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Why do We Procrastinate? Five Reasons that Cause Us to Put Off Tasks

© Flora Brown

For many, procrastination is a nuisance, but for some it is a chronic problem. The results of procrastination are always the same: lost opportunity, frustration, increased stress, poor job or academic performance, lower self-esteem and, of course, wasted time.

Why do We Procrastinate?

Procrastination is more than just poor time management. Few people have trouble getting things done that are fun or easy. We usually procrastinate with projects that are difficult, frightening, complex, or distasteful. In some cases we put off these tasks so long that they never get done.

There are at least five reasons or causes of procrastination:

1. Fear of success or failure. The anxiety that sets in at the onset of a project causes some people to put off getting started. The discomfort is heightened when you feel incompetent or not up to the task. Some worry so much about producing a perfect product that they wait until every drop of research has been done or every avenue explored. Others engage in elaborate preparatory or avoidance activities before beginning a task, such as deciding that all the dishes must be washed and put away before you start your paper.
2. Overestimating the time left to complete a task. When your teacher assigns a research project the first week of school do you begin on it right away or wait for 15 weeks until it is due? Many students see that long semester stretching ahead of them fail to take into account the other homework and life tasks they must manage during the semester.
3. Understimating the time required to complete tasks. Many students don’t have a realistic concept of how much time it will take to look up sources, take notes, extract the information and formulate a paper. When they run into snags and time delays, they often feel the universe is working against them. People with a poor concept of time also think they can drive a 30 minute trip in 10 minutes.
4. Believing you must be in the mood to do a task. Delaying the start of a task until you are in the mood is common. However, when you get started on a task well ahead of the deadline, your mood brightens and self-esteem increases.
5. Over-reliance on time-saving modern technology. If you’ve ever seen a procrastinator kick and scream at a copy machine or printer that’s moving slower than they wish, you are witnessing this cause.

Here is the Real World University site about how to combat procrasination.

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