It is Tuesday night. My Newspaper article, which I volunteered to write two weeks ago, is due tomorrow, and I have yet to write more than a few sentences. Despite having ample time, I have waited until the last minute again. Procrastination is everyone’s worst enemy when you know you need to get something done, but you lack the motivation required to start. This is a real and universal response to the discomfort related to doing a seemingly unpleasant task. Our brains want to avoid feelings of malaise, so they will delay action to postpone the problem and any related unpleasantness. How do high schoolers and young adults, notorious procrastinators, deal with this?
In order to keep our procrastination in check, we need to understand what it actually is. Procrastination, according to Insights Psychology, is “the voluntary delay of a planned action, even when you know that postponing it may lead to negative consequences.” In other words, procrastination tricks the brain into putting more stress on the present avoidance of perceived discomfort than the potential stress later on. Procrastination is more than a habit to break out of, because, at its core, it is linked to the fundamental purpose of the brain. Our bodies, controlled by the nervous system, are required to act in our best interest. Procrastination is simply a defense mechanism used to protect ourselves. However, this does not tell us how to break out of a procrastinating streak. In order to determine this, we need to see how the brain prompts procrastination.
Our brains are complicated, but, ultimately, procrastination is triggered by two parts of the brain fighting for control—the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. Our limbic system is the nucleus of emotions and prioritizes feelings of serenity while the prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions and impulse control. Insights Psychology described their relationship, saying “this tug-of-war between emotional avoidance and rational decision making is at the heart of procrastination.” Procrastination has not demonstrated a correlation to laziness, intelligence or age.
These tendencies can start in young children, especially at the time school and homework are first introduced. Oxford Learning provided interesting insight surrounding the impact of academics, explaining that homework develops a negative connotation because it brings a potentially destabilizing location, like school, into a home environment which is seen as relaxing and comfortable. This juxtaposition creates a negative association with the task and encourages the young procrastinator to avoid it. Exacerbating this feeling, children struggle with delayed gratification significantly more than adults do. For fully developed minds, long-term benefits generally hold more value than smaller, immediate rewards. A child, however, is likely to choose a task that triggers an instant dopamine hit over an undefined future reward. Given this information, some experts have debated whether or not educators should make the effort to deter their students from procrastinating.
Despite popular belief, these delays can be beneficial; that extra thinking time can allow ideas and connections to surface that might not have occurred in more linear planning. To test this theory, Jihae Shin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, asked study participants to pitch a new business idea. Some were instructed to start right away while others were allowed a five-minute break before beginning. The experiment found that the procrastinators’ ideas to be more innovative. This proves that setting aside time to mull over a task can actually improve your effectiveness. The same article elaborated further, explaining that “procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, and to make unexpected leaps.”
Although procrastination can be helpful in some instances, it also has detrimental impacts to your overall health in the long run. Insights Psychology explained these negative results, stating, “chronic procrastination can rewire your brain, strengthening avoidance pathways while weakening your ability to confront challenges head-on.” This means that the limbic system, which rules the emotional nervous system, gains more control and makes it considerably easier to avoid tasks. This repeated pattern raises the amount of the stress hormone cortisol in the body. The excess quantity of the chemical can impair memory, focus, and your mental health as a whole. Given the significant health risks, we need to minimize our chances of falling into a cycle of procrastination and instead embrace deliberate strategies to combat this pattern.
There are studying habits you can implement that can help combat a lack of motivation or focus. The first is to break the task into more manageable sections. If the issue appears to be less daunting, it can be easier to start. You can also find a way to involve a reward system. For example, if you can work for twenty minutes straight without any distractions, you can have a five-minute break to do whatever you want. These small tricks can incorporate dopamine back into the activity, making it more enjoyable. These tweaks to your routine can decrease the likelihood of feeling the urge to procrastinate and they will end up making you feel better about your workload.
Even though starting this article was difficult, I have completed it before the deadline. Going forward, I will break the project into smaller achievable tasks because that is what tricks my brain into action. Procrastination is complex, but hopefully you have found something insightful in this piece. Now, I am going to reward myself with some dessert.
