I want to start by pointing out the irony in my procrastinating writing this article. We’ve all been there: putting off a task until the very last minute, followed by intense self-loathing and hurling curses at our past selves for being “lazy.”
Well, you may find solace in the fact that procrastination is rarely synonymous with laziness. In fact, most often, procrastination is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem.
Procrastination is defined as delaying something to a later time rather than starting right away, whereas laziness is the unwillingness to put in the required effort into a task. You can be lazy but not procrastinate or procrastinate and not be lazy.
There are several reasons for procrastination that are bigger than just not feeling like it. Often, procrastination is a symptom of an underlying mental health issue.
Let’s look at a few reasons for procrastination.
Lack of Motivation
The first biggest reason for procrastination is just not having the drive. Procrastinators’ biggest concern is performing a task well, almost perfectly. If quality wasn’t a factor, you could probably get started right away and put something half-baked together in less than 5 minutes, but that’s not the objective. In order to perform a task properly, we need to have the motivation to put ourselves in a creative and productive headspace.
Mostly, we procrastinate because we are just not in that headspace and the quality of the output will suffer. Therefore, we procrastinate while waiting for motivation to strike. This is why we procrastinate on a major project in favor of easier, more menial tasks, or even just watching Netflix for a while, in hopes to come back to the major project with a “fresh mind.”
If the lack of motivation is a chronic issue, it may possibly be linked to a mental health issue. Depression drains us of any kind of drive to be productive.
Overwhelmed
Here’s something I like to call the deer-in-headlights effect - when we are so overwhelmed by the magnitude, importance or the complexity of the task at hand that we freeze. Often, we find ourselves blanking out and don’t even know where to start, or it may even be the exact opposite where we have so many ideas bouncing off of each other in our heads that we can’t seem to organize our thoughts into a coherent narrative to follow. Often, being overwhelmed is also a product of our perfectionism getting in the way of our productivity. Last thing we want to do is compromise on the quality of our output and we find ourselves lost in the rabbit hole of all the ‘what if’ scenarios as a result of our failure we have cooked up in our heads.
Being overwhelmed often and by the simplest things is also a mental health struggle most people don’t know about. It is a sign of depression and anxiety. If this is something you struggle with regularly, please know that you are not alone and it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for help.
Burnout
In our society that revolves around the worship of hyperproductivity, being burnt out is a sad reality for many of us. Although the initial results of pushing ourselves and working too hard may be off the charts, it’s a short-lived productivity and results in our energy quickly fizzing out. Pushing ourselves even further beyond that point borders on self-abuse. That’s when you start procrastinating on even the most basic tasks simply because you don’t have the energy to do it. Ironically, at this stage, we often feel like putting in more hours is the solution, which only burns us out even more. It is extremely important to take time out for yourself to relax and let your mind cool down every now and then.
I like to analogize work with a marathon rather than a sprint. It’s not about speed, it’s about endurance.
Final Thoughts
Procrastination is a symptom and it’s important for us to determine what’s causing it. We often label it laziness and ignore the underlying mental health problems we are struggling with, which is extremely unfair to us. Just like any physical ailment, we want to identify mental health issues timely so we can get ahead of them before they get worse.
Many people walk through their daily lives unaware of their depression, anxiety or any other mental health problem they suffer from and label their resulting procrastinating tendencies as laziness, being harder on themselves when they need to go easier. It’s time we prioritize our mental health.
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