Why is procrastination such a hard habit to break?

Question

I think I'm just lazy sometimes.

Answer 1

Lets not equate laziness with procrastination,there are different motives for each. Procrastination is always fear based, the fear of the unknown. It's a self induced projection of a future event that one doesn't know what the outcome will be. There are a lot of other things that come into play,fear of rejection,dealing with people,insecurity of ones ability to deal with the projected outcome.We can build up a scenario up in our head,project the out come and believe that's what the out come will be (denial). How does a person break it? Enter a situation with confidence and a sense of adventure. It is instinctual, it's in us. That ability we have that gives us that desire to explore unknown places in times long ago, whats over the next hill,whats in this cave, whats across that lake, just bring that innate ability up to date. I don't know what the doctor will say but I'm going to find out, I don't know what she is going to say but I'm going to ask her. Stay out of your head to try to predict the out come,you really don't know. Life is an adventure and if treated as such, and with practice,and over time you can get better with it.

Answer 2

I don't think you're lazy!!!
Honestly, I don't think people are lazy - we all feel much better about ourselves when we move ahead and feel useful. And for moving ahead, it's also really important to rest when appropriate. So I'm sure procrastination must be about something else than being lazy!

It could be about high standards: Like we want to do something really well, and so it seems too big to do now and we put it off to when we really have time (which never happens).

Or about resistance: We try forcing ourselves to do things we don't actually want to do but think we have to do. So of course resistance stands up and says "no", or more politely "later". :) Sometimes just acknowledging that I do not want to do something already makes me more willing.

So I think procrastination is such a hard habit to break because we try to "break it", i.e. go against ourselves and therefore wake up our survival instinct which wants to protect us by resisting even harder.
Maybe we can find ways of "bending it" instead, by first listening to what procrastination is telling us about ourselves and then taking small steps we are really willing to take.

Answer 3

Body has a tendency to cling on to comfort. But most of us work just because we have some interest that overpowers the desire of body. You said you go lazy sometimes. Suppose a beautiful girl calls you for a trip to the mountains. You will then try to overcome the laziness and become active. It is because there is an urge that overpowers the lazy nature of your body.

Now let us come to the work. Idle hours are more enjoyable if there is no pending work. Otherwise your body is relaxing and the mind is concerned about the pending work. So train your mind to control body so that body with the support of mind will complete the work first and then relax jointly. You will feel any laborious work easy if mind supports the body. It will be interesting too. Gradually you will like to work rather than delaying it.

Answer 4

I think procrastination is going to continue to exist in each and everyone of us, but only on a different degree. Even the most organize and anti-procrastination person suffer from it. We will never be able to eliminate it from our everyday lives. But we can minimize it. Procrastination happens for so many reasons. For me I procrastinate because the task is hard, boring, takes a lot of my time, don't have the mood to do it, fear of failing to do it, thinking that I have lots of time to do it, laziness crepts in sometimes and etc.. The best thing that I can do is to select the things that are important and urgent tasks, tasks that makes you restless all days just thinking about it. Other that that I let myself procrastinate over small, unimportant matters but it doesn't worry me too much.

Answer 5

I think that the origin of procrastination is a lack of confidence. People procrastinate because they're afraid that they won't be able to do something very well. They'll end up using time constraint/procrastination as their excuse for not performing to the best of their abilities. I think it's a subconscious thing.

Answer 6

Maybe you're not seeing the reward you would get for doing the task at hand. It might help you to give yourself a "reward" for completing certain things...like buying yourself something. I have also found that it helps me to break things into smaller sections and complete a little at a time.

Answer 7

I'm gonna deal with that question tomorrow, or the next day.

Answer 8

i'll come back to this later

Answer 9

tell you later

Answer 10

...because you keep on putting it off.