Procrastination

Background

This newsletter will focus on procrastination.  The ideas come from Timothy  Pychyl, a psychology professor at Carlton University.  I first learned of  Pychyl through a teleclass that he gave to the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (formerly the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganzation) to which I belong www.challengingdisorganization.org/.    

In this newsletter I will give Pychl’s definition of procrastination and describe two of the strategies that he discusses in the April 6, 2010 teleclass “Why Don’t We Just Do It? – Managing Procrastination”.  To hear this podcast visit http://bit.ly/ik3rEZ .  For  other bogs, podcasts, books, research, and comics by Pychyl visit www.procrastination.ca. 

A Definition for Procrastination

Pychyl states “ Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite knowing that this delay will most likely undermine task performance and/or create psychological stress.  All procrastination is delay, but not all delay is procrastination.  We all delay things in our lives to juggle the tasks we face daily.  Many of these are necessary delays.  Some are even sagacious delays as we know the delay will benefit us.  It’s important not to confuse every other form of delay with procrastination.” 

Strategies

Looking Forward - Pychyl points out that it is easy for us to think that are going to feel like doing something in the future.  By telling ourselves that we will feel like exercising in the morning as opposed to now we are kidding ourselves.  In reality we won’t feel more like exercising in the morning.  In fact, we often feel good or relieved when we assign a future date to a task.  We enjoy that feeling but in reality it isn’t helping us get anything done.
 
Looking Back – some of us have a tendency to think that we can do more than we actually have time for.  Pychyl explains that it is important to look to the past in order to  figure out how much time something actually takes in order to more accurately plan for the future.
 
• Moving on with Intention
 
Pychyl feels that the “implementation of intention” is the most important concept in working against procrastination.  He sets up this formula, “In situation x, I will do behavior Y to achieve subgoal z”.  The two parts of the formula that I think are important are to believe in your goal and to specifically replace an old behavior with a new, desired behavior.  For example,
Situation x – When it is time to exercise
Behavior y – I will put my shoes on while standing up (as opposed to sitting down and never getting back up)
Subgoal z – in order to get healthy.

Summary

Good Luck,
Susan


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