This all started in therapy. I have been complaining about work and how I was desperate to find a new way to make an income for months. Session after session I can see the frustration growing between me and my therapist. I am not putting anywhere near enough effort into the job search nor have I a strong will to do so, finding myself excuses as usual. It culminated last week into a “I can’t help you find a career, it is not what I do” (or something along those lines). I can feel my neurones panicking, running like headless chickens in my brain to find an answer. I always tip-toe around meaningful conversation; how do I explain that the job is the manifestation of something deeper?
My issue is to put that amount of effort into something I’ll be bored of within three measly months anyways. I know myself. I have a very low boredom threshold and I tend to find ways out of my routine in any way available, mostly going to the pub but also moving. In the last 10 years, since I left my parent’s house, I lived in 4 different countries and moved about 12 times. I was so happy to get my current position, until the novelty wore out and I was, once again, bored. I can tell my therapist now understand what I was trying to communicate.
After that lengthy introduction, let’s move to the main topic. It all ties together at the end.
I am rather delusional when it comes to my ability to achieve anything. The premise of every project I have ever envisaged is based on my capability to start it, sit through the work with a biblical ethic and finish said project. Needless to say, this has never happened. A good example is this very journal, the entire business model (lol) is built on my capability to stop procrastinating and to write about things I procrastinate about. Talk about a freaking paradox.
I had no idea what to write about this week so I went back to the source of most of my issues in life and looked into a cure for it, if not a deep understanding of its roots. Beyond the cryptic, I mean: how to cure and understand procrastination. Now, you may believe you first need to know where the problem lies to cure it. MISTAKE. I tried and ended up in a rabbit hole. Parenthesis, when doing research, whether it is on the internet or in my brain, I always end up finding some shiny thing to distract me from my task.
Here is everything I have learned about procrastinating.
I love to start with small and efficient diversion of the procrastinating brain to trick it into a productive state. Working in a different environment triggers a part of the brain willing to do some work. I like writing in coffee places or pubs, the distractions available have the same wavelength as my brain’s. I can observe people, there’s noise and plenty of things going on all at once. When I am at home, I am more likely to leave my desk and start avoidance-cleaning or cooking (I made three different soups to avoid studying for my driving test).
Something simple like adding novelty to my routine (which can become expensive, really fast). By introducing new things into the activity I am avoiding, I am more likely to start it because novelty is exciting. A new pen? Let me write so many words. New post it? I’ll read that report and take notes. Changing my desk configuration? This feels like a new place. Another strategy is to constantly have multiple projects going on and use them to procrastinate on the others. If I don’t want to work on X right now, I’ll move on to project Y and vice-versa. The trap is that achieving any of them will take longer (if ever), but at least I’m working on something.
These work in some measure but they are quite limited. I am studying for said driving test for the 3rd time because I always wait too long to book a practice test and my license expires. A genius move. I am aware that some people can just tell themselves to do it and actually get up and do whatever task they have to do. I cannot. As a child I would wait until the very last minute to do my homework: on the bus to school or even in front of the classroom, and that’s when I ever bothered doing them. Even the things I like are a source of procrastination, I want to do it! It’s not laziness (most of the time), my brain just says no. So I sit, fighting it in a war of “I need to do it” and “Nope, not happening today”.
Is it procrastination or executive dysfunction?