Procrastination gets a bad rep. And rightfully so. When we push things off until the last minute, if we don’t finish everything we needed to, or we do but not at the established timeline. That being said, it isn’t all bad.
Procrastination
At its core, procrastination is often an avoidance technique that involves an invalidation of the future. This avoidance is often due to overwhelm or anxiety about a task, even though people often don’t see it that way.
People instead tend to view procrastination as a sort of laziness. A “why don’t you take care of things now so you don’t have to worry about them later? Don’t you care at all?” The fact is that people who tend to procrastinate do tend to care, very much. But their mind seems to go blank when they contemplate the task at hand, due to the stress of it. Essentially, they get stuck in a freeze state of adrenaline and end up just avoiding the topic altogether.
Curing procrastination
As cliché as it is, the best cure for procrastination is to break down each task into as many micro-tasks as possible. Seriously! Break them down until the tasks are so mind-bogglingly simple that it seems silly, and do them bit by bit.
This way you can make progress without having to take on any lofty ideals. And you get the emotional reward of crossing things off your to-do lists more easily and frequently, so you can track your progress in a more pleasant manner. That being said, procrastination isn’t all bad.
A tool for anxiety?
While people procrastinate out of anxiety, we don’t generally market it as a tool to help combat anxiety. That being said, there is one application of it that can be used that way.
If you have an anxiety disorder (such as social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder, etc) you will find yourself dealing with lots of worries about the future. Many of these thoughts are unfounded or at least momentarily unfixable. And this is where procrastination can come in handy!
How to do it
When you feel yourself start to spin about something overwhelming that you can’t do anything about, focus on your breath and sensory input in your surroundings. Make a resolute decision “I’m not going to think about that right now, I’m just going to be.”
Every time that worry comes up, you can say to yourself again, “yup, I hear you. But there’s nothing I can do about that right now. So for the meantime, I’m just going to breathe and exist. It’s okay, I will worry about that later. But right now I’m just sitting here and breathing.” And so on and so forth.
Mindfulness, a loaded word
I think that when we hear the word mindfulness, it’s become a bit lofty. Like the gurus and yogis of the world coming down to tell us what our day to day existence should look and feel like. Who are they to say anything? They don’t know our struggles. But when I think of mindfulness, I like to think of it as a stubborn distraction from our troubles that we already know we can’t do anything about.
How many times have you heard “well, crying about it won’t fix anything” or “what good does it do to worry about that right now?” How many times have you tried to tell it to yourself? If you know this about yourself and how you tend to view things, now is your time to try stubborn distraction, or, put another way, procrastination to manage anxiety.
“Maybe my worry is valid. But since I can’t do anything about it right now, I’m just going to sit here and be.”
Thank you for reading! Consider subscribing to the blog for more life discussions and lessons. And let us know in the comments below, what experiences do you have with either mindfulness or procrastination? Have a great day!
