Do you know the reason we procrastinate?  I'll tell you tomorrow. (kidding). It has nothing to do with laziness, but...that doesn't mean we are without fault, at least not knowingly.

Have you ever set out to do something, like hmmm alphabetizing your spice drawer. Maybe you even wiped down every bottle before starting the task at hand...then you just throw all the bottles in the drawer and say you'll do it later.

You wouldn't say you were lazy...it takes effort and focus and your bottles are now "at least" clean.

When we procrastinate, we’re not only aware that we’re avoiding the task in question, but also that doing so is probably a bad idea. And yet, we do it anyway.

You probably know that, but did you know this...According to Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa...

Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.

“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,”

Here are some ways to manage procrastination:

  • Cultivate curiosity - why don't you want to do the task at hand.
  • Consider the next option - get started and your motivation will follow
  • Make your temptations inconvenient - if you constantly stop what you are doing to check your phone, change to a long password that is hard to remember.

Make the things you want to do as easy as possible, avoid the roadblocks. Now go finish alphabetizing your spice drawer.

(New York Times)

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