Kiara Bynum

Often procrastination is associated with being lazy and/or lacking motivation. Instead, science tells us that procrastination is associated with “emotional regulation.” 

To understand why we fail to meet deadlines and complete tasks knowing that our behaviors can have negative consequences,  Dr. Adrienne Taren, a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Adjunct Professor at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, studies procrastination. Taren mentions that part of the reason for the behavior resides in the amygdala, which is a part of the limbic system, a neural network mediates aspects of emotion and memory.

Dr. Tim Pychyl, who recently retired as Associate Professor of Psychology at Carleton University, says “Procrastination is the misregulation of emotion. We think putting things off, we’re going to feel better,” and that “It’s all about our feelings.”

Pychyl’s research has shown that “we prefer the short-term reward shorter and smaller than later and larger,” and to get a task done you need to be aware and mindful of objectives to be completed instead of self-sabotaging.  The feelings procrastination causes can defeat efforts to reach these objectives. “It’s not a time management problem; it’s an emotion regulation problem.”  

Procrastinating can be a cause of self-doubt and worry, which can be difficult to overcome.

The answer to procrastination starts with “mindfulness meditation” Pychyl says. It teaches us a “skill that can directly and gently move my attention to where I want to be.” Mindfulness Meditation basics all starts with setting aside time out your day to commit to meditating, observing the moment as is aiming to pay attention to the present without judgement, and being kind to your wandering mind by not judging yourself but coming back to the present goal.

Pychyl says that once we start a task our world changes. “Implementation intention is a notion in situation X I’ll do behavior Y,” the steps you follow to realize intentions and attain positive results. These two steps, committing to a goal and  striving to peruse it by taking action can be aided by creating concrete, reachable goals and staying mindful of them. For example, setting the goal of studying 3 hours a day for chemistry 4 days out of the week prior to a chemistry exam.