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Yini Sun

Professor Ochi

English 1A

16 MAR 2021

How to save procrastination

Of the easiest things in the world, procrastination is the least laborious. When I was a

child, I liked to delay doing homework until I was about to go to bed. This caused me to stay up

often, which was very bad for my health. It can be said that many children have procrastinated in

one way or another. My cousin is also slow in everything, such as getting up slowly, brushing his

teeth, eating slowly, and even asking him to go to bed. He likes to find an excuse for everything

he does, delaying the current thing first, and always delaying doing it until the end. A line he

often said is "Wait a moment!" There also have some people gain a sense of control by delaying,

such as being late, not completing tasks on time, failing to abide by rules and regulations, and

turning passive to active. When they are unwilling to do something but have to do it under

pressure, they will use procrastination to tell you that they are dissatisfied with doing it. Because

he didn't dare to express his dissatisfaction directly, he responded by delaying. This seems to be a

kind of conditioned reflex for them, and the emotions behind it may not even be aware of them.

What procrastination does to your happiness? Good things don't always happen to

procrastinators. Procrastination will take away your happiness. Habitual procrastination may

destroy relationships, give others a negative impression of being careless, and lead to a poor

career path. Procrastinators often lie to explain their procrastination, and they are often seen

through, leading to disastrous consequences. There is no doubt that this has great damage to their
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happiness, and the main damage is regret. Things will follow this foreseeable cycle: the

procrastinator is hopeful at first, then falls into anxiety, guilt, and self-blame, and finally feels

regret. The next time I work, I fall into the same cycle again. In Linda Sapadin’s article, she

described several ways to deal with procrastination, which I think is great. “Why then do crisis-

makers take action only when there’s a blazing fire to put out? The short answer: because their

feelings, at the moment, are of utmost importance. If they don’t feel like doing something, they

won’t. If they feel an undertaking isn’t to their liking, they won’t reflect on why it still may be a

good idea to do it.”(Sapadin) People need to accept the imperfections that may exist after hard

work and look at things and themselves with a growth mindset.

Some people worry that success requires too much effort, far more than they can afford.

Because it takes a lot of time and effort to commit to success, and sacrifice a lot of leisure time,

they think it is more comfortable to stand still. According to David McRaney, “Capable

psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things

done not because they have more will power, more drive, but because they know productivity is

a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty

which can never be excised from the soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than

making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push-

ups.” 

 Procrastination is an emotion, laziness is an attitude. In Lieberman Charlotte’s

article, she says “Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your

ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods

induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and

beyond.” People often say that they understand, but in fact, they don’t understand these
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principles, they just have heard them. If people follow suit, they can get rid of their negative

feelings of procrastination and at least allow people to develop in a good direction. As for some

people who say that they can't do it, it is not a fault of reason, but that they are not interested in

this matter or pay attention to it. This is a question of attitude. "Lazy, not procrastinating.

Procrastination means that you know that you need to act immediately, but when it is moving, it

becomes extremely difficult to take the first step. This kind of psychological emotion continues

to reduce the ability of the procrastinator to act.

Procrastination affects our health and life to a large extent. If we want to make a change,

the first step in changing the habit of procrastination is to change the cognitive: correcting

unreasonable beliefs. People need to realize that perfectionism is an unreasonable perception.

Because there is no perfect thing in this world, this world is not black and white either. Ability

can be developed, and through hard work, you can become more capable over time. Success is

for learning and progress, not for proving that you are smart. Therefore, even if you fail, it does

not mean that you are stupid or incompetent, but that you cannot do better at this stage. But being

unable to do well now does not mean that we will not do well in the future. It is not a certain task

that delays the attempt to avoid, it may be a certain feeling. I was afraid of failure before, and

fear of being devalued and attacked. I feel that derogation and attacks will dampen my self-

esteem. But self-esteem is a person's assessment of self-worth. An important mission of personal

growth is to develop a reasonable understanding of one's abilities and to accept one's limitations

while maintaining a positive sense of self-worth. And when you get a phased result after working

hard with a development mentality, you need to strengthen the joy of this achievement. This will

help you improve your sense of self-esteem. 

Another important factor is that in the process of growing up, the controlled anger will

make you resist your parents from the inside. This resistance may extend to your attitude towards

"authority" (teacher, leader, elders, etc.). People are very sensitive to the feeling of being

controlled. Once they feel controlled, they may immediately become disinterested in the things

they were originally interested in. People will instinctively resist, become procrastinated and

uncooperative. But think about it, if you don't have authoritative instructions, would you like

what you did. Ask about your inner motives, regardless of whether the event will satisfy the

expectations of your parents or authority. Finding the inner motivation to do something is an

opportunity for the inertial procrastinator to change.

Works Cited

Charlotte Lieberman. "Why you procrastinate (it has nothing to do with self-control)." The

New York Times 25 Mar.2019. [Link]

living/[Link] Accessed 14

Mar.2021

Linda Sapadin. “Crisis Makers: When Procrastination Wreaks Havoc” Psych Central, 08 Aug.

2018. [Link]

Accessed 15 Mar.2021.

McRaney, David. "You Are Not So Smart-Book Trailer–Procrastination." 27 Oct. 2010

[Link] Accessed 14 Mar.2021