This article originally appeared in the Fall 2012 issue of Healthwise Ottawa
Just because Dr. Tim Pychyl is an expert in procrastination doesn’t mean he’s an expert in avoiding the tasks on his to-do list. The Carleton University professor of psychology, author, podcaster, and Psychology Today blogger admits that even he sometimes — though rarely — procrastinates. “It’s part of human nature,” he explains.
Procrastination is “short-term mood repair,” he says, though procrastinating today on a given task doesn’t mean we’re going to feel any more like doing it tomorrow. And that’s why Pychyl employs many strategies to avoid falling prey to it.
“My father used to say to me, even as a little boy: ‘It’s good that you know that. What are you going to do with that knowledge?’”
This philosophy has motivated Pychyl (a name that rhymes with Mitchell) to write the kind of pithy and practical book that people who procrastinate can read in an hour or two. He set himself to the task during a 2010 sabbatical from teaching at Carleton University. The result: The Procrastinator’s Digest: A concise guide to solving the procrastination puzzle [available at www.procrastinatorsdigest.com].
“We love to read about our problems rather than fix them,” Pychyl says. “But I wanted to get the gist of why we procrastinate into this book and give people a strategy so they could deal with it.”
Seizing the Day!
When you hear Pychyl talk about his specialty and his research, and when you read The Procrastinator’s Digest, it becomes clear that the mind behind the message understands the need for compassion in dealing with the foibles of the human spirit.
Working with Chelsea, Quebec artist Paul Mason, Pychyl has also created a series of cartoon strips called Carpe Diem, which are included in his book. The cartoons gently lampoon the rationalizations of the procrastinating college student featured in the strips.
“When you are procrastinating, you are wasting the most valuable thing you have, which is time,” says Pychyl.
“Viktor Frankl, who was famous for his book Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote in his autobiography that he struggled with procrastination. I found this fascinating because it seems to me that procrastination is a deeply existential issue. It is about getting on with life. That’s why I think every world religion has the idea of sloth as a sin.
“You know, the one thing that is truly a limited resource in life is our time. You and I will run out of time.”
Pychyl practices what he preaches, making the most of his own time. He once considered making theology a career, and can claim five university degrees to his name. He also worked as a tennis instructor and a wilderness guide before managing the canoe and kayaking operations of a local business. Now 56, he enjoys dog mushing and keeps a team of huskies at his homestead near Carp.
Managing Our Emotional Health
Pychyl defines procrastination as “the voluntary delay of an intended action, despite knowing that we’re going to be worse off for that.” Procrastination to him is about “emotional regulation…it’s about giving in to feeling good, giving in to short-term rewards.” If we could learn to manage our emotions more effectively, we would be able to apply reason to the way we manage ourselves, he says.
It’s not that he espouses reason over emotion. But he does feel that we all need to employ some emotional intelligence when it comes to recognizing what it is we’re feeling and how we can harness those feelings for positive outcomes. With procrastination, we’re reinforcing a behaviour through the negative thoughts we have surrounding it. And that reinforcement also contributes to a certain amount of self-deception.
Research shows that about 20 per cent of the population procrastinates to the point where procrastination has negative impacts on work, relationships, and how we thrive (not just survive) in life.
Even for those habitual procrastinators, the practice falls more into the realm of a psychological tic, Dr. Pychyl says, than into the definitions of mental disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or the DSM, as it’s known within the medical community). Pychyl says that the personality types most likely to procrastinate are those who score lower on the conscientiousness scale and higher on impulsivity.
“I think procrastination is just one form of self-regulation failure,” he explains. “It belongs to a class of psychological issues like overeating, compulsive shopping, and problematic gambling…where people find themselves doing things against their own best interests, and they’re aware of that.
“They say, ‘I shouldn’t be eating this, I shouldn’t be buying this, I shouldn’t be gambling, I shouldn’t be putting this off,’ but they find they are unable to regulate their behaviour.”
While some people claim procrastination is a good thing, Pychyl would argue that. Procrastinating means you’re voluntarily delaying doing something you know yourself would be in your own best interest.
Eschewing Labels
Can we call someone a procrastinator in the same way we might call someone a gossip or an exaggerator or a chronic liar?
“Well, I think that labels are terrible things,” says Pychyl. “Labelling is never helpful. It’s a little bit like calling someone lazy. We impugn people with these labels. On the other hand, sometimes you can own the label because you can see it in yourself and others see it in you.”
Pychyl believes that considering the flip side of labels involves understanding how we do not have enough nuanced words for “delay.” We seem to use the term “procrastination” for everything, he says.
For example, if someone wisely delays doing something in a situation where they need to wait to act, that’s not procrastination, he explains. “So, imagine that at the end of a day, you say to yourself, ‘I’m a terrible procrastinator because I didn’t do this or this or this.’ Well, that’s a horrible thing to say to yourself if, in fact, your son was sick and you needed to spend time with him and other things had to wait. The failure to act wasn’t because you were procrastinating. It was because you had other priorities.”
Not every form of delay is procrastination, he asserts, nor should it be labelled as such. True procrastination occurs when we fail to self-regulate. It’s a weakness of will. It’s not the necessary delay associated with rational planning and setting priorities.
Paying the Price
When we do procrastinate, feeling ashamed about it is a common reaction — perhaps as common as feeling ashamed after we’ve eaten a large bag of jujubes. It’s a natural feeling. People who tend to procrastinate are also likely to berate themselves for it, as if it’s a crime against oneself.
Is it?
“One of the things people don’t realize about procrastination is that others pay a price,” says Pychyl. “I like to call it second-hand procrastination, just like second-hand smoke.”
He gives the example of the dad who has a report due the next day, but who has procrastinated completing it at work. Now it’s urgent and he’ll have to spend the evening doing it at home. Who suffers? Not just the dad; it’ll also be the kids, because they won’t get to see their father. Nor will his friends, whom he’d planned to get together with later that evening.
“[He] thinks, ‘Oh, it only affects me. I’m the one with all the stress.’ Well, no: you’re breaking social commitments, and so I think we also have to see that it has repercussions for others.”
The Stories We Tell Ourselves (Q & A with Dr. Tim Pychyl)
Healthwise Ottawa: We live in a world of high-level distraction…with phones ringing, mobile devices beeping, a TV in every room, an iPod in every ear. Do you think that life in Canada today creates more or less of a tendency for people to procrastinate?
Dr. Pychyl: You know, a lot of people say to me, we’ve always procrastinated. But I do believe that technology makes us more prone to procrastination. It’s because everything is just a click away.
Imagine I’m at my desk, which is where a lot of procrastination occurs, and I don’t feel like doing the work. I am confused and I don’t know what to do next. This is invoking emotions in me that I don’t enjoy…and I think: it will only take a minute to check my email or update my Facebook page.
And because of that — because it’s so easy and available — we go there. And the next minute, we can make the same decision: it will only take me a minute to go to this link. So we find ourselves making this rational choice over an irrationally short period of time. It is rational to say “it will only take me a minute to check my email,” but it’s irrational to think we can keep that to a minute, because a minute later, you’re going to have to make the same decision.
You know how this story ends. Hours later we wonder where the time went. If I didn’t have this technology, I’d at least have to pick up a magazine and then it would be pretty obvious that I’m not working. But if I’m looking at a screen and I’m still using technology, which is supposed to be a tool, it appears that I’m working.
One more story…we’re working at our desk and we have a thought, “I’m going to get a snack” — all of a sudden, you’re hungry. And maybe it’s stress-related hunger. Who knows? In any case, you go to the fridge and you think, “I’ll have that yogourt.”
And you pick up the yogourt and you see that the container has left a ring, which you don’t normally clean, but today that ring bothers you for some reason, and you say to yourself, “It will only take a minute to wipe up that ring.” So you go to wipe the ring, but you realize the pickle jar is in the way and you actually grab the pickle jar, but it’s stuck. So, you think, “It will only take a minute to wipe that pickle jar off and to clean this shelf.”
Literally, 25 minutes later, you’ve got everything out of the fridge and a bucket of water on the floor to help you. And when your spouse walks by and comments, “Are you cleaning the fridge?” your answer will be, “No, I’m working on my report.”
Thursday, September 20, 2012 in Info Brief
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