You are NOT a born procrastinator. (Includes self-motivation checklist)

Are you tired today because you were up late last night (early this morning???) doing that assignment that you knew about three weeks ago?

Medium shot of a young mother working on a laptop while her baby is sitting next to her. It is night time and she appears to be at a kitchen table since there is a bowl of fruit in front of her laptop. She has her right hand covering the bottom half of her face. There is what appears to be a single light bulb lighting the woman’s laptop. — Working late at night has its problems.

Do you ruin the last hours of a weekend or time off because you are worried and thinking about having to do an assignment that you did not do BEFORE your “relaxing time”?

When was the last time you realized you had to submit something late, and got a low grade, because you realized at the last minute that you had too many other things to do to complete that assignment?

Man in a suit sitting at a table has four people behind him. A man is on the far left and the far right sides. Two women are in the middle. Each of these four people are shoving papers toward the man who is trying to work on something on the table in front of him. — Too much to do means that something usually does not get done, or does not get done well.

If it helps, most of the instructors I have known also procrastinate. As a student, in a college dorm or when I had my own place, I always found that I had this most irresistible urge to clean my living space in the week or two before the end of the term. Mind you, I did not think my place was all that messy until exams and final papers were due. I knew I was procrastinating, but I did this every term! I was, and still am, not immune.

Do you tell everyone else – and yourself – that you are a born procrastinator?

You should not accept that title.

Misconceptions about procrastination

Many people who procrastinate are keen on giving themselves an excuse for why they procrastinate that makes them feel better. The truth is all these myths about procrastination exist because you’re willing to lie to yourself to feel good.

Procrastination is linked to low self-esteem, lack of self-control, perfectionism, and worse – deceit because you’re lying to yourself about why you procrastinate so that you can keep doing it.

Which of these myths do you tell yourself?

I Work Better Under Pressure

Many people, especially artistic types, think that they are better under pressure. You’ve felt this before if you ever wrote and turned in a paper in school that you completed at the last moment.

When you got that A back from your last-minute efforts, you felt great, but you didn’t do well because you wrote it at the last minute.

You may have achieved the A, but you gave up something else to do it since you did it at the last moment. That may be time with your family, sleep, food, exercise, and so forth.

None of that is a good thing or anything to celebrate. However, if you don’t procrastinate, you can do well every single time without giving up success in other areas of your life.

I would argue that you simply took the time to really, truly focus on the task. What would happen if you focused intently, with purpose, on your other tasks, when you don’t have to rush to meet a deadline?

Have you ever lost points on an assignment because you forgot to do something? My assignment checklist can help you remember the details. Check it out! It is FREE!!!!

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I Am Simply a Lazy Person

If you are feeling stressed or down, you may blame yourself erroneously for your procrastination. Laziness is not one of the reasons you procrastinate.

You have to dig, maybe deeply, into your thoughts and feelings. Study yourself and how you were raised. These can all give you clues for why you procrastinate.

The good news is the fact that you’re reading this is proof that you are NOT lazy.

I’m Terrible at Time Management

If you often find yourself flitting around feeling hurried and lost, it’s not because you’re bad at time management. Instead, it’s because you don’t know how to manage your time yet.

Studying time management and goal setting will alleviate this problem quickly if you implement the solutions you discover. Check out some of my blogs on that topic.

I Lack Self Discipline

Self-discipline isn’t really about punishing yourself and doing things you hate.

Woman on couch, with soda in her right hand and television remote in her left hand. Her legs are crossed, and her feet are resting on an exercise ball. She is watching an exercise video on a screen in front of her. — “Doing” requires some discipline.

Instead, it’s about understanding why and how the actions you need to take affect the impact you want to make on the world and, more importantly – your life.

When you understand the cause and effect of what you are doing, you will see change.

I Don’t Have Priorities

The lack of goal setting is apparent when you have no idea what to do each day. Without a set plan of action to consider, it’s hard to know where to start.

It’s not that you don’t have priorities. You just haven’t defined them yet. Having more priorities isn’t going to help you do more actions to achieve results automatically.

Instead, you may have too many priorities based on the erroneous notion of constant busyness that society pressures you to emulate.

I Am Smart

Being smart isn’t really a reason to procrastinate. If you think that doing everything at the last minute because it turns out okay is smart, imagine how well you could do if you planned things out.

Did you know that even seasoned pilots and truck drivers take the time to physically and mentally plan out what they will do and double-check that they did not skip steps during the process?

If you procrastinate, that’s not that smart because you may miss important and even lifesaving steps.

Procrastination signals a need to change. You may need to become better at goal setting and realistic planning, but you may also need to understand that no one succeeds without doing certain tasks. Of course, doing isn’t perfect, but it ensures you achieve your goals.

You have read about the myths. How many are way too familiar to you?

Now that you know what you are doing, you may be asking why. Let’s look at that now.

Causes of Procrastination

Many factors can cause procrastination, putting off tasks or events, but the main cause is avoiding what we see as discomfort. It may be due to an inability to envision success, or it might be because you are scared of how it’ll look to others.

Most of the time, however, it’s simply due to not wanting to do that particular task in the first place. It can be something as simple as being in a bad mood.

Thankfully, when you understand what is causing your form of procrastination to take root, you can mitigate and overcome it.

Poorly Crafted Goals

Setting up your goals is a skill in and of itself. However, if you’re not good at formal goal setting, you must take a step back right now and work on your goal-setting skills. A well-crafted goal will start with the big goal or result (saving 2.5 million dollars so you can retire early) at some point in the future and then result in steps you can take starting today that will naturally lead you over time to the result you wanted.

Inability to Envision Success

When you’ve set your goals correctly using a system like the SMART or SMARTER goal setting methods, the system enables you to see what success will look like to you.

A good system, whichever one you select, starts with the deliverable, the result or impact that you’re attempting to achieve, and breaks it down into smaller, easy daily tasks and benchmarks that are track-able and adjustable.

Seeking Perfectionism

Small blackboard with wood frame. On the blackboard is the comment "If you wait for perfect your never get anything done".Perfectionism delays progress — Perfectionism tends to prevent progress

No matter how much you plan, perfectionism does not exist. You can do things so well that others think they are perfect, but you’ll never really achieve perfection.

There will always be something that could have been done better.

You may as well not attempt it. Perfectionism is not realistic and doesn’t fit in with the SMART(ER) goal-setting process at all.

Fear of Failure and Criticism

Procrastination often happens simply because you’re nervous about failing and getting critiqued on your work.

Failure is not a moral judgment or a dreadful thing. It’s not pleasant, but it has nothing to do with your morality.

Failure does not make you a bad person. Failure means you are learning how to do something better. That means you are learning and becoming better today than you were yesterday. How is that bad?

The critiques you receive from others may be helpful for the future, or they might be hateful. Either way, take what helps you for the future and let the rest slide.

This takes time and practice, but you CAN learn to do this.

Physical or Mental Illness

If you have an illness like chronic pain or bipolar illness, it can be difficult to stick to your plans no matter how well thought out they are.

If this is the case, you may want to see professional help to get through this problem.

Lack of Knowledge

Motivation isn’t automatic, especially if you are learning or don’t know what you’re doing. The best way to end this form of procrastination is to learn more.

If you can’t or don’t have time to learn it, delegate, automate, or outsource this task.

If you are acquiring knowledge about a class, you cannot delegate or outsource that. You will need to delegate, automate, or outsource something else.

You Dislike the Task

In some cases, the problem is truly simply just task aversion. For example, if you dislike confrontation, or you dislike data entry, or whatever it is, it’s going to be hard to motivate yourself.

The best way to do something you do not like is to outsource, delegate, or automate what you can and schedule the rest so that you do what needs to be done according to the time and date that it needs to be done and not how you feel about it.

Before you complain… Did you REALLY enjoy changing diapers? Do you really enjoy cleaning the bathroom? Most likely, those tasks get/got done because you realized that they needed to be done and you did them. Many times, you have no options but to complete the tasks yourself.

To immediately end your own procrastination, learn how to develop goals that also provide you the ability to envision success as you track and measure the results of your actions each day. I have a self-motivation checklist here that might be helpful. Let me know what you think.

Then give yourself enough time and help to get it all done in a reasonable amount of time. Finally, do the daily tasks, and you will get where you want to go.

You do not have good study skills

This requires a lot more space and words than I can give it here. I do have other posts that you might find helpful.

23 tips to improve your study skills

Studying at home with children

Putting your spin on the study cycle

Developing a study plan

How to change your thought process to be successful in college in 5 easy ways

I have a lot of other thoughts and ideas that might be useful to you. Check out the Learning Topics on my home page and then scroll down to “Study Skills”.

I know, easier said than done, but this is doable. Remind yourself of where you are and where you want to be. Ask yourself what you want to model as a parent. Your children will do what you do, not what you tell them to do, as I am sure you have noticed.

If they are old enough, maybe you can make this some kind of task you do with your family so that you, and they, can swap procrastination for something much more productive and useful.

If you found this helpful, please share it with someone you think would also find it useful. I would appreciate it. Your friend might appreciate it too.