Why Procrastination Is So Easy And Getting Down To Business So Hard

To procrastinate is defined by Webster's as to put something off intentionally and even habitually; but a better way to understand it is not doing what you think you should be doing, as noted in a lucid article in the New Yorker by James Surowiecki. 

Procrastination is one of the easiest things in life to do, and yet can be terribly stressful (for instance when you have a deadline and are glued to your Wii player) and even costly (such as when you take months to file your income taxes and have to pay a larger fee). Whenever you have something important to do, you can always put it off for a period of time--until you can't put it off any longer. 

Why procrastination is so easy, and getting down to business so hard 

1. We often have to do things we don't want to do: This is a simple one. You've got to put a report together and you're totally uninspired, not interested, and the Leaf game is on TV. Or you are obligated to cook dinner that evening, but you would much rather surf the internet for the umpteenth time. You need to purchase and write your mother in-law a birthday card and find yourself instead cleaning your coffee maker. 

2. We have at our finger tips unlimited choice: It would be easier if we didn't have so many things vying for our time at a given moment. As humans with free will, we can instantly think of innumerable things to do with our time--rather, that is, than that which we think we should be doing.

3. Technological distractions: How many times have I sat down to 'get something done' when "Bling!"--a notification goes off from one of my favourite news feeds, and down I go into an abyss of current events; or, worse yet, a Facebook notification that someone's just commented on one of my posts, and down I go into the social media abyss. Technology is brutal for trying to get things done. For real hard tasks, I will turn off any connection to the internet--and if I have to, will work in ink. 

4. Fear: In Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, procrastination is the Grim Reaper of productivity--he calls it resistance. We resist for many reasons, but when we're having to get down to creative work or work that requires vulnerability, our fear can cause us to procrastinate. Every time we get down to a creative task, we are struck by what we want to create and what we believe others want us to create. This tension can cause anxiety which we try to overcome through avoidance and deflection, namely procrastination.

5. The gap between effort and reward: If you are to perform a task whose deadline is in the distant future, you're more likely to procrastinate on it. It's like the person who has several months to complete a major report and ends up freaking out the night before trying to put it together. 

Can anything good come out of procrastination? 

Enhanced productivity: There was a paper I read once that argued for a practice called productive procrastination, which involves getting something done when you should be getting something else done, like completing a major report when you should be completing a different one; or like vacuuming out your car when you should be preparing dinner for guests.

Greater inspiration: Some things just take longer to cook up. If you are pushing the boundaries of an idea or a body of research, the answers could take much longer than you or a superior are prepared to admit. Some questions take years to answer; some projects don't come by banging your head against the wall but walking away from it and waiting for a moment of clarity. 

Higher performance: There are times when you just need a fire lit under you to get a job done. I find that when the pressure's on, I'm at a heightened state of focus and creativity. Some people need this--they feed off it. The problem is that it can come back to bite you: you could miss a deadline, buckle under the pressure, or just not put in your best effort. 

If you're a procrastinator there is a technique you can try, called the Pomodoro Technique, which involves choosing a specific task and setting a timer to work on it for 25 minutes, followed by short breaks. If a distraction enters your mind, jot it down and keep working. After longer periods of work, you can take a longer break. The whole purpose of the technique is to shorten that effort/reward gap that often breeds procrastination. 

The only problem is you first have to choose to work on that task--but what if you...