Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 15 Solving Procrastination (1)
"I still have some time!"

Dear readers, in this lesson, "procrastination", the most important obstacle in self-control training, will be brought to our podium.Each of us has procrastination in our lives, which refers to unnecessary and harmful delays, whether large or small, or severely or slightly, exist in us.Currently, the term is not strictly a psychological or medical term, but severe or frequent procrastination is a symptom of a deeper problem.In other words, the phenomenon of procrastination has become an important topic of research by management scientists and psychologists.

"Put the previous things to tomorrow, and do nothing today." This is a very common psychology. Even those big men who are known for their self-discipline cannot avoid this kind of problem in their lives-occasionally deserting or throwing away. Work is immersed in meaningless things.

It always manifests itself in small things, not in big things of particular importance.If you just focus on the big picture, you might miss the procrastination diagnosis that happened to you.These trivial problems, like tiny grains of toxins, accumulate in the body over time, and finally turn small things into big things.A procrastinator who wakes up one morning to realize his procrastination has wiped out a very important piece of work — an email from an impatient client relieving them Cooperation.

This is a very harmful symptom for personal development and team work!A person thinks that he can finish one thing in seven days, so he is not in a hurry when there are still 20 days before the deadline. In the end, he suddenly finds that there are only seven days left before he starts working.This sense of urgency and anxiety are intertwined, impacting his energy pool and stimulating his fighting spirit.This made him feel that he was only in a state of doing things under pressure.

In particular, when he finally checks his work performance and finds that he has done a good job, his inner procrastination mentality will be reinforced.He would think, "Wow, I am very suitable for working in a state of short-term high pressure." After that, he kept suggesting to himself about his behavior until the procrastination became more and more serious, like a taut spring, and at the end suddenly broken.Among the following five phenomena, if you meet more than three, then I must "congratulate" you, you already have serious procrastination.

In my work list, I always choose the least important things to deal with. The more important things are delayed, the closer the time is, the more I want to do other irrelevant things.

Every time you start work, you have to start on the hour, 01:30, two o'clock, if it is not on the hour, choose to continue to be lazy, and tell yourself: "It's not too late." In fact, this work is already very urgent.

After calming down to do things, I have to run to make a cup of coffee or make a cup of tea, always waiting for "good mood" or "best state", otherwise I will never do it.

No one is allowed to occupy or waste one's time, and it turns out that the person who cherishes time the least is himself.

In the process of performing a job, once you have any ideas or emergencies, just leave the work in hand and ignore it, and turn to other things.

How can we sum up this out-of-control symptom in detail?Procrastination is actually high or even unrealistic expectations of oneself, but most people have too high expectations of themselves.What's even more frightening is that there are still many procrastinators. They don't want to finish their work as planned, but they really enjoy the feeling of rushing to work, eager to experience high-intensity sprints and the feeling of sudden relaxation after finishing work.So, they consciously procrastinate and then focus on getting things done in a short amount of time.That way, they praise their efficiency after the fact.

"I have to start a diet, but...for today"

There are so many things piled up in front of my eyes, but I can't get up the energy to do them.Obviously already restless, but still want to "hold on" for a while, stay for a while... "I must start to lose weight, which is too important. But, I can't do it today, starting tomorrow, today I want to indulge one more day. "This is the idea of ​​student Lili. She now weighs 90 kilograms and is already a big fat person. She is 32 years old and has not yet found a marriage partner. Men think she is too fat, but she still uses various excuses to delay her weight loss. plan.

Phenomena similar to Lily are not uncommon. In my opinion, one out of every five people on the planet has this habit. No race can avoid it, whether it is Chinese or American, Japanese or European. This phenomenon exists.People in different countries procrastinate in similar proportions.

Moreover, in my research, I also found that procrastination is not caused by the external environment, but belongs to human instinct.People are born to procrastinate, and they will provide conditions for procrastination unconsciously, and send this procrastination order to the subconscious mind, and take procrastinating actions at any time, which becomes the normal state of their lives.

You always put off working until the last minute;
You belong to the typical moonlight family. You have been overdrafted on your credit card for a long time, and you can’t always pay it off. And you feel that you don’t have enough money. You tell yourself every day that you need to make a financial plan, but you haven’t acted for a long time. You wanted to relax and go to bed early, but it’s time At ten o'clock in the evening, you are full of energy again, and you start to stay up late to surf the Internet; you always want to lose weight, but you are always frustrated, such as Lily.

If you have the above phenomena, then this lesson is for you. You can widen your eyes and see how procrastination can destroy your life and make it a mess.When you recognize the need for change and discover how it works, you can change the state of your life.

Some people lose weight very quickly, while others lose weight very slowly.Lily is not a typical case, because there are thousands of students like her in my course center, and very few people implement a weight loss plan immediately after making it.Does losing weight also make people tired and prone to "procrastination"?They tried to lose weight, but failed repeatedly.They start to be psychologically fearful or anxious, and take the method of procrastination to reduce this "harm".The result is that the hurt doesn't abate and the anxiety grows.

The consequences of procrastination are scary.For example, with the increasing development of the Internet today, people spend more and more time on the Internet, and people's attention is easily distracted, and these people's procrastination is born from this.

What are the consequences?The work in hand is delayed again and again, and I am very worried that I will be blamed by my boss or customers for failing to complete the task in time. The resulting work pressure has made many people overwhelmed, which has led to a series of vicious chain reactions.

passive procrastination and active procrastination

Anli, a professor of psychology at the University of California, said to me: "Procrastination is divided into two types, one is active procrastination, and the other is passive procrastination. The situation where tasks cannot be completed on time belongs to the latter." In the tutorial written for my course , she elaborated on her views and divided the state of procrastination into two.

Her point is: active procrastinators tend to prefer to work under pressure so that they can make more thoughtful decisions and implement them in a timely manner; negative procrastinators are those who avoid work and dare not face up to their own abilities.

In addition to inner anxiety and avoidance of control, perfectionism is often associated with procrastination.Some procrastination behaviors are not procrastinators' lack of ability or hard work, but a reflection of some form of perfectionism or perfectionism. Their common voice is: "If you give me more time, I can do better."

In the procrastination course, we defined three basic types of procrastination: Encouraging: or thrill-seeking, they look forward to the thrill of being busy in the last few minutes.Avoidant: They avoid the fear of failure and even fear of success.In fact, they are very concerned about what others think of them, and they want others to feel that they are not working hard enough rather than not being capable or confident enough.

Determined: They cannot make up their minds.If you don't make up your mind, you can avoid procrastination in dealing with things.Negative procrastination often brings a lot of inconvenience to people's lives. Psychologists have found in research:
The accomplice behind passive procrastination is people's emotional extrapolation.

A: "I feel that I am not very promising and a worthless person, so my efforts are useless."

B: "I'm not in the mood to do anything today, so I'd better lie in bed and don't want to go out."

C: "I'm annoying you because you treat me badly, you always try to use me, so I won't be fooled, I just sit here and don't work."

One after another negative emotion inference, the consequence is the emergence of procrastination.Passive procrastination is more harmful to people than active procrastination.When a person's negative feelings control his emotions, excessive psychological dependence will arise; the side effect of emotional inference is emotional use, and the end result is procrastination.

For example, when you come home from shopping in the supermarket, looking at the piles of books on the table and on the ground, you suddenly realize that it’s time to clean your room.You have been thinking about tidying up and planning several courses of action for yourself.On Wednesday, you planned to clean the study room on the weekend. On the weekend, facing the desk still full of clutter and the messy books on the floor, your negative emotions begin to arise: "Wow, such a messy and disorderly house, how to clean it?" It's almost impossible to clean it up, and I'll clean it up next week!" As a result, it dragged on for months.

If you find that the room should be cleaned, without any plans or ideas, you immediately roll up your sleeves, and after two or three hours, the study is cleaned up.At this time, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that things are not as troublesome as you imagined.

At this time, we should be clear: Who is manipulating our inner negative emotion inference?In the eyes of psychologists, "extreme laziness" and "procrastination" of upcoming tasks are a way for people to fight anxiety.Moreover, the hotbed of procrastination is based on a lack of self-management, whether it is emotions or time.People wantonly condone negative emotions, use procrastination to cater to themselves, fool themselves, and use procrastination to fight inner anxiety.

This kind of inner anxiety mostly occurs when accepting or performing a task, the heart is full of pressure, and I don't know whether the task can be completed satisfactorily.In the face of uncertainty about things and indecisiveness, constant procrastination becomes a booster.Therefore, to overcome procrastination, decompression for yourself is a very important link. You can combine our stress courses to carry out comprehensive exercises and improvements, and then fundamentally cut off the recurrence of procrastination.

stubborn instinct

Procrastination is a stubborn instinct, what is its main source?Scientists and psychologists have conducted long-term research to find out its physiological roots, and finally found that procrastination is related to the function of the brain's prefrontal cortex.This brain region is responsible for the executive functions of the brain, such as planning, impulse control and attention, and it also acts as a filter, reducing distracting stimuli from other brain regions.

If the prefrontal cortex is damaged or less active, it reduces its ability to filter stimuli, which in turn reduces its ability to organize tasks.

1. Failure of self-assessment.Every time I complete a task, I can't reach my highest ability, so I gradually lose my self-confidence, and my evaluation of my ability will get lower and lower.

2. Too busy?This is another hidden source, some people keep putting off work because they are "too busy".He was busy, but most things were not important or even necessary.

3. Tenacious willpower.He doesn't like people urging him. The more people urge him, the stronger his will to confront will be generated in his heart: "You urge me? Instead, I won't do it. I have to wait until I'm fully ready before starting to do it!"

4. Manipulating the consciousness of others.They are not in a hurry, because others are rushing him, so he enjoys this feeling: "My choice is manipulating them."

5. Fight stress.Because he is under a lot of pressure every day, and the things to be done have been dragged down, otherwise he thinks the pressure will be even greater.

6. Victim mentality.He thinks he is incompetent, or doesn't know why.Everyone else can do it, but he can't.Then, simply be a qualified victim: "I just don't start." to enhance this victim experience.

(End of this chapter)