• What is procrastination?
• Examples of procrastination
• How to stop procrastinating?
• Procrastinate or procrastinate?

We explain what is procrastination, why it occurs and examples. Also, how to stop procrastinating and how to spell the term.

Procrastination is putting off an activity perceived as uncomfortable, difficult, or frustrating.

What is procrastination?

When we talk about procrastinating, we mean putting off or deferring an important issue, replacing it instead with others of less relevance, easier to deal with, or more enjoyable. This is not a way of laziness or laziness, but rather a difficulty in coping with the emotional requirements that the complex task demands.

The verb procrastinate was not widely used until the beginning of the 21st century, when it became effective in light of the distracting effect that social networks. The term comes from the Latin I will procrastinate, made up of the prefix pro- ("forward") and crastinus ("Tomorrow"), that is, leave things for tomorrow, something totally contrary to what the popular saying suggests: "do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today."

Contrary to popular belief, procrastination is an emotional issue. It is a distracting behavior, which postpones the moment of facing an activity perceived as painful, uncomfortable, distressing, disturbing, difficult or frustrating, all of which justifies its postponement to an uncertain and idealized future in which the conditions to do so.

Many psychologists view procrastination as a symptom of bigger problems, such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or also as a feature of hyperstimulation to which we are subjected in contemporary times.

Examples of procrastination

Procrastination can occur in many different ways, for example:

• Eternally have "preparations" to face what needs to be done: pour yourself a cup of coffee, then adjust the chair, then change pencil, then do maintenance on the computer, then go to the bathroom, and so on.
• Attend to minor and unimportant office tasks, such as sending an email, sharpening pencils or solving non-urgent problems, in order not to face the main and most relevant task.
• Engage in multiple distractions while "starting" important work, so that more time and attention is devoted to the former than the latter, for example, opening windows on social networks, initiating chat conversations, and so on.

How to stop procrastinating?

It is difficult to stop procrastinating because its cause cannot always be identified.

There is no simple answer to how to stop procrastinating, in part because there is no single or easily identifiable cause. However, a significant change in the way of thinking or approaching the task in question can almost always be part of the solution of the problem, understanding that it is not so much a lack of desire or lack of will, as an emotional configuration that complicates the task more than necessary.

Thus, to stop procrastinating an activity, certain changes in attitude may be useful, such as:

• Break down the to-do task into a set of smaller, more manageable tasks, which can be done with less effort and less anxiety, and start tackling them one by one.
• Encourage yourself to make a rough draft or version of the task, on which to later work on a final version. This allows you to lessen the pressures of perfection and get on with the task without feeling like you have to get it right the first time.
• Accept your own decisions, your own wishes, and your own needs, as a way of taking pressure off what they will say and the need for external validation, in order to undertake postponed tasks with less fear.
• Build a work environment free of free distractions: put the phone aside, uninstall computer games, minimize interruptions, log out of social media, etc., during the period in which we want to do that important work. We must decrease the quantity and availability of excuses.
• In case we find that we are avoiding important work, do not blame ourselves and add frustration and discomfort to the experience, but take it with some humor and try to redirect our attention in positive ways.
• Apply interrupted work techniques such as the “pomodoro method”, which generally segment work into small periods using intermittent pauses to make it lighter.

Procrastinate or procrastinate?

The correct spelling of the verb is to procrastinate and not "procrastinate", that is, it is written with two interconsonant "r's", even though it is difficult to pronounce. This is because it comes from Latin I will procrastinate, as we have already seen.