Why We Procrastinate — And Why We Should Stop
2022 is right around the corner. What will your New Year’s resolutions be? Will you finally manage to write the book you’ve always wanted to write? Will you quit drinking unhealthy sugary drinks? Or perhaps you will finally sign up for cryonics, after wanting to do it for so long. If you want to achieve one of your New Year’s resolutions but you are scared you will end up procrastinating again, here is an article for you. It’s time to learn how to stop procrastinating, and finally do all the things you have always wanted to do.
When procrastination is a problem
Let’s make it clear: we all procrastinate sometimes. Procrastination and short-term thinking are instinctual behaviours that come from the times when thinking here-and-now was our only way to survive. This was a long time ago and, since then, we have slowly been developing a new skill. It’s called long-term thinking and it helps us make achievements in today’s society.
Long-term thinking and short-term thinking rarely point in the same direction. This may not be a problem when we decide to clean the house tomorrow because we really want to watch the new episode of our favorite series. Procrastination becomes a problem when we postpone life decisions. When we keep telling ourselves “I’ll do it tomorrow”, until it becomes too late.
Reasons why we procrastinate
As we said before, procrastinating is an instinctual behavior. It can have several causes. Here, we will analyze the three main ones. Important to note, laziness is not one of them. In fact, when you procrastinate, you actively decide to do something else instead. When you are lazy, you simply do nothing.
Instant gratification
One of the main causes of procrastination is, as Tim Urban states in his Ted talk “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”, the “instant gratification monkey”. Tim Urban is a writer, author of the blog Wait But Why and master procrastinator. His analysis of a procrastinator brain is pretty on point — see images below.
Basically, we all have a rational decision maker in our brain, that helps us think long-term. Next to it, procrastinators have an instant gratification monkey that takes control and decides to do only things that are fun and easy. Now, most of us procrastinate, but procrastination is not a problem for all of us. Adding to Tim Urban’s metaphor, we could say that in some people’s cases the rational decision-maker and the instant gratification monkey share a fairly balanced position at the steering wheel. In other cases, the monkey takes control with no hesitation.
But why exactly does the monkey take control? According to Dr. Fuschia Sirois, professor of psychology at the University of Sheffield: “People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task.” When a task is perceived as boring, complicated or challenging, the instant gratification monkey comes to rescue us, shifting our attention to more pleasant activities.
Low self esteem
Procrastination can be linked to a negative emotional state connected to a certain task. But it might also result from deeper feelings related to ourselves, such as self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety or insecurity. Even simple tasks can be perceived as impossible, if we believe we are not good enough to achieve them. In these cases, the instant gratification monkey gives us relief from self doubt.
This instinctual response to stress is called “amygdala hijack”. The amygdala is the part of the brain that recognizes threats. When a task makes us feel anxious or insecure, the amygdala perceives it as an actual threat and activates to remove it. We may recognize intellectually that removing the task from the present moment will create even more stress in the future. Yet, our brain is wired to get rid of it. To avoid procrastination, we have to go against our instinct.
Short-term prioritization
Finally, there is a very sneaky type of procrastination. Do you ever feel like you are not advancing in your life, despite the fact you are productive and busy all the time? If you do, it means that you are experiencing what is called “productive procrastination”. While you prioritize everyday tasks, you are postponing on projects that would actually make a difference in your life.
It’s easy to recognize procrastination when, instead of fixing your CV to apply for a better job, you spend hours watching cat videos on Youtube. On the contrary, productive procrastination is harder to notice. If you think short-term, you prioritize activities that may influence your week. But if you want to improve your life, you have to think long-term.
Things we can do to stop procrastinating
Now that we have analysed the main reasons behind our procrastinating, what can we do to stop doing it? First of all, we have to understand our reason why. It could be one of the reasons above or it could be a mix of them. Understanding ourselves, without judgment, is the first step to take. Afterwards, you can try applying these tips:
- Are you a slave of the instand gratification monkey? Then try to reward yourself every time you move forward with a task. Give yourself an alternative gratification, that is linked with the task and not outside of it.
- If your problem is low self esteem, then you should practice self compassion. Treat yourself with kindness and forgive yourself for your mistakes. In a 2021 study, Dr. Sirois analysed how self compassion helps decrease stress levels related to procrastination. Self-compassion boosts motivation, feelings of self-worth and positive emotions like optimism, curiosity and personal initiative.
- Finally, if your procrastination in life is linked to short-term prioritization, you have to firstly understand what you want to change in your life. Then you can break your long-term resolution down into weekly short-term steps, making sure you will work on them at the beginning of each week.
Cryocrastination
As we said before, procrastination becomes a problem when we postpone important things in life. For example, when we spend months doing a job we don’t like because we are incapable of taking the leap and changing it. Or when we know we want to sign up for cryonics, but we postpone it, prioritizing matters that feel more urgent.
Procrastinating the sign up for cryonics is so common that there’s even a term for it: cryocrastination. Many people are stuck in this phase for years. They know they want to be cryopreserved, but they don’t see the urgency to take action. Why? Because they are thinking short-term. In fact, if you think about the here-and-now, it seems smart to wait for the field to grow and develop before joining it. But cryonics is not about the present moment. It’s a choice that regards the future and it requires a long-term approach.
Why you should sign up now
Let’s have a look at some reasons why you should sign up now, instead of later.
- The first reason to keep in mind is the price. You may think that signing up later would make you spend less money. But this is not the case. In fact, when you sign up younger, your life insurance is cheaper than when you are older because you are less likely to get (or already have) some kind of disease. You would also spend a lower monthly fee because your expenses would be spread over a longer period of time, having several years more of coverage.
- Second of all, while you are insurable now, you may not be in the future. Getting a disease could mean becoming uninsurable, therefore being potentially unable to pay for your cryopreservation. Additionally, even if the chance is low, you could be in an accident and not be covered.
- Thirdly, the more people join the community, the faster the biostasis field will develop. More people interested means more awareness and more investments in research. If you want to know more about how you could benefit from the growth of the cryonics community, check out this article.
- Finally, when procrastinating a task, we simply give it to our future self. This means that, if you don’t do it now, you will have one more thing to take care of later. If you know you want to be cryopreserved, wouldn’t it be better to just do it and have peace of mind?
Conclusion
It can be hard to stop procrastinating. You need a lot of self awareness and motivation to work on yourself and learn your weak points. Yet, some things in life are very important and it would be a waste to just miss the opportunity that we have in the present time.
Cryonics gives you a chance to extend your life in the future. You may think that you can wait a couple of years before joining. But why wait, when there are so many reasons to sign up now? Don’t miss the chance of a lifetime.
