The procrastination game

A battle between ourselves and productivity

I don’t believe anyone can honestly say they’ve never procrastinated. And if they can, I wonder if they could still do so in a courtroom with their hand on a bible, delivering the statement like an oath they vow is the truth and nothing but the truth to us – the guilty party spreading our procrastination like a virus.

Even the most successful CEO has surely experienced the thrill of disregarding a task simply because, despite its relevance, it’s boring. Sometimes, a bit of menial spreadsheet organising and colour coding is just SO much more appealing than a 58-page proposal, right? The only issue is that one needs to be done, and one would-be-good-to-get-done; it’s obvious where the priority lies, but that doesn’t always translate into the appropriate actions.

More often than not, the most pressing yet draining task is squeezed into a tight pocket of time, right against a deadline. (We love a bit of self-inflicted pressure.)

It’s undeniably better to tackle the most boring task at the start of the day – out of sight, out of mind – but, that doesn’t mean it happens. The lines of productivity can easily blur. It’s far easier to push the painful task aside and falsely convince ourselves that by still doing something, we are not procrastinating.

I don’t believe there’s an overnight fix either, as much as many painfully cheesy podcasts or books will sell us the belief that we simply need to “DO it”. They’ll inadvertently explain that we’re all the same, but we just need to find that ✨drive✨ within us. Or, better yet, they’ll remind us that we all have the same 24-hours in a day and totally disregard the privilege and socioeconomic advantage they have that others wouldn’t even allow themselves to dream of (if you know, you know 👀).

We all have hugely varying challenges that take up valuable seconds, minutes, and hours within our own 24-hours. We cannot expect to accomplish everything we want to with every passing day. It’s unrealistic. But still, even when we’re cognitively aware that procrastination is normal, there’s no denying that it’s plain annoying.

And it’s not just work life. In fact, it’s sometimes not that at all. For many, it’s possible to be incredibly successful in a work setting – cool, calm, collected, reactive to changing requirements (aka. an absolute girl boss) – but to then feel the standards slip once the work boundaries are removed.

It’s the classic ‘personal/life admin’ that tends to catch me off guard; those jobs you really need to do, but they are so painfully tedious that it feels criminal to not be paid for them. Like researching insurance providers for your car, phone, home (or many other equally thrilling things), then ringing (read: sitting on hold for hours) to set up a policy. That’ll be a task that slips down the list.

The thing is, it can be incredibly hard to self-motivate when there’s no serious consequence assigned to NOT completing the task at hand.

If someone needs something from me and I want to impress them, or I’m being paid, it’s safe to say that I’ll complete the task both within the deadline and to the highest level I can muster (which inevitably won’t be good enough in my mind, but hey, that’s a me problem). And yes, sometimes it may have been finished dangerously close to the deadline, but still, it’s done.

It’s when there’s all the time in the world and not an external deadline in sight that the problems tend to arise. It’s when it’s ALL on me.

I call this the procrastination game.

It’s an unfairly one-sided game that I frequently find myself playing, where procrastination battles productivity. It goes a bit like this:

1. Romantically contemplate all the things I will get done tomorrow because it’s set to be a quiet day

2. Repeatedly tell myself that I WILL do them (especially important when going to bed)

3. Decide that I will create a to-do list so I get the satisfaction of ticking tasks off

4. Go to sleep

5. Wake up in the morning – treat myself to a podcast episode or a YouTube video

6. Blink and realise it’s 4:23pm

7. Frantically start what I needed to do before dinner comes around

The whole process is infuriating, especially because there’s nobody else to blame. It’s a game between me, myself, and I that, sure enough, I’ll find myself back in the middle of time and time again.

I don’t know how to beat the game. In fact, I’m beginning to think that procrastination simply exists to either torture us for not doing what we should have done or to elevate the celebrations for those few times we break through it and actually do ✨get shit done✨.

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What I do know, however, is that when we’re faced with a ridiculously busy day, week, or month – a time when we’re most susceptible to burnout and drowning in deadlines – it's all too common to then sweep aside the things that nurture us. There’s so much else to focus on that it becomes necessary to forgo what brings us joy; the small moments of peace that refuel us. Moments as simple as reading a few pages of a book, going for a walk, spending 10 minutes on a hobby/passion project, having a hot chocolate, chatting to a friend, watching a feel-good TV show. The unfortunate reality is that there’s no time for them at this point.

So how painfully ironic it is to also deny ourselves that satisfaction on a day that’s gloriously free from plans or work or deadlines. To find ourselves procrastinating when there’s nothing obvious TO procrastinate (see points 1-7 above). Like those painful yet pressing tasks even a CEO may push aside sometimes, we are very quick to deprive ourselves of what our sanity wants and needs in favour of a quick win that makes the empty days fly by (hello social media).

I don’t have the solution, and again, that’s why the procrastination game hurts. It’s annoying, it crops up all the time, and it’s filled with self-blame.

And what’s worse is that these small, simple, indulgent things will likely fuel us to be more productive, energised, and strong in the long-term – in the face of those inevitable busy periods or tight deadlines.

So, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about stopping the procrastination at all. Maybe it’s about starting to allow ourselves – or to even force ourselves (if needed) – to spend a little more time on us whenever we can. Maybe the key is recharging our brain with the things we love so it’s better prepared to fight the many forms of procrastination we’ll inevitably come up against.

Or maybe the procrastination game is like Monopoly; far too long and convoluted that the rules are never followed and the game never quite finished?

I don’t know, but I certainly play it a lot.