Procrastination is not Laziness

[andrewducker]

This describes a whole set of my behaviour - and is far worse for a chunk of my friends:

It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.

But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of “having to do” things, which is a self-rewarding behavior. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.

Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.

From

(I've actually reached the point where the word 'lazy' doesn't mean anything more to me than 'This person doesn't spend their energy doing what I want them to.')

Comments

[emceeaich]

As the whole culture's going all "quantitative self" and "metrics driven" I think it's making the problem worse.

[firecat]

For me procrastination is mostly about having a task with a lot of interconnected bits to it and not having the executive function to break out the threads into mini-tasks.

And that's a very good definition of "lazy."

[j_v_lynch]

This reminds me of the best comment I ever had on a report card. My grade 11 Physicis teacher said: "For many people Laziness is a burden. John, however, bares it with ease."

[andrewducker]

I am a big fan of all three virtues. But #1 holds a special place in my heart.

[marahmarie]

Your physics teacher couldn't spell. Which I suppose he or she bore with ease, as well.

Phhht.

[beachlass]

Oh, thank you for this. It rings very true to me (thank you, therapy), and has also given me a window into some of my son's current struggles as well.

[marahmarie]

I would never think that my procrastination is from tying my performance to my self-worth. I've known - lived with - even worse procrastinators than I and their self-worth appeared just fine to me. In fact, it was egotism. Actually getting something done made it even worse.

The only thing I feel when I finally catch up on whatever it is I put off is guilt. That I didn't get it done sooner. But putting things off does nothing for me, either; in fact, it stresses me out since my list just keeps getting longer. There's stuff that never comes off the list since it always, every day, must be done and re-done, then all this other crap that I keep avoiding/making excuses for not doing.

I think the only answer is a permanent vacation to a remote, sunny island. Let's all just go in on the airfare for the one-way tickets and put off what we could do now until it rains there. :)