by Elspeth Raisbeck

Created on: May 11, 2010   Last Updated: May 12, 2010

Beat Your Procrastination Demons.

There’s a sock drawer to organise, shoes to polish, a 300-stong CD collection that needs to be ripped to iTunes and so many other vitally inconsequential things that need doing, so that the term paper/research article/report your boss has asked for will have to wait a little longer.

Does this sound familiar?  And do you find that, while things often get done under pressure, the stress of it all and the rush before the deadline just isn’t worth it?

So what does procrastination actually achieve?  Its only real plus is that, if you’re working on a problem or creative venture, it lets the right (creative) side of the brain kick in and help you.  So doing mind-neutral activities such as walking the dog, doing the washing up or vacuuming really can be useful.  But only if you then have enough time to set-to and get the task done, using the fruits of your right-brained labour.

On the negative side, procrastination helps you miss deadlines, miss opportunities, do rushed, substandard work and waste time.

We all suffer with procrastination at some time and to a greater or lesser extent.  It’s a psychologically complex beast that means we do it for varying reasons.  For example:

Low self-esteem.  Do you procrastinate because you demand high levels of performance but feel that you can never achieve them and so think ‘so what’s the point in starting?’.

Manipulation.  Do you perhaps use inactivity as a tool to control others’ behaviour?  Eg: ‘if I don’t do X they can’t get on and do Y’? Too busy.  When day-to-day pressures get too much and you can’t see the wood for the trees it’s easier to do nothing than think about where to start.

Too difficult.  It’s natural to put aside seemingly difficult tasks and find easy ones to do first. Lack of skills or knowledge.  ‘How can I start if I don’t know all the details/haven’t been trained to do it?’

Fear of failure.  Well, no one wants to fall short of the mark, do they? It’s something  you just don’t like doing/are bad at doing.  Well that’s understandable.

Ok, so there are lots of reasons for putting things off.  What about some ‘cures’?  Student Academic Services at California Polytechnic say:

Realize you’re delaying something unnecessarily.  2.  List the

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