8 expert tips for you to beat procrastination

 At a glance

• Experts say that everyone procrastinates to some degree and for different reasons.
• Awareness of procrastination can vary, depending on the situation.
• There are strategies to minimise the negative impact of procrastination.

People who procrastinate put a disproportionate weighting on the present and not enough emphasis on the future, says Professor Stephen Knowles from the Department of Economics at the University of Otago.

This might also explain why procrastination has been linked to impulsivity, especially difficulty with setting and successfully pursuing short-term and long-term goals.

Understand why

Lishman says procrastination is our mind moving us away from activities, tasks and duties that elicit a negative or painful emotion, which could be anger, frustration, stress, fear, boredom, guilt or shame.


We may be avoiding things we do not like, or something about the process itself that we do not like, or the fact that completing a task ultimately will not give us any pleasure.

Research suggests that not only do procrastinators intend to do the work, in some cases they may end up doing more work than they intended as a deadline looms.

Rather, procrastinating may be an indicator of anxiety, a fear of failure, or lack of competence in a task.

"Some people believe that procrastinators are lazy or not team players. This can be true, but for many, procrastination comes from a lack of direction or confidence to complete the task up to the required standard."

— Georgina Pacor, Australian Industry Group

The pitfalls of distraction

There are also negative societal outcomes for procrastination, says Knowles.

Saving for retirement and staying healthy with regular exercise and a sensible diet both require action now, to reap the rewards later.

How to stay focused

“While procrastination is prevalent in all types of positions, industries and levels, it is more common in white-collar positions, as blue-collar roles generally have more regular and specific key performance indicators,” says Pacor.

“There is also a school of thought that people in task-orientated positions or ones that have regular deadlines are less likely to procrastinate than those who operate in long-term projects, innovation or creative positions, where timelines are not as tight.

"When a task becomes challenging, there can be a belief that there is plenty of time, so the task is pushed back.”

What should you do if you are managing someone who is a procrastinator?

“If I’m just interested in making sure they get the job done, I would be trying to set deadlines that are going to keep them on task,” Knowles says.

However, Knowles’s research suggests that deadlines can be a double-edged sword. If you give a procrastinator what you think is a generous deadline to get something done, you may actually have given them an excuse to delay.

“Think carefully about the deadlines that you give people to do something,” he says.

“If I want you to do something for me, I’m best to give you either a fairly short deadline or not mention a deadline at all.”

For example, it might be better to let people get stuck into work in the mornings, when they are fresh and focused, rather than filling up those timeslots with routine team meetings.

“That’s particularly important if you’ve observed they are a procrastinator, but they are not someone who works well under pressure,” he says.

“You might need to remind them of a situation when procrastination has caused difficulties for them in the past.”

However, the best motivator might be a little more self-reflection, says Knowles.

“When we procrastinate, we are not behaving the way our future self would want us to. Maybe what we need to do is ask what our future self would think about it.”

Tips to fight procrastination

1. Acknowledge that you procrastinate.
2. Ask yourself why you procrastinate. “Are you a time waster at heart, who prefers socialising over success, or is the real issue that you lack confidence or the skill to complete the required task?” asks Georgina Pacor, senior content writer and human resource specialist at the Australian Industry Group. “Be brave enough to open the conversation with your manager, because together you may even discover that the root of the problem is that you actually need more of a challenge!”
3. Write a plan, schedule or to-do list. Identify your distractions and remove them. Are you lured away from work tasks by conversation, social media or checking your email? It pays to know your weaknesses.
4. Use a time-management technique. break the work into 25-minute ‘pomodoros’ and set a timer. Start working, and enjoy a five-minute break every half hour,” says Pacor.Reward yourself. Even the smallest rewards can be enough of an incentive to get past typical procrastination inertia, says Knowles.
5. Do not leave the hard parts until last. Instead of putting off the hardest tasks until last minute, tackle them when you are fresh and energised, says Pacor.
6. Hold yourself accountable. Let others know that you tend to procrastinate, as well as your plan for overcoming this, so that you are accountable to someone else.

Ref: CPA