ElysianState

Hello.

I have an assignment involving an hour long podcast to listen to in preparation for a quiz on it. It’s going to take place next Monday. Right now, it’s Friday. I know that I don’t want to put this off until Sunday night. But unfortunately, it looks like I will.

It’s the classic trope of procrastination that is actually quite common amongst students, and for that matter all of society. Why handle hard, grueling tasks now when you can leave them to your future self? For me, procrastination occurs when a harder task that I know is going to take me some time pops up. In the case of a short, quick activity, I don’t seem to have any problem with completing it right away. If this applies to you as well, there’s actually a term to put this into words: Temporal Discounting. I’m not too into economics or business, but this is a concept involving the mind’s tendency to prioritize short, quick rewards over long term ones. This all ties into the “reward system” of the brain, where dopamine, which gives you feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, is activated by immediate rewards. This doesn’t occur for long term goals that you aren’t rewarded for until later. If I offered you 10 dollars right now or 15 in a year, some of you may be inclined to just take the immediate gain instead of having to wait an extra year. Unfortunately, this concept gets magnified much further in the real world.

It’s not just a poor way of approaching finances. Living your life prioritizing only what’s right in front of you creates an unhealthy mental state that will surely crash at some point in the future when everything you’ve pushed off falls onto you at once. I wish I could tell you the steps that I took to fix reliance on procrastination, but the truth is that I’m just as bad as anyone else. I can, however, share what I’ve been trying to do recently. I mentioned earlier that dopamine is rewarded to the brain when you are given a reward. The main issue behind longer goals is that you aren’t immediately given a reward, so to counteract that, visualizing what would be at the end of a long-term task can help to both make rewards feel more satisfying, and most importantly, tangible.

Maybe the issue isn’t that you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but that the tunnel itself seems endless. For seeming insurmountable tasks, I’ve found myself breaking them up into smaller, more manageable tasks. I’ve had a huge list of tasks that I wanted to complete in my free time recently. I found myself much less overwhelmed and eager to do what I had set out for myself when taking things one step at a time, rewarding myself through breaks in between. I read a study earlier this year proving that humans, while enjoying times of leisure, would often feel more negative emotions when going a full day without doing anything rather than a day mixed in with activities. Part of the satisfaction of completing something isn’t just the reward tied directly to it but the feeling of getting something out of the way. Emphasizing this idea can help you change your mind’s perspectives on long-term goals. For example, try picturing studying for your finals not just to pass them later on, but to know that you gained knowledge today.

I didn’t want to end off without mentioning fear or avoidance that can affect your attitude towards tasks looming in the future. I can’t name any specifics right now, but I know that there have been tasks that I have been afraid to do, whether it seemed impossible or was just something that was far out of my comfort zone. Anxiety can play a critical role in this, whether it be by creating fear of judgement or increasing risk of failure. I’ve found myself pushing off tasks like these as long as I could. Procrastination here can create an escape from this anxiety, though only short-term. As the deadline for whatever you’re doing approaches, your feelings are only going to get worse. The best thing that I can say I’ve done here again is to change perspective on the task ahead. Dig deep and tackle the root of fear head on. If you’re afraid of the task’s difficulty, change your standards on what qualifies as a “success”. Don’t picture “perfection” as the goal but instead “progress”. Hopefully, these less intimidating goals will make it more possible to move towards the completion of your goal.

I enjoyed writing this. I’ve always procrastinated my work and even just being able to talk about why it happens or how you can try to fix it makes me feel a little better. Maybe I’ll even work on that podcast after this. Any progress, no matter how miniscule it is, is precious to me. I don’t mean to sound cliche, but even baby steps will move you forwards. That’s all I had today. Thanks again.