It’s tax season, a time which is often fraught with procrastination. Many of us have trouble with procrastination.
We procrastinate when the action at hand has some expected negative impact on us, or is unpleasant in some way. Filling out tax forms is certainly unpleasant, and takes time when we would rather be doing something else. And writing a big check after filling out those unpleasant forms feels like a negative reward.
So how do we stop procrastinating? I don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you how I work at it.
Ask yourself why don’t you want to do this task. How does it make you uncomfortable? In my case, items in which I procrastinate are usually associated with making me feel stupid. If I don’t know how to do something, and need to learn (or relearn) it, I tend to put it off (like tax forms). Or else they are associated with fear. If I do this, something bad will happen, or it will be frightening to me in some way. When planning a trip and making airline reservations, I wonder if the dates I have picked will work out well. Will I find a better deal if I wait? I might get overwhelmed by the task: I can’t start this because it will take me three days to do it and I only have an hour. Or the emotional impact of the action is scary to me, like addressing an argument or a negative situation with a friend or my husband.
I think of procrastination as an energy leak, when I spend time and/or energy avoiding something, time or energy which could be used more constructively. Then I must call on my inner resources to recognize and label the energy leak, and then to plug that leak by actually doing that which I was avoiding. And I usually find that the task I was avoiding was a lot less difficult or uncomfortable than I had imagined it would be. The tax form didn’t take all day to relearn and fill out. Making the airline reservations then allowed me to plan the rest of the trip. Cleaning my desk makes my work so much more efficient, because it also declutters my mind. When I resolve the argument with my friend, I feel much relieved to know that our relationship is still intact.
Every time I handle my procrastination, I get better at it. I hope you will try it, too.