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Robin Botic Article for April 2015
Procrastination part 3.
In his podcasts “I procrastinate” Tim Pychyl Phd. talks about the research work that looks at cognitive restructuring and strengthening volition (changing your thinking and getting motivated).
Through thinking about how you are thinking you are more able to challenge those irrational thoughts that course irrational delay. I mentioned some of them in the last article. Those along the lines of “I don’t feel like doing it now” and “I will feel more like doing it tomorrow”. Then there are the big myths of “I will have more time” sometime in the future or “I work better under pressure”. I am going to follow through what’s happening in our thought and feeling state when we engage in this process. First we think about the job and depending on the thoughts about it start to feel miffed, bored, put off, or anxious about the fact that we have to do it. The next lot of thoughts are justifiers as per the ones mentioned above. What these delaying justifying thoughts do is give us an excuse not to do it now. Then there is a subsequent release of tension associated with the temporarily escape of having to do the tasks. Unfortunately this temporary release in tension actually works to our disadvantage as paradoxically the delay/release affect acts as a reward and reinforces procrastinating behaviours.  
We can repeat this cyclical pattern until time pressure forces us to stop delaying and do the task. A classic statement in defence of this self-perpetuating behaviour is “see I work better under pressure!” There has been plenty of research studies done particularly with graduate students that prove the error of this thinking. The same is true of the belief that you will have more time in the future, again this has been shown to be a fallacy. If we start to plan our time in that future – we usually find our time will be just as full then as it is now. More future time is an illusion so is the idea that we will feel better about doing the job tomorrow that we don’t feel like doing today. But what we are actually doing is increasing time pressure and eventually increasing our anxiety levels. Once you start knocking some holes in these irrational thought processes, they can lose their power to offer that reward of a temporary relaxation of tension. We know we are kidding ourselves and we now have some choices. Old patterns or re-cognition. Re-cognition could flow along these lines and it involves future pacing and thought simulation.
“When I think about what I have to do, I feel crappy but I can continue to feel crappy and resist or I can accept that this has to be done and I can focus on how I will feel when the task is completed. I know how that feels from completing similar past tasks and I know I feel better as soon as I actually start doing something. When I stick with it, it starts to flow more easily. I feel so great when I’ve completed it. Relaxed, free, pleased with myself and more able to enjoy what I want to do.”
In other words put your energy and thoughts into the feeling of the successful outcome to galvanise your will and to move yourself past thoughts of procrastination.  
The same basic strategies apply when we can’t get motivated because we think a task too boring or not that important. In this process of task disengagement we minimise, deny, devalue or dismiss the tasks importance to justify our procrastination. If you honestly think the task is not important to you maybe you can revalue it by redefining it’s importance in terms of its value to someone or something you value outside of the task.  The re-cognition challenge here is to giving meaning and value and therefore motivation to complete the task.