How to avoid procrastination

ARe you always putting things off, even though you know it will get you into trouble later?

Being perpetually late for appointments and deadlines can devastate your professional, academic, and personal life. What can you do about it?

If you like to put things off, you’ve probably heard that old chestnut, “Hard work pays off tomorrow; laziness pays off now.”

Sometimes avoiding work is simply laziness. However, mental health professionals are convinced that it can also be a personal strategy that allows us to resist authority and avoid failure.

Psychotherapist and stress expert Dr Mark Gorkin describes the most likely reasons for procrastination as:

> Lack of proper resources to do the job

> Doubting the value and purpose of the task

> Burnout from too much work and no rest in between “vital” deadlines

> Fear of failure

> A quiet way of protesting, either against the task or the person who set it

> A way of punishing someone else if your delay causes him or her problems

> A way to make a task look more difficult than it is, i.e. “It took me 10 hours, it must be tough.”

> Fear that success will bring along more demands

Mental health experts point out that if putting things off is causing you trouble, working out the reason why you procrastinate is the first step towards changing your life pattern.

Although evaluating, acknowledging and changing your ways is not a simple task, it’s one with a worthwhile goal.

Overcoming procrastination means better relationships, less stress and more time to do the things you want to do.