Overcoming Procrastination
Many of us can relate to the person in this photo… a textbook does make a good sleep mask after all!
There are many reasons why we procrastinate, with not all of them being negative. In fact, procrastination can actually be good for you, or at least a useful signal to re-assess your work schedule. Here are 4 important notes on procrastination that need to be understood if we’re to overcome it:
1. Procrastination can happen when the task is inherently unenjoyable
This is common sense, and the reason most people think procrastination occurs. There may be other factors at play, but it’s easy to put off a job you don’t want to do (purely because you don’t want to do it) and watch TV instead, or read a book, thinking ‘I’ll get back to work in a minute’. The next thing you know, it’s been 3 hours and you still haven’t done any work, but you’re also still not feeling refreshed enough to get back to it.
Taking a purposeful break from work (instead of procrastination) is important in ensuring your time away from the desk actually allows you to decompress. If it’s 11:00am and you can’t focus, allow yourself a guilt-free extended lunch and restart again at 1:00pm. You’ll be much more focused in the afternoon if you commit to having a break, rather than sitting on your phone in front of a textbook until 12:30pm, then taking 30 minutes to make lunch and trying to get back into your essay.
2. Procrastination is linked to your mood
Everyone has good days, everyone has bad days. Recognising when these are and dealing with them appropriately is important if you want to achieve your goals without burning out in the process. If you’re not in a productive mood, or you’re especially tired, allow yourself a morning off with the promise to yourself that you’ll work an hour later tomorrow evening instead.
It’s also easy to beat yourself up after procrastinating and wasting what could have been a productive morning lying in bed or watching TV. From the time you stop procrastinating and start feeling guilty, there’s nothing you can do to regain the lost hours, unless you have access to a time machine. If you beat yourself up about it, your mood will worsen, stress will increase and it’ll be even harder to focus on the work that needs to be done. After a morning of procrastination, reflect on why you didn’t get around to working; was it just because the work was boring and you got distracted, or are you having a bad day? Is this module particularly difficult and could you do with some extra help before tackling it on your own? Maybe you haven’t been sleeping well because of some other stressor and now your brain is too tired to focus? It’s important to take a minute to think about why you put off the work, to then be able to address the cause in future.
Even more importantly, forgive yourself for not working (as we’re not factory robots who can operate at maximum efficiency 24/7) and think about how you can motivate yourself to work better tomorrow. Maybe you’ll watch an episode of your favourite TV show after a long session on your essay, or treat yourself to that new book you’ve had your eye on after the submission deadline has passed. Extrinsic motivators do work, even if they’re not as good as intrinsic motivators.
3. Remind yourself the purpose of the work
This is the intrinsic motivation. I remember revising the Tudors for A-Level History (a topic which I overall enjoyed) and getting frustrated at having to memorise arbitrary dates of battles and key events. I’d think, ‘this is useless information, how is this going to help me in life?’.
It hasn’t helped me in life directly, as I’ve never had a gun to my head and been asked to recount the date of the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485 if I remember correctly). However, I have had to upload my A-Level History grade to UCAS, which Imperial College assessed against their requirements to offer me a place at Medical School. It’s the metaphor of the butterfly causing a tornado; learning those extra details about some English battle of the 15th century may well have allowed me to make a better argument in my exam, scoring a better grade and thus getting into Imperial.
Think of utility in the longer term; I used to think ‘once I get to medical school I’ll be studying a subject I enjoy and won’t have to learn useless arbitrary facts’… roll on the start of my first year and I’m memorising the Krebs Cycle and genetic polymorphisms. It’s Bosworth Field all over again. Regardless of what you study, there will be boring topics, or topics that feel useless, but always remind yourself of your end goal (whether that’s a particular career, or just to get your degree, or something else) for intrinsic motivation.
4. Procrastination can be helpful for creativity
Procrastination can give you some headspace away from the task at hand, not only to decompress but also to work on it subconsciously. You might find that by the time Netflix is counting down to the start of Episode 2, you have a sudden thought about a new argument for your History essay, or a new way to approach that Maths problem. We think through work challenges even when procrastinating, and sometimes it’s exactly what is needed to get over a slump.
Overall, procrastination is a misunderstood thing. It’s not as simple as ‘you’re lazy and bored so sit and watch TV’. Hopefully this insight has given you some points to think about regarding procrastination, and hopefully you’ll be more accommodating of yourself in future, reflect on the causes and maybe even see the benefits from time to time.
Rhodes Willoughby is Co-Founder and Director of STEMaccess, at the time of writing in his fifth year of his MBBS/BSc degree at Imperial College School of Medicine.
