Hi Everyone. Today I am back with one of the most commonly talked about topic which we feel and action it in almost every aspect of our life. Let us jointly discuss on what is “Procrastination”. I am sure that we all have observed this trait in ourselves and also in people around us as and at any given point in time, we all of us procrastinate.

So, what is Procrastination? It is an action of delaying or postponing work due to any reason even after knowing that it may have negative consequences too. Now, do you know that everyone of us keep on delaying stuffs due to one or the other reason. Office employees delay their deliverables sometimes due to unforeseen conditions but most of the time delivery is delayed either because someone is tired or someone is not in the mood to work or sometimes at the back of the head, we know that “Oh, we have so much of time left and Lets do it tomorrow”. Small school going children delay their school projects knowing that still there is too much of time left for holidays to get over or may be the entire day is left for finishing the homework. We adults delay loads of household work like we delay purchasing our groceries until the stock is completely exhausted. We delay paying our electricity or phone or credit card bills assuming there is lot of time left and let’s do it tomorrow until the electricity line is cut. We delay packing our bags until last day when we have to finally board the flights the very next morning. Sometimes we delay waking up in the morning in a complete greediness of having just 10-15 minutes more sleep and finally postponing everything for the day.

So, I hope now you know what Procrastination is? So, Let’s talk about what causes this? And how to deal with Procrastination? 

Here are few of the causes that we all can relate to:

1. Laziness – Well, yes you got it right. Laziness contribute a lot to Procrastination. You want to relax and you want to take some breaks and you delay things. We all understand that taking breaks is not wrong and they are necessary for you to refresh but when you take un-necessary or long breaks even at the cost of your work then you procrastinate and contribute in delaying things

2. Boredom – Boredom is also the second biggest factor towards contributing Procrastination. When you are bored of either routine work or mundane chores then you definitely lose interest and your mind wants to have almost different kind of an experience to combat with Boredom and hence you divert your mind towards gadgets watching shorter reels or funny videos.

3. Technology driven Procrastination – This kind of Procrastination is common right from the toddlers to school children until adults. Technology is always a boon for all of us and there is no doubt in this but when gadgets become your whole life then it starts giving you side effects and yes procrastination is one of them

4. Loss of Interest – When you do not have any motivation to complete a task or you feel disinterested then also you delay things un-necessarily.

5. Last minute thrill or Pleasure – Let me explain this point with an example. Let’s say that you need to pay an electricity bill. Now, since you have not paid the same from last 15 days and now that only last 2 hours are left to pay your bill before your electricity connection gets cut. You run and finally pay your bill. Now here you get a sense of achievement and a kind of a kick that states that I completed the task in just 2 hours whereas it needs to be completed in last 15 days. This gives you pleasure.

Since we have now understood that Procrastination is not good. So, what can we do to stop procrastinating all the time?

1. Daily Exercise and Meditation – In order to stop procrastinating, the first step is to wake up your body and mind. Physical exercise will wake up your body and Meditation will wake up your mind and soul. Post this, there will no or very little chances of Laziness which will help in combating procrastination

2. Engaging in something Productive – We all agree that Boredom is something which no one likes and if you get bored, you tend to sleep or watch TV or eat Junk and trust me you pass your entire day in the same chores. I would then suggest to get up and go for a walk, or go cook something healthy for yourself, watch some videos related to your work, do some gardening if you like or may be pamper yourself. These are little little things or activities which will make you productive. The idea is that when you will do something productive, your mind will get productive and active as well and you will get charged up again which will help defeating Procrastination

3. Technology driven Procrastination – can be easily defeated by understanding this fact that everything you are watching in your gadgets are all virtual and virtual things can only give you pleasure but they cannot satisfy you. They can only give you an initial kick but trust me it is a baseless pit which will never get filled with satisfaction. You will always want More and More but you will be still very far from getting satisfied. But again we cannot ignore this fact as well that technology and gadgets are an important part of our lives and has seriously made our life easy and has connected entire world together. Hence we should use technology until the point it is required for us. But post that, we should learn to put our gadgets down and come again to our real world.

4. Loss of interest related Procrastination – can only be avoided when you will either so some work which will seem interesting to you or you will do the same work with innovation or with some different approach. I would also suggest to pursue your hobbies or passion for which you will aspire to take some time out or you can say that your passion will add altogether a different approach to your lifestyle. 

5. Also, please understand that last minute thrill will always not work out for you because situations will not always remain the same or be in your favour always. And believe me in an attempt of achieving some kick or some sense of achievement or self glorification, you are forcing your body to always remain in “Fight and Flight response”. Hence please do not be harsh towards your bodies and hormones

Please let ne know if you liked this content and want to know more about procrastination.