Contents:
Are you tired of setting such a high standard for yourself? Spend some time drawing out your inner perfectionist. What does she or he look like? What are they wearing? What are their deepest fears? Their hopes and dreams? What do they carry around with them?
Then take a good hard look at the picture of your inner perfectionist. Tell them that you need a little break. Then proceed to rip up your picture. They can come back after the challenge. But for the rest of the evening and the next day, you want them out of your life. This makes spending time in the highly curated and perfect worlds of Instagram, Facebook and glossy magazines extremely dangerous.
We run the risk of comparing ourselves to these unrealistic photoshopped standards. Comparison is like fertiliser for perfectionism, so keep clear of these media streams. Do away with long, overly ambitious to-do lists. Now, procrastination isn't in the DSM. I wonder, do you think it should be? Or might ever be? Oh, I don't think it should be because then we'd all be diagnosed. You know, I think procrastination - it's not a question of are you a procrastinator or not; it's a question of how much do you procrastinate, how often do you do it, how severe is it, does it cause functional impairment.
And I know that's how we think about other criteria that are in the DSM, but this is something that's pretty normal. Procrastination, especially on things that are unpleasant, it's part of our nature. I think there's a very small group of people who never procrastinate, and they maybe have another problem of being sort of compulsive.
But I think it's a fairly common human behavior, so I think to diagnose it, again, you'd be diagnosing all of ourselves. But I think it varies in degree of severity, and there certainly are some people who procrastinate to the point where it really impairs their ability to function day to day. Now, those are folks who may also have other kinds of problems like depression or severe anxiety or some other kinds of things that would interfere. So I think the procrastination is one piece of the puzzle, one symptom amongst a cluster of others.
But it's a symptom that's fixable, so sometimes, regardless of what DSM category you might be suffering from, if you can get a handle on your procrastination, you feel a whole lot better. And if you feel better, then it's easier to function in the other areas of life that are difficult. So it's sort of addressing a common problem, but I don't think it falls in the category of a disorder. Now, I get the impression that, coming from a behavioral perspective, you're inclined to see procrastination as a habit.
But I'm wondering if there might also be somewhat more, oh, psychodynamic factors at work such as a lack of self-confidence, fear of failure, perfectionism, or unconscious self-sabotage. I think all of those apply, so I do see things from a cognitive and behavioral perspective in terms of the solution, but in terms of the assessment - like how you're understanding why we procrastinate, what's behind it - I think all of those factors apply. And so I do think that fear is one of the more common factors: So I think fear is very much a driving force in procrastination.
I think there's other ways in which procrastination shows itself. I think some people use it as a tool. I mean there's those who procrastinate long enough so somebody else does things for them, or they procrastinate long enough that somebody else makes a decision for them or the decision is made by default.
So I think that in relationships you can use it as a weapon if you're digging your heels in because you don't want to be told what to do. So there's all of those. If you look at from a systems perspective, those issues certainly tend to fuel procrastination for sure. And then perfectionism - obviously, if you're trying to get things done exactly right and you can't, then it's easy to put it off because you don't feel like you can do the whole task. I actually wrote another book on perfectionism, and this is just one piece of the problem that perfectionists deal with, but it is one of those problems where, if you don't have the energy or the time to do things exactly the way you want to get it done, or you don't have the resources to do it exactly the way you want to have it done, then you put it off.
So, I think all the factors apply, and you can look at this problem from a variety of perspectives. I've chosen to do it - to approach the solution from a cognitive-behavioral perspective because that's what I do, that's my thing. So, I understand how to operate. And I think because those methods are fairly easy to describe, not only can clinicians learn to help people using those methods, but I think people can self teach quite a bit of it.
You may have already touched on this a bit, but you talk about procrastination as a way to cope. To cope with what? What is it that people are coping with? That's a good question. I think that we cope with things that are difficult or unpleasant, so I'll give you a couple concrete examples. My students, they wait to the last minute to prepare papers or projects or quizzes or homework assignments. Now, why do they do that? Now, some of them fool themselves and say, "I do my best work under pressure," which I don't think is actually true at all, but a lot of people believe it; a lot of young people in particular believe that.
But I think they're coping with the concern or the fear of doing the project wrong or getting a bad grade, and I think we often cope by putting things off because in the short run it actually makes you feel better. So if you're having to face balancing your checkbook and you just don't want to deal with what you're likely to find - maybe errors, maybe a lower balance than you thought you had - you sort of say "I'll do it later," and you put it off and you go watch TV for a little bit.
And while you're watching TV for that little bit, you feel better. So in the short run, procrastination actually makes you feel a whole lot better because it's a momentary escape from the thing that's unpleasant. Another concrete example might be having to return a phone call that you anticipate being unpleasant. So, someone calls, leaves you a message; you know you're going to have to deal with them.
You're going to have to either give them bad news or hear bad news, and you just don't have the energy to deal with it. And so you put it off. You wait, and while you're waiting, you're focusing on something that's easier or more pleasant, and you're distancing yourself from the stress of that phone call, and so it works.
It helps you to cope in the short run, so it's a good short-term coping strategy. The problem is that usually the problem sticks around, so it's going to come back and haunt you or come back and demand your attention sooner or later.
Sometimes traits that we think do not go together actually do. Perfectionism and procrastination are one of those unlikely duos. Most people. Procrastination Busting Strategies for Perfectionists - Kindle edition by Dr. Linda Sapadin. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or.
You know, as I hear you talk about your students' procrastination, it certainly takes me back to my own student days, and it makes me wonder if it might also be a bit of a developmental issue having to do with the maturation process. I know when I was in the early days of my studenthood, I think it was anxiety that would cause me to procrastinate. I just felt so anxious about I guess doing a good job or something. Yes, and it took years, actually, through some time in working on a Ph. Somewhere along that pathway, it finally got through to me that there was more anxiety attached to putting it off than to just doing it.
You're right, and I do think that's a motivating factor for some people, where the anxiety of not getting it done has to get bigger than the anxiety about making a mistake. So it's like really as you get down to the wire and you start to worry about not getting it done on time or not completing it, and then you just sort of rush through it and get it done. Developmentally, the other thing is that I think sometimes people - it takes awhile before you learn organizational skills, and part of procrastinating is when we tell ourselves "I've got plenty of time; I'll get it done later," we actually believe that's true, that we do have time later and it can get done.
And sometimes when you're not really good at time management, you might underestimate how long your task is going to take, and you might overestimate how much time you really have. And so we learn a bit by trial and error of how long things take to complete and certainly that it's not always done as quickly as we might optimistically believe. And you learn a bit by trial and error, and you develop your time management skills. Not everybody does, but most people develop them over time, so that's another developmental process.
I've found that I had to tell myself, okay, I'm going to write a C paper. I'm just going to write a C paper. And most often they would turn out to be an A paper, but somehow being willing to write a C paper helped me to get it done. So, you talk about six types of procrastinators.
I don't know if you have your book in front of you -. I can do that. So, I'm actually going to open up the book. I put a quiz in the book where you can answer some questions about your procrastination behaviors, and if you add up your score in each of these categories, it helps you to figure out what type of procrastination you're typically using or what might be behind your procrastination.
And if you understand the type or the kind of procrastination, then it's a little bit easier to read the book because then you can just go to those chapters that cover the type of procrastinator you might be. So that's kind of the gist of it. So, let's talk about the different types. So, the avoidant type is kind of what we've been talking about right now, the person who avoids things because they think it's going to be unpleasant or uncomfortable.
I think that's a very common type of procrastinator. So, getting the bills in the mail but not opening them up right away because you don't want to see them - that kind of thing. That would also fall in the category of not returning phone calls or not taking care of things that you think are going to be unpleasant; so you're trying to avoid discomfort. Or even just doing a task that you know you have to do. It's not scary necessarily; it's just going to be unpleasant, and it's not very much fun, like doing your taxes. It's easy to procrastinate on putting your taxes together because it's not fun.
And so it's uncomfortable, and it can be painful for some folks. Or going to the - oh, yes, yes. Or the gynecologist or the gastroenterologist or all those various things we have to do. It's going to be unpleasant, and so if you avoid it in the short run, you can feel a little better in the long run - and in the long run, the problem's still there, but in the short run you can avoid discomfort. The second type is the disorganized type, so that's the group that is bad with time management, doesn't really realistically estimate how long it takes to get tasks done or how much needs to be done.
So, I do think you see that quite a bit in students. I think it kind of - some of these types will obviously overlap with one another, but I do think that, in addition to perhaps avoiding unpleasant tasks, sometimes people who are just disorganized with their time don't allot that amount or don't prioritize their goals or their tasks, so it's hard to get things done. You know, we do better when we have deadlines, right? We know that we have to file taxes by April 15, or you know your rent's due by the first of the month.
When there's specific deadlines we do better. When they're aren't deadlines, when things are more open ended, like getting your teeth checked, for example, it's harder to organize yourself around getting them done. So the disorganized type, that's really kind of their deal. They don't manage their time well, and then they run out of time, or they get overwhelmed because they have too much to do and too little time to do it in.
That makes sense to me. I've known some of those types, even in my family, but I won't go any further. I mean it's not unusual. I think, again, we usually learn over time how to get organized, but not always. Sometimes we don't ever learn those skills. The third type is the self-doubting type. It has a little bit of overlap with the avoidant, but what's different about the self-doubting type - this is a group that doesn't trust themselves to make good decisions or trust themselves to go down the right path.
So the self doubter is the one who says, "Should I change jobs or should I stay with the one I'm at?
I'm not really sure what the right choice is. But maybe that's a mistake. Maybe I should stay with it longer. I'm not sure, so I'm going to do nothing. So you put off dealing with things when you just doubt your ability to make a good choice, make a good decision, go down the right path. Some people want to do positive things like go back to school perhaps or maybe retrain for a new job, and they may put that off because they're not sure that's really the right direction to take. Again, I see it with college students who come and are trying to select a major.
But it happens with people who are not students, who are trying to make a decision about a particular job path or a training opportunity that might come up, making a change that has some risk associated with it. It may not turn out well, and if you have doubt in yourself, it's hard to make that leap. It's hard to make a change when you're not entirely certain how it's going to work out for you. So the self doubters - does that make sense? The next type is the interpersonal type and that what I kind of mentioned briefly: I think of them as - in different ways you can use it.
You sort of can use procrastination as a weapon against somebody, so if someone is demanding that you do something for them and you don't want to do it and it's important to them, you just dig in your heels and put it off and intentionally procrastinate and drive them crazy. So, you irritate your boss or your co-worker or your spouse or somebody else because you just don't really want to be told what to do, or you don't want to deal with it, so you use your procrastination in that way. Sometimes you can use your procrastination as a tool to get your way, to get other people to do things for you.
Moms who tell their children repeatedly to pick up their toys and then eventually go pick them up themselves because they know their kids are not going to pick them up. They've trained their children into knowing that if you hear Mom say pick up your toys three times, on the fourth time she'll just do it herself. So, that's sort of an interpersonal kind of situation where you're using that procrastination as kind of a tool.
And another way I think about it in relationships is it's sort of a shield. If you anticipate criticism from others for what you're doing, you procrastinate so that you don't have to be criticized for doing something wrong. Each quiz addresses one type of procrastinator a Sapadin distinguishes between six different ways a person can procrastinate. Each quiz addresses one type of procrastinator and has up to 20 points.
In the order they appear in her book, I scored 16, 18, 18, 6, 6, and 8 points. Will the chapters I read help me? The suggested changes were all decent if kind of hokey. But each style of procrastination has in the order they appear in the book 18, 16, 16, 16, 12, and 17 proposed modifications to your behavior. And if I whittle it down to the few that seem most useful? I would have liked some changes that address more than one style. But overall, I mostly just feel overwhelmed even thinking of trying to change my behavior.
This negates the usefulness of any buffers built into individual task duration estimates. The negative association between procrastination and academic performance is recurring and consistent. Procrastination has been linked to a number of negative associations, such as depression , irrational behaviour, low self-esteem , anxiety and neurological disorders such as ADHD. This is another excerpt on one of the strategies in my Leading with Emotional Intelligence: They might delay or procrastinate, but their mind keeps working, so they are thinking about what they should be doing instead of the relaxing task they're trying to do. Your to do list should comprise of three tasks. The next type is the interpersonal type and that what I kind of mentioned briefly:
Because that will help, right? Jul 13, London Mabel rated it really liked it Shelves: I read this as well as Ferrari's Still Procrasting--this is a much better book.
Ferrari covers all the science done on procrastination, but Sapadin gets right down to profiling what sort of procrastinator you are, and focused tips on how to improve. You're left with a lot of ideas to work on, something's bound to stick. Nov 15, Cara rated it really liked it. I have more than occasional problems with procrastination, though not nearly as bad as most of the people profiled in this book, which made it difficult to relate to at times.
What I did like is the author's insistence that in order to conquer procrastination, you have to understand why you procrastinate in the first place. Her suggestions on how to think about and tackle these problems were immensely helpful to me. Dec 09, Laurie rated it it was amazing. Excellent book that really makes you think about WHY you procrastinate and what to do about it. Very clear and easy to read. I realized that I often think things will magically just work out - so now I am more realistic and proactive.
Oct 19, Shevonne rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: This book is the only book out of six or seven books I read that finally stopped my procastinating ways. It didn't just teach you about time management, it gave you reasons why you might be such a procrastinator. Mar 09, Antonio rated it really liked it. A great book indeed, one that will come in handy when the time cones to face your own issues. The one issue I noticed is that the book seems to focus a lot on what to do, but not on how to do it and, especially, how to keep doing it Apr 26, Sara rated it it was ok.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the different types, enjoyed the quizzes, but completely lost interest in the individual chapters, even the ones that applied directly to me.