Why do people procrastinate? On my last post, "PAIN VS. PLEASURE", I explained how we either move toward doing something (pleasure), or we move away from doing something (pain). The reason people procrastinate is simple, they are literally associating massive pain to whatever it is they are putting off from doing.
Let's say for example, someone is getting ready for a test and they need to study for it. Everytime they pick up the book to read, they put it down and turn on the television, or the music, or they get on the phone and call someone. Why? Simply because they are associating pain to studying and pleasure to do something else. What happens then when it is the night before the test, they begin to panic and think, "If I don't do something now, I'm going to fail!". They start reading, absorbing the information, studying late into the night. What happened that they suddenly began to study so hard? They now had two pains to deal with, the pain of studying for the test and the pain to failing. It turns out, the pain of failing was greater than the pain of studying, so, bingo, they study their brains out to the late hours, end up exhausted, and believe it or not, they pass the test with flying colors!
This is just an example of procrastination, which is caused by associating pain to something. Has this ever happened to you, maybe at work? The boss wants something done and gives you a week to get it done, then on the second to the last day he or she surprises you by saying, "Can you please have that on my desk this afternoon?". What happens then? You associate massive pain to not getting it done and massive pleasure to keeping your job. Before you know it, you do three days of work in less than four hours!
How do we overcome procrastination? I have found that turning the task to be done into a game and make it fun really works. If there is a project that needs to be done by the following week, I ask myself, "What would the benefits be if I started right today , finished it in two days? I would have the rest of the week to relax and check it over for errors, or even better ideas to add to it". Before I know it, the project is complete, I have time to look it over, not be in a state of panic, and I can start on the next project and do the same thing. Before I know it, I am now associating massive pleasure to getting things completed way before the deadline, and I have time to relax and do other things that need to get done ahead of time.
For any questions, please feel free to e-mail, davidmlangis@gmail.com and I will get back to you
Remember to ACTIONIZE NOW and The Future Is Yours!
cheers
David