Procrastination
It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off tasks such as attending an appointment, submitting a job report or academic assignment, or broaching a stressful issue with a partner.
It is often perceived as a negative trait due to its hindering effect on one's productivity, associated with depression, low self-esteem, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy.
For example, in cultures that have a multi-active view of time, people tend to place a higher value on making sure a job is done accurately before finishing.
Some of which include intensity of performance evaluations, importance of their duty within a company, and their perception and opinions on management and/or upper level decisions.
[13] Gregory Schraw, Theresa Wadkins, and Lori Olafson in 2007 proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as academic procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.
[20] Piers Steel indicated in 2010 that anxiety is just as likely to induce people to start working early as late, and that the focus of studies on procrastination should be impulsiveness.
Emotional and avoidant coping is employed to reduce stress (and cognitive dissonance) associated with delaying intended and important personal goals.
This option provides immediate pleasure and is consequently very attractive to impulsive procrastinators, at the point of discovery of the achievable goals at hand.
[22][23][page needed] There are several emotion-oriented strategies, similar to Freudian defense mechanisms, coping styles and self-handicapping.
[3] Andrew Elliot and Judith Harackiewicz (1996) showed that students with performance-avoidance orientations tended to be concerned about comparisons with their peers.
These students procrastinated as a result of not wanting to look incompetent, or to avoid demonstrating a lack of ability and adopt a facade of competence for a task in front of their peers.
[3] In addition, Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama (1991) showed that in non-Western cultures, rather than standing out through their achievements, people tend to be motivated to become part of various interpersonal relationships and to fit in with those that are relevant to them.
[3] Yang and Yu (1987) have also shown that collectivism and Confucianism are very strong motivators for achievement in many non-Western cultures because of their emphasis on cooperation in the family unit and community.
[3] Guided by these cultural values, it is believed that the individual intuitively senses the degree of pressure that differentiates his or her factor of achievement orientation.
When this happens, procrastination has been found to result in health problems, stress,[29] anxiety, a sense of guilt and crisis as well as loss of personal productivity and social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments.
Damage or low activation in this area can reduce one's ability to avert diversions, which results in poorer organization, a loss of attention, and increased procrastination.
[31] In a 2014 U.S. study surveying procrastination and impulsiveness in fraternal and identical twin pairs, both traits were found to be "moderately heritable".
Procrastination has been linked to the complex arrangement of cognitive, affective and behavioral relationships from task desirability to low self esteem and anxiety to depression.
This result was hypothesized to be in association with hedonistic perspectives on the present; instead it was found procrastination was better predicted by a fatalistic and hopeless attitude towards life.
[34] Smartphone addiction is an important factor that interferes with sleep, and it is characterized by compulsive behavior patterns that cause people to malfunction.
To overcome procrastination, it is essential to recognize and accept the power of failure without condemning,[39][better source needed] to stop focusing on faults and flaws and to set goals that are easier to achieve.
Results from a 2002 study indicate that many students are aware of procrastination and accordingly set binding deadlines long before the date for which a task is due.
[27] Additionally, students can delay making important decisions such as "I'll get my degree out of the way first then worry about jobs and careers when I finish University".
[43] Other reasons cited on why students procrastinate include fear of failure and success, perfectionist expectations, as well as legitimate activities that may take precedence over school work, such as a job.
Due to this observation, active procrastinators are much more similar to non-procrastinators as they have a better sense of purpose in their time use and possess efficient time-structuring behaviors.
Steel et al. noted that those students who completed all of the practice exercises "tended to perform well on the final exam no matter how much they delayed.
[50]: 16 One form of self-regulation is time management, which does not normally address emotional issues related to procrastination so interventions are often combined with other approaches.
[54] Piers Steel suggests[55] that better time management is a key to overcoming procrastination, including being aware of and using one's "power hours" (being a "morning person" or "night owl").
Procrastination has been linked to a number of negative associations, such as depression, irrational behavior, low self-esteem, anxiety and neurological disorders such as ADHD or perfectionism OCD.
[29] Therefore, it is important for people whose procrastination has become chronic and is perceived to be debilitating to seek out a trained therapist or psychiatrist to investigate whether an underlying mental health issue may be present.
