survival.
Your brain wants to keep you safe. That’s why we’re accustomed to avoiding unpleasant actions. We know we should sit down and write that report, but since it breeds discomfort, we avoid it. You know you should start working on our new idea, but since it pushes you into new unknown territory and evokes emotions of fear, you avoid it.
That’s because the amygdala regulates our automatic emotional reaction to a situation.
Whenever we begin to feel overwhelmed by a certain situation, such as the need to do a mundane or difficult task, our the amygdala triggers a fight (resistance) or flight (ignore) reaction, because our brain is wired to see it as a threat!
In fact, as psychotherapist Maribeth blunt explains, this emotional reaction is so quick:
“It shuts down the logic part of our brain and in 1/32 of a second we become fearful and we can’t think!”
The result is procrastination: We put off for tomorrow what we could and should have done today.
We do what feels good now. We avoid discomfort and unpleasant feelings as we were designed to do.
As author and psychologist Dr. Timothy Pychyl explains:
“We have a brain that is selected for preferring immediate reward. Procrastination is the present self saying I would rather feel good now. So we delay engagement even though it’s going to bite us on the butt.”
We do what feels good now because that offers temporary relief from discomfort while also giving us a dopamine hit.
Which brings us to the second point.
The Dopamine Hit
Humans are addicted to dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter produced by pleasurable experiences.
Dopamine is the reason social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook become so addictive. It’s why gamblers—or anyone— can get addicted to the slot machines at casinos.
Our brain releases dopamine whenever we are having or anticipating pleasure: having sex, craving food we love, buying a new dress, standing in an ice-cream queue waiting to be served, getting a like on our social post. It’s what triggers addictive behaviours—and we crave more of it.
And the dopamine pull is one of the main reasons we procrastinate.
Our limbic system pulls us to do things that make us feel good now because that’s the easiest way we can get an immediate dopamine hit. And since the limbic system is so dominant, we automatically find ourselves falling into the recurring trap of avoiding what needs to be done in favour of historical behaviours that makes us feel good immediately.
How to Rewire Our Brains and Stop Procrastinating
Now that we understand how our brain works and how it automatically pulls us into the direction of actions that instantly drive dopamine levels up, we can intervene.
And since it’s clear that the root cause of procrastination is an emotional issue rather than a time management issue, then the only way to beat it is through emotion—not rationale.
Allow me to explain.
In his recent research study, psychologist Dr. Timothy Pychyl concluded that “the more purpose we have, the less we procrastinate.”
This means that whatever goal or action we are working toward if we can surface the reasons behind why we want to do it—instead of what we want to do—we’re less likely to procrastinate.
This makes sense because the reality of life is this:
We make decisions based on our emotions.
It is our emotions that drive our behaviour.
Consider this:
When was the last time you made a purchase because it logically made sense? When was the last time you saw an ad that listed all the technical features of a product?
You buy brands because you feel something toward them. Marketers use ads with children, puppies, or humor because they want to appeal to your emotions and elicit an emotional response.
So why is it then, when we want to fight procrastination, we approach it from a logical standpoint?
“I need to write that paper. I need to finish my book. I need to study for my exam. I need to go to the gym.”
Yes, you need to do all these things—and you should. But do you know why? And if you do know, does it really matter to you? Are you consciously aware of the implications if you don’t do them? And do these implications matter to you?
All the above examples don’t tell you why you need to do what you need to do. They all make rational sense. But logic doesn’t move us—emotions do.
If we can learn to trick our brain at a given moment, by using emotion to drive us to take action instead of repelling us from it, we win!
We can use fear in our favor! We can use fear to make us take action instead of repelling us from it.
Here’s an example:
The traditional chain of thought: I want to publish 5 articles per week, so I need to write today. [Brain: Procrastinate].
Emotional chain of thought: I want to publish 5 articles per week, so I need to write today. [Brain: Procrastinate], [You: If I don’t sit down and write right now, I won’t be validating my identity as a writer. If I don’t publish today, I won’t have an article and I won’t be able to send a weekly newsletter. If I don’t do so, I will not grow as a writer. And writing is so important to me—I want to write and grow as a writer! It makes me feel accomplished. It makes me feel alive! Ok, Let’s write!]
Another example:
The traditional chain of thought: I need to do an hour of exercise today, but I’m lazy. [Brain: Procrastinate].
Emotional chain of thought: I need to do an hour of exercise today, but I’m lazy. [Brain: Procrastinate]. [You: But if I don’t work out, that would make it three days in a row without movement. And then I’ll get even lazier! And then I will start gaining weight. And then I will feel like shit. And then I will start eating junk food again. And then I will feel like shit even more! And then I have to train even harder to get back into shape. Alright—I’m going to the gym!]
In both cases, you took the time to emotionally explain to yourself why the fear of avoidance was much greater than the fear of discomfort and used it as motivation to act—which is the exact opposite of what happens insight our heads.
Read that line again.
You made your fear of avoiding taking action much greater than your fear of not following through.
And as soon as we take that first action toward the task, we get an instant dopamine hit. Write a second line, and you get another hit. Do 10 more push-ups and you suddenly want to do 10 more.
The reason the traditional chain of thought is so short is that as we’ve seen before, the amygdala takes 1/32 of a second to kick in and stop us in our tracks. It uses the fear of discomfort against us.
But if we learn to be conscious of this, and pause to question why this task matters to us and what are the implications if we don’t do it, we use the fear of avoidance against our limbic system—we beat it at its own game!
And the more we practice this, the faster our brain will rewire and, with time, the much less we are to procrastinate.
So how do we rewire our brains and stop procrastinating?
Three steps:
Get very clear on why accomplishing your goal matters to you and emotionally explain how you will feel:
If you don’t take the action.
If you do take the action.
Take one small action toward your goal to trigger a dopamine hit.
Create a domino effect: Keep on repeating step number 2 until task is complete.
Step one motivates you to act.
Step two releases the dopamine.
Step three reinforces why you must keep going.
THIS is how you outsmart procrastination and beat it at its own game.
Just make sure you take one small action:
If you want to write an article, start with one line.
If you want to work out, start with changing into your gym outfit.
If you want to read a book, start with one page.
If you want to meditate for 15-minutes, close your eyes for 10 seconds.
If you want to clean the house, start with wiping your desk.
One small action inspires more action.
Why it Matters to You
We all struggle with procrastination.
And like many things in this world, there’s no magic solution for it.
I do believe that redesigning your environment to make it less distracting, cultivating more mental focus, and creating an effective productivity system are all absolutely essential for beating procrastination.
But everything begins from a psychological point of view.
Now that we know procrastination is an emotional problem—and how to challenge it—we can move on to the practical ways in which we can become more productive and procrastinate less.
Yeah, I’ll share those with you later…