Procrastination is a problem many people have.
They put off a task that they need to complete, instead distracting themselves with frivolous tasks like checking social media, cleaning their desks and refreshing e-mail.
But what causes procrastination?
When are people most likely to procrastinate?
On a general level, procrastination is caused by the brain’s desire to feel good, especially over the short term.
Things like checking e-mail or reading social media sites provide quick boost to the brain’s pleasure receptors while difficult tasks like writing a report do not.
So when we procrastinate, our brain is seeking that quick pleasure boost.
There are also specific causes of procrastination that people experience depending on who they are and the situation they’re in.
One of the most common causes is excessive perfectionism.
Many people have an internal dialogue where they convince themselves that they aren’t capable of doing a good enough job.
As a result, they’re paralyzed by fear of rejection or failure and spend too much time preparing and analyzing, but never start working.
Another common cause of procrastination is that people are simply unmotivated to start and reason that they’ll have more motivation tomorrow.
Of course, they never are motivated until right before the deadline.
Many people even tell themselves that they work best under pressure, but research shows that this isn’t the case, it only unnecessarily increases stress levels.
Simply being fatigued can cause procrastination as well.
People who are low on sleep or overworked often have poor impulse control, so they put off a difficult task in favor of an easier fun one.
There also certain types of tasks that people are especially prone to procrastinating on, such as those that are boring, frustrating, unstructured or ambiguous.
The more of these characteristics a task exhibits, the more likely it is to cause procrastination.
Procrastination can be within your control, the key is to recognize what is driving your procrastination habits and then taking action to try and target those instigators.
