UNDERSTANDING WHAT LEADS TO PROCRASTINATION AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT.
Procrastination, In Layman’s term, means ‘to put off work for later’ but scholars view procrastination as a consequence of personality traits that generates repeated episodes of dilatory behaviour. This perspective, which comes from the seminal work of Schouwenburg, has allowed researchers to take the position that procrastination, by and large, can be predicted.
People have 5 broad personality traits – extraversion, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Schouwenburg established that the conscientiousness of an individual is the most likely determinant of procrastination. A conscientious person has competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline and deliberation. People with low conscientiousness, are, in general, undisciplined, lazy and disorderly. Unsurprisingly, people with low conscientiousness are the most likely to procrastinate.
The notion that a person’s personality traits determine whether they will procrastinate gives little in the way of salvation. Personality traits are understood as being stable and inherited which implies that if a person has a tendency to procrastinate, it’s not in their control. A handful of recent studies suggest that it may be possible to change personality traits through persistent intervention and major life events. However, this puts the responsibility on the intervener and holds a procrastinator unaccountable if they have not yet experienced specific life events. Thus, there are ongoing efforts of finding different antecedents of procrastination, particularly those that can be variable.
A study by Eisenbeck perhaps offers some solace. This study establishes psychological flexibility as an antecedent to procrastination. Psychological flexibility refers to an individual’s self-regulatory capability. Concretely, a person who is psychologically flexible has the ability to cope with, accept and adjust to difficult situations. Viewed from this perspective, a person does have control over their habits as it is based on ability, rather than personality.
Compiled from findings of studies dedicated to managing procrastination, here are the steps to improve psychological flexibility. Self-regulation should be improved through goal setting, self-evaluation, responsible organisation and seeking assistance. If a person anticipates procrastination, perhaps due to a fear of failure stemming from the scale and difficulty of responsibility, an effective method is to break down the task into manageable segments and structure the surrounding environment to be free of distractions. The next step is to conduct a self-evaluation and perceive the difficulty level of each segment based on ability. More time should be allocated for difficult segments and they should be dealt with earlier in the process. Inevitably, fun alternatives can cause delineations which is why it is important to always self-evaluate while managing tasks. The payoff and reward for completing the task are far greater than the momentary respite gained through distractions. Finally, it is important for a habitual procrastinator to accept that completing the task within the deadline should take precedence over completing the task to perfection. Perseverance, repetition, and practice in developing these self-regulatory habits will eventually lead to greater psychological flexibility, and help overcome procrastination.