More Than Time Management - The Core of Procrastination, and How to Solve It.

We’ve all got something we’re procrastinating on. I’d be willing to wager that the particular task or issue you are procrastinating on jumped to your mind just by reading the previous sentence. Procrastination can range in severity - from a minor behavioral nuisance to a full-blown problem in all areas of our lives - and it appears to be a universal human experience.

Procrastination is often characterized as a time management issue, giving the impression that procrastination occurs due to poor planning or deliberation. There is some truth to this - planning and time management strategies do seem to help - but it misses the primary driver of procrastination, as well as what makes it so human: distress intolerance.

Evolutionarily, humans are hardwired to resist or alleviate all forms of distress - this was a handy heuristic for guiding behavior going back as far as cave people. Hunger pangs? Better find something to eat. Touching fire burns? Better not touch fire again.

This same process extends to how we interpret and manage internal sensations and emotions: when we're scared we want to run away, when we're angry we want to fight and discharge that pent-up rage, when we feel disgust we want to avoid whatever precipitated the feeling.

Distress tolerance sits at the core of why procrastination is so ubiquitous and sticky. When thinking about procrastination through a distress tolerance lens, we can better understand how it happens and how we can intervene to stop it. Let's take a look at an example:

As I write this, we are in the final weeks of tax season, a task that many of us procrastinate on. Doing your taxes stinks. Most of us can agree on that. It's a task that comes with a high degree of distress not only because of its mechanics, but also because finances tend to be a stress-provoking topic. So when tax documents start showing up in the mail at the end of January, most of us do the same thing - put them to the side and procrastinate.

But as the tax deadline gets closer, a new source of distress enters the equation: the anxiety about whether we will complete our taxes on time. In January, the anxiety associated with whether or not we will file our taxes on time is relatively low ("I've got almost three months - I'll be fine!"), but when the calendar turns to April, it has likely reached a fever pitch ("I've got to do my taxes now or I'm screwed! This is how they got Al Capone!").

However, at some point, a shift occurs. At some point, the anxiety about completing the task becomes more distressing than the distress associated with the task itself. And when this happens, we finally sit down to do our taxes, often at the very last minute.

Two additional factors are missing from this story that help to illustrate why procrastination can be such a subtly miserable phenomenon:

1) There's no guarantee that it will be a good time when that shift finally occurs. Sometimes, that tip occurs when you've got fifty other things on your to-do list.

2) You do not get some emotional payback for all of the day-to-day angst and worry you held during the process. You don't get to go back and rewatch that movie for the first time that you barely paid attention to because your mind was thinking about how you still need to file your taxes.

So, how do we overcome the distress of doing the task? Here are two tips to use that might be helpful for you (beyond the standard time management tasks of scheduling time, breaking up the task, etc.):

1) Try to counterbalance the misery. Set aside a podcast that you really like and make that your "doing stuff" podcast. If you really enjoy listening to The Athletic Football Show or HiddenBrain, set yourself the rule that you are only allowed to listen to that podcast when you are doing tasks. The goal is to balance out the distress of the task with something enjoyable.

2) Name and acknowledge the misery of doing the task and adopt a stance of openness and willingness. This is the tough one, but it can also be immensely powerful. As discussed earlier, we procrastinate because the distress of doing the task seems overwhelming. However, if we actually look at just the distress itself and ask whether or not we are capable of handling it - am I capable of being bored and frustrated doing my taxes? - the answer is almost always "yes, I am capable, I just don’t want to." Two strategies that can help adopt willingness:

• Move away from "reason-giving thinking." A common practice is to think about the task you're procrastinating on - "I could do my taxes now, but I really should go to the grocery store first." Sometimes, this is a genuine analysis, but often, this is actually reason-giving thinking: thinking masquerading as analysis that is really just rationalizing letting ourselves off the hook. If you catch yourself engaging in reason-giving thinking, take it as a signal that you're about to procrastinate, and see if you can take one small step to complete the task (e.g., I'm going to pull all the forms together so they are in one place.)

• Get to know what you're up against. When you notice a task you're procrastinating on, take a moment to reflect precisely on what you're feeling and why you're feeling it. Is it provoking anxiety? Do you expect it to be frustrating and difficult? Perhaps it's going to be mind-numbingly dull. Once you've identified the what and the why, spend some time imagining what it will feel like - visualize yourself doing the task and feeling the associated feelings. Once you know what you're up against, ask yourself whether you can handle that discomfort - whether you're willing to experience that discomfort to complete the task.