Ever since Middle School I've had procrastination issues. It's not a rare problem, everyone procrastinates a little, but I can't seem to stop, and now it's getting out of hand. I may not even get accepted into college this year because I keep putting off my simple 500 word essay. It's steadily getting worse, and now whenever I have a large project I put it off until the last day, and stay up all night in a rush to finish. I don't want to say I don't have control over it, but I don't have control over it! I thought about seeing a psychologist for it, I don't know how to find one or what's wrong with me! I read about procrastination being caused by lack of excitement, fear of failure, self-sabotage, and a desire not to succeed. It's a really foreign concept to me though, I can't fathom not wanting to succeed, and although I might not live the most exciting life, this isn't really what I want. I am afraid of failing, but I'm not sure how much that ties into it. It sounds crazy but it feels like being possessed by something. My own actions don't make sense to me. Any advice on what I can do to stop it, what it's caused by, or what kind of psychologist to see?
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Answers
Fear is an insidious creature; it hides and affects us even when we aren't aware of it. I suspect that your fear of failure is making you feel an incredibly strong aversion to the boredom of the task. Essentially, it's making the task seem impossibly difficult in an [i]emotional[/i] sense, even though you intellectual recognize that you are quite capable of it and could probably tap it out in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, the fearful bits of your subconcious latch onto the confidant bits of your intellect and make you think you can do it all at the last minute, as well as make you feel that you really, really don't want to at any moment before a different kind of fear - panic - sets in.
It's those emotions which make the task seem emotionally impossible that you'll have to fool. (Or so I believe. I'm not a professional, just someone who's taken a lot of time management classes and is dealing with the problem myself.)
One way to do this would be to break your tasks down into small steps. You might have heard about this technique before, but find yourself putting the task of task management off. The way to deal with that is to break [i]it[/i] into smaller tasks, too.
First, get yourself a schedule book.
Then, make a list of the things you need to do. Write the list down somewhere.
Then, prioritize those tasks and put them in the order you need to do them.
Then take the most important and most urgent, and break it down into steps, prioritizing them, too.
Rinse and repeat. Soon, the tasks will be small enough that they won't be scary, and you can make yourself do them.
In order to get the willpower to fortify yourself for that, do something that make you happy! Tempt yourself with whatever treat (going out with friends, playing games, listening to a song that you can't stop yourself from singing along to, whatever does it for you) will emotionally boost you before you start, and give yourself that treat after you're done scheduling. Use this trick whenever you find your really need a boost to do something. Just make sure you don't spend so much time on the reward that you forget the schedule book.
Your goal should be to make a habit of meeting the small due dates that you make for yourself. Once it's habitual, the problem will be solved.
Hope this helps. I'm wishing you luck.
Actually I think you pegged it right! I'm quite shocked, I didn't think I'd get any thing this insightful and unoffensive. It's not an easy thing to deal with, but I think I'm going to take your advice with the most seriousness. The general anti-procrastination help isn't -helping- But after I posted this I started to realize fear was probably what was hurting me the most. And then I was angry because I was afraid and blah blah. Thank you though. Your answer speaks volumes to me, you have no idea. I'm going to take this into account and if I can't do it on my own at least now I have an idea of the source. Thanks so much!
Eteles definitely has so great thoughts there! Try those out first, and then if it does not work, I would recommend seeing a therapist, yes.
There are two ways off the top of my head I can think of you contacting them:
1) Check your local yellow pages for psychologist or therapist or psychotherapist or counseling
2) Go to www.apa.org and check the therapist listing there.
Best of luck!
Best,
Clyde