1. Procrastination gets worse with time
“How much do you think this stone weighs?” “It weighs…” “No. The only thing that matters is how long you must hold it.”
What’s procrastination? It’s the art of making tasks harder than they are.
It's the opposite of thinking long-term. I don't judge you for procrastinating. In fact, I know the struggle all too well. I've felt the weight of procrastination, the nagging feeling that I should be doing something else, something more productive. Yet, I've also experienced the liberation of defeating it.
Procrastination is the opposite of leaning beyond your edge, living life to its boundaries.
It’s a chain on your feet, pulling you down and preventing you from accelerating and taking off like a plane. It's a cage of unproductivity that keeps you bound. The longer it lasts, the worse it gets. It's a cycle that needs to be broken.
2. Excessive pleasure causes procrastination
Let's think more tactically. What's at the true center of procrastination? Excessive pleasure.
Waking up with a billion in the bank would be one of the worst experiences. Suddenly, you would have no reason to get out of bed. Everything you ever dreamt of can come true. You succumb to complacency at the highest level. There’s no pain, no struggle, only pleasure.
Most people experience too much pleasure in the modern world, primarily because of the internet and the modern, easy life, with transport, on-demand food, and heating. The contemporary world has enough of everything and abundant pleasure. Cheap and meaningless pleasures like sweets, degenerate music, or social media distract and are oversaturated with pleasure. No wonder you can't help but procrastinate.
In deep pain, do you think you would be procrastinating?
No, you get up and do something. You would do something to fix that pain. If you are living life and find it just okay, you won’t gain enough energy to change. Human nature looks to maximize pleasure, and monkey nature, like human nature, looks to maximize pleasure right now. Living things value the avoidance of pain more than the potential to gain.
The modern world is full of temptations that lead to procrastination.
It may sound simple but cut out as much pleasure as possible—provided you want to overcome procrastination. Stop using social media, stop eating sweets, and stop listening to hyperstimulating music. I don’t procrastinate because I don’t have these distractions and pleasures. I broke the habit of procrastination and unlearned the art of delaying tasks. I work, and I genuinely love my life.
3. Mental self-sabotage
If you believe you are a procrastinator, you will act accordingly. You may not consciously affirm that yet your surroundings do. If you (sub)consciously believe taking a 3-hour social media break is necessary after working for 15 minutes, you will act accordingly. Whether you procrastinate comes down to how much pleasure you have in your life and your self-perception.
I concluded that I'm the sexiest person in my town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants. I genuinely believe that. I look at my diary and convince myself I'm tthe man. Believing that I'm the man makes me act accordingly. – It makes procrastination not even cross my mind. My self-image enables me to sit down and just work.
What stops you from changing your beliefs?
4. Why procrastination is a drug
A task, for example, some homework, may be challenging. If you do something hard, you need motivation to do it unless you are disciplined. Returning to the previous point, you will generally become more disciplined if you perceive yourself to be disciplined. Let's return. If you complete the arduous task, you feel relief. Makes sense, right?
If you procrastinate, the task becomes even more painful, right? After all, procrastination is the art of making things more complicated than they are. Naturally, the relief after one procrastinates is even more significant. In that sense, procrastination is a drug – it makes emotions more ecstatic. Whether it’s the time before the task with stress or the more considerable relief at the moment, emotions grow.
Your mind loves intense emotions. In a weird yet undeniably true sense, procrastination gives your mind something to occupy itself with. Why does the mind do that? Because it needs something to obsess over.
Yet, obsessing over delaying a task is highly unproductive because the intense emotions are primarily negative. To break that cycle, do more. Give your mind something real to occupy itself with.
5. Practical tips
You already know what's holding you back.
I wish you the best, Kiryl P.