Justin Tran

Procrastination isn’t shameful or a character flaw. Instead it’s rooted in a very human need: the need to feel competent and worthy, says educator Nic Voge.

“It’s 11 o’clock. You’re in your dorm room, and you have a paper due in a day or so. You sit down at your desk, you open up your laptop to get started, and then you think, ‘I’m gonna check my email just for a minute; get that out of the way.’ Forty-five minutes later, you’ve checked a lot of email,” says Nic Voge, senior associate director of Princeton University’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning in New Jersey, in a TEDxPrinceton talk. “You’ve done a really good job of that, but now you realize, ‘You know what? I’m pretty tired. I’m kind of exhausted, and that’s not conducive to writing a good paper. What do I need? I need to go to sleep.” And you do — only to wake up and go through the whole cycle of delays-and-excuses the next day.

Is this you? Rather than a college paper, maybe it was a report for work, graduate program application, peer review or some other important thing that you kept kicking down the road until the road ran out and you had to deliver.

You probably scolded yourself for your behavior. And wondered, “Why am I so lazy/ weak-willed/ disorganized/ unmotivated/ hopeless/ [fill in other belittling adjective]?”

Well, Voge has good news for you. “Procrastination isn’t shameful. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s not a flaw,” he says. “It’s actually pretty predictable; it’s something we can really expect if we understand the dynamics of motivation,” At Princeton, Voge develops, designs and directs academic support programs for undergraduates. He’s seen procrastination in all its forms, and he has also, he confesses, “mastered the craft and art of procrastination — the mind games, the rationalizations, the justifications.”

There are many theories about why we procrastinate. Some have said it’s about the inability to cope with difficult emotions; others, that it’s connected to faulty time management or perfectionism. Voge, however, believes it is rooted in our self-worth. He explains, “The paramount psychological need that all of us have is to be seen by ourselves and others as capable and competent and able … and we will actually sacrifice or trade off other needs to meet that need.”

To be clear, the need to be seen as worthy or worthwhile is not the problem.Where things go wrong is that some of us depend heavily on external feedback — in the form of good grades, praise from bosses, parents, in-laws or other authority figures, or the acceptance of prestigious organizations — for those feelings of worthiness. Voge says, “People who procrastinate a lot have a kind of simplistic equation in their mind: their performance is equal or equivalent to their ability, which is equal or equivalent to their self-worth as a person.” Or, as he puts it: performance = ability = self-worth. The reason we’re so terrified about performing poorly on that paper, application, analysis, etc. is because we feel our ability rests on it — and our value as a person.

In the performance = ability = self-worth equation, the only variable we can control is how much effort we put into our performance. When we procrastinate and put in less effort, we’re doing it as a form of self-protection, according to Voge. That way, if we earn a bad result, it doesn’t mean we’re not talented, able or worthy; we were just too busy or distracted to do our best.

Think about the murmurs you inevitably heard before exams in high school or college. Voge asks, “What are people saying? ‘I only studied three hours.’ ‘I only studied two hours; my computer froze.’ Everyone’s explaining how they’re not ready. Why? Because if they don’t achieve, then they have this built-in excuse not only for themselves but for others.”

Anyone who has ever procrastinated has experienced that feeling of stuckness. “Many people describe procrastination as being stuck at or against a wall or an obstacle they can’t get over,” says Voge. “We are often agitated, we can’t sleep — but we [also] can’t work.” At those times, we find ourselves pulled between two equally strong and compelling forces: the drive to achieve and the fear of failure. We come unstuck only when the fear of not getting things done overrides our fear of failure.

How do we break the cycle? Voge highlights three strategies:

1. Be aware of what you’re doing and why.

“We know from the research on procrastination and overcoming it that gaining knowledge and being aware of self-worth theory in these dynamics helps people over these things,” says Voge. “To understand the roots of procrastination helps us weaken it.” Your procrastination is probably not coming from a place of self-loathing or self-sabotage but from a need to protect yourself.

Know when you’re procrastinating. Sometimes it’s obvious; there is absolutely no reason for us to do the laundry before we write that grant application. At other times, it’s more subtle, so you may need to check in with yourself: “Yes, removing old files from my computer desktop will give me a less distracting workspace, but is it essential that I do it right now? Or am I just postponing writing the application?” Pro-tip: If you have to ask yourself whether you’re procrastinating or not, chances are you are.

Get familiar with your “greatest hits” of wasting time. Most of us have specific fall-back activities that we do when we’re playing the delaying game. What’s yours — house-cleaning, napping, shopping, reading email, catching up on Netflix? Learn to recognize it so you can nip it in the bud; it’s much easier to prevent falling down the cleaning /napping /shopping rabbit hole rather than pulling yourself out. Voge says, “The greater awareness we have of our tendencies and our motivations, we’re more likely to overcome them.”

2. Tip the balance.

Our progress towards completing any activity is affected by “approach” motives (reasons why we want to do this thing) and “avoid” motives (reasons we don’t want to do this thing). With activities that we have no hesitations doing — let’s say, eating something that’s delicious and healthy — it’s because we have many “approach” motives and very few “avoid” motives.

Many procrastinators have the mistaken belief that the reason they’re putting off a task is because there’s an underlying reason they don’t want to do it. “Often, that’s not the case. It’s simply that their fears dominate or overwhelm their ‘approach’ motives,” says Voge. When you’re playing solitaire instead of performing a competitive market analysis for your boss, it could be because your “avoid” motives — in particular, you’re avoiding the project because you’re terrified you’ll fail — outweigh your “approach” motives.

When this happens, think of all the reasons why you want to do this activity. It might help to remind yourself of how completing it fits into your larger goals, objectives or mission. Then, if it seems especially big or intimidating, break it down into manageable pieces. When Voge found himself procrastinating writing his TEDx talk because it seemed so daunting, he decided to create an outline so he could write his script section by section. Warning: Just resist turning that outline or to-do list into an invitation to procrastinate further.

3. Challenge your beliefs.

We need to undermine the ideas that brought us to procrastinate in the first place, says Voge. “The equation that we carry around in our head is flawed … your ability is not equivalent to your worth.” He adds, “Our worth derives from our human qualities of kindness and thoughtfulness and our vulnerabilities.”

Watch his TEDxPrincetonU talk now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daryl Chen is the Ideas Editor at TED.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Raúl Soria

We’re distracted like never before — and our phones are probably the biggest culprit. But there is a way you can live with one and still get things done. Productivity expert Chris Bailey shares what worked for him.

When your mind is even slightly resisting a task, it will look for novel things to focus on. And it doesn’t need to look far — only as far as your phone.

Our smartphones provide an endless stream of bite-sized, delicious information for our brains to consume. It’s easy to get hooked, even to feel addicted. And most of us would prefer not to feel this way. So last year, I started to hack my relationship with my phone, looking for small behavior changes I could make so that I would begin using my phone with intention, not automatically.

Here are 7 strategies I found useful to prevent phones from taking over our time and attention:

Strategy #1: Use airplane mode, even when you’re not in the air.

Airplane mode isn’t just for travel. Use it when you’re working on an important task or having coffee with someone you value. It makes a bigger difference than simply putting your phone in your pocket; when you do that, you’re still aware of the buzzing, vibrating notifications and distractions piling up and waiting for you. Airplane mode eliminates the possibility that notifications will disrupt your work or conversation.

Strategy #2: Do a phone swap.

While you should tuck your phone away while you’re with family or friends, there are times when you need to have it handy. On these occasions, try swapping phones with the people you’re hanging out with. This way, if you have to look something up, make a call, or send yourself a reminder, you’ll have a device to do it with — but it won’t be one that will suck you into a personalized world of distraction. If there is an urgent call or message on your phone, of course, your swap-mate has to promise to tell you, and vice versa.

Strategy #3: Designate a “distractions” device.

This may sound silly, but I recently decided that my iPad would be dedicated to one sole purpose: my favorite distractions. I took my social media apps off my phone; instead, I use my iPad for these and all things distracting. Delegating those tasks to the iPad — which I leave in another room — lets me focus longer, and more deeply, at times when I do need to keep my smartphone by my side.

Strategy #4: Prune your apps.

Scroll through your phone and delete the apps on which you waste too much time and attention — social media and news apps included. This can feel refreshing, like spring cleaning for your phone. Step two: Consider getting rid of apps that duplicate functionality with apps on your other devices. For example, your email app may not be worth keeping if you also read mail on your tablet; an investment app you check compulsively might be worth nixing if you can access that information on your laptop.

Strategy #5: Create a “Mindless” folder.

So you can’t quite get rid of all your time-wasting apps — and that’s OK. Just house your most distracting apps — the ones that pull you into autopilot mode — in a “Mindless” folder on your phone or tablet. The folder’s name should serve as a reminder every time you’re about to distract yourself.

Strategy #6: Mind the gaps.

This one takes willpower, but consciously resist the urge to tap around on your phone when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store, walking to the coffee shop, or in the bathroom. Try to use these breaks to reflect and recharge. Mindlessly burning these moments on your phone isn’t worth it.

Strategy #7: Think twice before adding a new device to your life.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has developed a useful way of assessing the tech in your life: identify what “jobs” you’re “hiring” a device to do for you. For example, you hire your phone to be an alarm clock, camera, timepiece, GPS navigator, video game console, email and messaging machine, boarding pass, music player, calendar, map and more. But as you accumulate more devices, their jobs can become redundant. Before you add one to your life, ask: What jobs am I hiring it to do that the devices I already own can’t? Thinking about electronics this way will force you to consider why you own them and, perhaps even more important, enables you to bring them into your life only with intention.

Excerpted with permission from the new book Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction by Chris Bailey, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2018 by Chris Bailey.

Watch Chris Bailey’s TEDxLiverpool talk here:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Bailey is a productivity expert and the author of the bestselling book “The Productivity Project,” which detailed his year-long effort — involving dozens of experiments on himself — to discover how to become as productive as possible. He speaks to organizations and audiences around the world on productivity.

This piece was adapted for TED-Ed from this Ideas article.