Procrastination

Procrastination is manifested in the fact that a person, realizing the need to perform very specific important tasks (for example, his official duties), neglects this need and diverts his attention to household trifles or entertainment.

Procrastination differs from laziness in that in the case of laziness, the subject does not want to do anything and does not worry about it, and in the state of procrastination he realizes the importance and urgency of the work, but does not do it, perhaps finding certain self-justification. Procrastination is distinguished from rest by the fact that when resting a person replenishes energy reserves, and during procrastination it loses ^[3] .

In one way or another, this state is familiar to most people and is considered normal to a certain level. Procrastination becomes a problem when it turns into a normal “working” state in which a person spends most of the time. Such a person postpones everything important “for later”, and when it turns out that all the deadlines have already passed, or simply refuses to plan, or tries to do everything deferred “jerk”, for an impossibly short period of time. As a result, the cases are not performed or are performed poorly, late and not in full, which leads to corresponding negative effects in the form of troubles in the service, lost opportunities, dissatisfaction of others around due to default and the like. The consequence of this may be stress , guilt , loss of productivity . The combination of these feelings and the overrun of forces (first - on secondary matters and the fight against growing anxiety, then - to work at an emergency pace) can provoke further procrastination.

Term Russification

In Russian, procrastination, as a phenomenon, was noted as early as the 19th century. Then the proverb spread in Russia: “ Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today! - so lazy say ", arisen from the poem" The Delay ", translated into Boris Fedorov (1794-1875) ^{[4] [5]} , which got into the pre-revolutionary gymnasium reading books. Also known is a close in meaning older Russian proverb: “I put it off for autumn, and there I quit”.

For 2014, to refer to the concept, they use tracing paper from English, but scientists ^{[ who? ]} think about the translation of the term ^{[ why? ]} . The following options are proposed: “breakfast”, “transfer”, “on the spot”, “delay”, but, among others, the term “deferment” stands out as the most acceptable ^[6] . When translating the book, Doll A. “Mental traps: Nonsense that intelligent people make to ruin their lives” was used to refer to this phenomenon as “dragging out” ^[7] . This corresponds to one of the meanings of the word "tighten" and the phrase "delay the case."

The term appeared in 1977, when two scientific articles were simultaneously published: “Procrastination in a person’s life” and “Overcoming procrastination”.

In Russia, almost no one deals with problems, ^[6] but there are some enthusiasts: Natalia Karlovskaya and Yana Varvaricheva.

For 2014, the main publication covering the problem is the magazine “Procrastination And Task Avoiding” ( Rus. Procrastination and evasion from performing tasks ) ^[6] .

There are many theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon, but none of them is universally accepted and universal.

Low self esteem

The obvious reason for postponing cases for later is low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, uncertainty that this business will work out, will be accepted by people, is there any sense in these wastes of energy, effort, time, money. Should a person increase his self-esteem, he begins to work much faster, without postponing cases for later .

Perfectionism

The reason for procrastination is also perfectionism , which manifests itself in an attempt to achieve perfection, focus on details and ignoring time limits and is associated with the fear of possible imperfection, the “non-ideality” of the work that needs to be done. Perfectionists also often enjoy the deadlines, even more pressure from circumstances, and work on the “last night”; they are consciously or subconsciously convinced that the quality of their work depends on the pressure from above, and the more it is, the better the results.

Self-restraint

According to this theory, the procrastinator limits himself because of the subconscious fear of becoming successful, to stand out from the masses and show himself better than others (becoming, for example, a possible object of excessive demands, criticism, envy). And the fear of becoming distinguished, successful, can be associated not only with the fear of criticism and exaggerated demands, but also be the result of toxic attitudes set up in childhood (phrases in the spirit: “Do not disgrace us with the father”, “Look what you wanted”, “ Better a bird in the hand than a crane in the sky "and others). In addition, a subjectively low-rated personal ability to act in changed (after the commencement or completion of the case) conditions may play a role. In any case, as in the first theory, the key word is “fear.”

Disobedience (spirit of contradiction)

In accordance with this theory, people are irritated by the imposed roles , programs, plans, and they postpone the matter in order to demonstrate (to others, to the leadership, to the world) their independence and ability to act in accordance with their own worldview. Being subject to external pressure, they come into conflict with the masses or the leadership. In this way, “rebels”, anarchists , nihilists defend their own opinions. Most of them are dissatisfied with the current situation and easily fall into the “not doing” trap.

Theory of temporal motivation

All of the above theories do not explain the problem entirely. Opponents distinguish two main shortcomings in them: they explain the reason for evading tasks, but not the reason for their postponing, and do not explain the main thing - the relationship between procrastination and anxiety (for example, perfectionists are less prone to procrastination than other people). The theory of temporal motivation ( English temporal motivation theory ) is considered more reasonable.

According to this theory, the subjective utility of an action (Utility), which determines a person’s desire to perform it, depends on four parameters: confidence in success (Expectancy), value, that is, the expected reward (Value), time to completion (Delay) and level impatience, that is, sensitivity to delays (g). A person finds it more useful to do business if he is confident in its successful completion and expects a large reward from its results. On the contrary, things seem subjectively less useful, until the completion of which there is still plenty of time. In addition, the more painful we endure delays, the less useful things seem to us that take some time to complete.

Following this theory, we can conclude that the procrastination level is lower, the greater the expectations from the case and the more valuable its results are for a person personally, and the higher, the less persistent a person is (so, impulsive people are more susceptible to procrastination) and the farther to achieve the goal (the closer the goal, the harder we work). In other words, work is best done when there are high expectations and personal interest in relation to it, and the time to reach it is kept to a minimum.

Since procrastination depends directly on the degree of motivation (interest in work and positive expectations from its completion), in some cases the problem can be solved by changing work (leaving school), but these are not universal and very radical measures, and most people are not ready for them. Moreover, if a high level of procrastination in a given person is associated with increased anxiety and lack of planning skills, then the likelihood is high that changing the type of activity will not help (or will only help at first).

There is no definite recipe for getting rid of procrastination. However, within the discipline of time management , there are a number of techniques that allow to reduce to a greater or lesser degree the procrastination and, thus, increase the real return on labor, which entails an increase in life satisfaction and relief from stress.

Categorize time use

Usually, there are no special problems with procrastination in people who can draw a line for themselves, unequivocally dividing the cases into urgent ones and those that can wait. Lucy MacDonald ^[8] , citing as a source the ideas of Dwight Eisenhower , as well as Stephen Covey , author of the method of Franklin Time Management ( Franklin Time Management ) and the book Seven Skills of Highly Effective People, suggest that all cases be divided according to two criteria: importance and urgency. Thus, there are only four categories of cases that take time:

1. Important and non-urgent (Priority Principle)

It is these cases that have the greatest impact on the life of a person as a whole, while procrastination primarily affects them. This includes everything for which a person lives, his most promising goals and objectives, something that gives meaning to all life . Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of the existence of this category of cases and to remember them as things that determine the direction of movement. At the daily level, it looks like this:

• What corresponds to life goals and values, is what a person should start his day with: getting out of bed, reminding himself that he has a life project.
• In carrying out important and urgent matters from category 2, it should be remembered that all this is done for the sake of “important and non-urgent” life goals, and to realize which ones: work, because I want a healthy family, attend English classes, because I want to open the door to Europe, tearing out a bad tooth, because my health is important to me. That is, this is your every minute filter for any business.
• In this category, you need to take into account the time to rest and allow yourself to provide it. Without health and strength the following categories will not be needed.

2. Important and Urgent (Crisis Management)

This includes all the really urgent matters: emergency , illness , deadline, family crisis , the threat to life. As a rule, with their execution does not arise special difficulties.

3. Unimportant and urgent (Not Important and Urgent - Distractions as Denial)

Any allegedly urgent, but in reality do not affect the life of the little things. Neighbors invited 52-year-old mother-in-law, daily conversations during lunch, a five-time meeting with customers, daily house cleaning. The negligence of these cases does not mean that all of them can not be done at all, but the person should be aware that they are not too substantial and the rejection of them in favor of cases of categories 1 and 2, if necessary, should be easy and natural.

4. Unimportant and non-urgent (Not Important and Not Urgent - Busy with the "Trivial Many")

This “trivial many” is a category of daily activities that make a very small contribution to the quality of life, or do not make it at all, but take time. These cases are given time when a person does not know in which direction it is better to move: answers to all calls, chatting with relatives during working hours, delaying tea drinking, business and personal spam, Internet blogs, playing cards, get-togethers until late at night.

Educating hard work

Success begets success. Based on this, a person should maintain a positive attitude, finding pleasant consequences in any previous action and, as a result, making them a stimulus for further activity. You need to reward yourself for success, to maintain a sense of their own usefulness. Starting a new business, to be sure that there have been successful actions in the past, to celebrate small daily victories, but not dwell on them, to track the ratio of victories and tasks.

The productive awareness that the flight from unpleasant experiences, the desire to make your life as easy as possible at the expense of entertainment is not justified by anything and only aggravates the situation. Since experiences become unpleasant only when a person himself evaluates them in this way, he should learn to enjoy work and avoid dissatisfaction with assessing its quantity.

In order to get rid of the “spirit of contradiction”, the feeling of imposing obligations from the outside, the wording “I must” (do) with “I choose” (do) should be replaced by subjectively turning the duty into an act of goodwill. A variant of this technique will be the creation of a schedule in which the central place is occupied not by rest periods, but by rest, interspersed with affairs.

Business Planning

You need to plan your day and allocate time for each job, taking into account the rest, possible delays and so on. Instead of performing tasks one after another, when it is impossible to proceed to the beginning of the next until you finish the previous one, several different tasks are carried out simultaneously - in parts. You can set aside short time blocks (from 5 to 30 minutes) to work out something and then switch to another, or schedule something specific and small in volume in this block. Schedule must be made in advance; it is better to spend some time on it in the evening to know in the morning what to do and how to use time wisely. When the to-do list is visual, then even postponing something for later, you still do useful work. The list can be made by ranking the cases according to priorities, but it is not necessary to carry it out in order of importance, at first you can do something that is easier.

One of the planning methods useful for combating procrastination is Getting Things Done , developed by David Allen . The basic idea of ​​the technique: stress arises, including because of the need to constantly remember a large number of cases of varying importance and urgency and the constant problem of choice: “What to do right now?” Therefore, it is necessary to unload the brain, transferring all plans to external carriers (records on paper, electronic calendars and planners, etc.), categorize them (current affairs, projects, standing duties, etc.), importance and urgency, clearly defining what needs to be done at a specific time, and fixing timeline where they matter. As a result, at each moment of time it is clearly known what things need to be done first and foremost, and you can concentrate on your work, by allocating special time for periodic adjustments to plans and no longer returning to the problem of choosing between current affairs.

Allen insists that any business, even the most insignificant, should be included in the plan. The purpose of this, however, is not to create an unambiguous "calendar of the future" and stick to it with all possible scrupulousness, but just the opposite. When planning their affairs, people tend to include in their plans, first of all, complex, important and time-consuming tasks that require a lot of time to solve, as well as matters that have an unequivocal chronological reference (meetings, meetings, official events). Other cases fill free places in the work schedule. But life is full of accidents: a scheduled meeting can begin 10 minutes later, a meeting agreed upon within a month can fail ... A “window” suddenly appears in the schedule. If a person is prepared to have a list of tasks that he can perform under the given conditions in the vacant time (and the time is usually short, and “big” tasks are not crammed into it), he will use this time. If the list of "small" tasks is not at hand, time, with a high probability, will be lost. Allen also advises when planning “large” tasks (projects) not to be limited to “large-block” planning (allocating time for the entire project), but, on the contrary, always have at least one specific task planned for each large project (for example, in the framework of a multi-year project “Developing a system X for customer Y” in the task “Agreeing a technical task”, which is given a month, should be scheduled with a specific critical date, something like “Call the secretary Simeon Semyonitch and agree on broadcast by agreement of TZ ”). For a procrastinator, such planning allows one to overcome the fear of starting specific actions on a project, since the vague plan to “do something according to the task” turns into a very specific action that does not require additional explanations and reflections.

John Perry, a Stanford professor of philosophy, introduced the concept of “structured procrastination.” According to his theory, procrastination can not be suppressed, but turned into an aid for work. Since most procrastinators, shying away from important matters, still do something, they only need to direct their activities to a more important direction than, for example, browsing the Internet . Professor Perry proposes to build the structure of the tasks so that important and urgent things, of course, are at the top of the list, but after them are a little less important, but, nevertheless, requiring work to be done. An avid procrastinator, of course, will miss the most important thing, but instead he will do something useful, standing in second place. Perry notes that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since, in essence, it is a substitution of some tasks for others.

However, if there is a category of tasks that this person postpones stubbornly and permanently, then in order to cope with procrastination, it is necessary to understand that what is unpleasant and impossible to do is in these matters. It is possible that these tasks can be transferred to someone else, or made so that they do not need to be performed at all. Perhaps, having realized the reason, a person will be able to get rid of the problem himself. In any case, you need to consider the unpleasant pursuits deeper.

Distribution of effort

This technique is familiar to all athletes - it is necessary to learn how to distribute your strength, plan your activities so that all your plans will be carried out without strain.

It is noteworthy that in Eastern practices ^{[ what? ]} cases that are planned and not executed are equal to an unbearable burden. Energy is wasted when we do not implement what we have planned, and plan what we will never accomplish. Guilt eats up our internal energy reserves. The more unfinished cases remain, the less power there is to accomplish them.

Therefore, the essence of technology can be expressed in the following words - do not plan ahead, if there are unfinished business. Before you begin, distribute your forces in advance, leaving time for a complete collapse. Hold your breath so as not to become a driven horse.

Goal Management

The aforementioned systems of “management according to Franklin” and GTD recommend to build tasks on priorities, and the deadline and importance of the task can be signs of particular importance. At the same time, planning should be carried out at several levels, from the global (“the goal of the whole life”), through the definition of the stages of achieving the goal, and so on to specific plans for 3-5 years, for a year, for a month, for the coming days. At each level, basic values ​​should be defined, attributes by which it will be possible to determine the degree of achievement of the goal, the skills that need to be learned, the fullest possible idea about yourself, about what a person is going to achieve.

From the point of view of the fight against procrastination, all this is necessary so that when performing any action, a person, at least remotely, in the long term, imagines what for (on the scale of his entire life) this is done and what it affects. A person learns to understand what he wants, what he wants, what needs to be done to do this, each action is filled for him with a specific personal meaning, as a result, he is less likely to postpone really important things.

At the same time, it does not solve the main problem if a person is disoriented in life and cannot determine the correct goal.

• Time management
• Laziness
• Anxiety
• Resource planning
• Operational management level
• Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today! - so lazy say

in Russian

• Ludwig P. . Win procrastination! How to stop putting things off tomorrow = Petr Ludwig. Konec ProKrasTinace. Jak Přestat Odkladat A Začit Žit Naplno. - M .: Alpina Publisher , 2014. - 263 p. - ISBN 978-5-614-4709-5.
• Oakley B. Think like a mathematician: How to solve any problems faster and more efficiently / Per. from English - M .: Alpina Publisher, 2015. ISBN 978-5-9614-3080-6
• Tarasevich GV. Procrastination: the disease of the century // Russian reporter : journal. - M .: PunaMusta Oy, 2014. - № 14 (342) . - pp . 20-29 . - ISSN 1993-758X .
• Fiore N. Psychology of Persuasion. Easy way to stop postponing things for later. - M .: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber , 2013. - ISBN 978-5-91657-573-6 .

in other languages

• Counseling the Procrastinator in Academic Settings. / Eds. Henri C. Schouwenburg, Clarry H. Lay, Timothy A. Pychyl, and Joseph R. Ferrari. Washington DC: American Psychological Association , 2004.
• John Perry. Structured Procrastination (eng.) .
• Procrastination (Eng.) // Oxford English Dictionary . - 1989.

• Procrastination Central . A summary of procrastination . The appeal date is May 12, 2014.
• Structured Procrastination . Possible cure for procrastination (English) . The appeal date is May 12, 2014.
• Prokrastinator.ru Russian-language site dedicated to the problems of procrastination
• Procrastination (Neopr.) (Dictionary-reference). psyfactor.org. The appeal date is May 12, 2014.