Robin Botic article

Robin Botic article May 2015
Procrastination part 4.
The final area of procrastination that I will discuss is task aversion due to thoughts about a lack of task competency. When we just don’t know how to go about doing the task it is invariably the task structure and what it requires for its successful completion that is overwhelming or threatening us. The first rule here is to break the task down into its component parts. It is during this process that you will be able to assess exactly what aspects you are having difficulty with and therefore where you need to seek support/advice as to how you can achieve your goal. Are you able to identify these components but then start procrastinating because of embarrassment as to how you think your asking will look to others? This is a self esteem issue and if you recognise this in your thinking you can now make some more informed choices as to the imagined reality of how you think your competency for asking advice will be judged or more importantly the actual reality of how it will be judged if you don’t complete the task!
Breaking down the task structure helps us in two ways, it enables us to plan a time frame of very specific sub-tasks and in doing this we make the tasks concrete, they then belong to the present and not some abstract possibility in the future that we imagine we still have plenty of time for. Planning is great and necessary but don’t get caught in over planning ie. avoidance through planning and replanning. Also watch out for the idea – that now that I have worked out a plan, that’s done it. Planning does not equal success.  Another fallacy of plan making is that we think we can achieve more in the time than that which we have available. Under estimating leads to stress, overwhelm, then to present and future task aversiveness. Putting aside reasonable time based on the self knowledge of what you know you can reasonably achieve will allow for greater flexibility if something else comes up, then you will be still able to achieve your goals without unnecessary time stress. Goal attainment achieved in a less stressful manner supports a positive feed back loop about the task in hand and lessens aversion.
Another way we procrastinate is avoidance through saying “I will just do this other thing first!” It is amazing what other jobs become appealing and more
important when we are trying to avoid a particular task. We get a lot of other stuff done, but not the one we are still stressing about. Now we are running out of time to do it properly or at all. I have a rule that I use with myself in this instance “Do the worst job first”. I do this task as early as I reasonably can in the day when my mental and physical energy is best. Then it is done, I’m cruising, the worst is over and my energy isn’t being dragged down by thinking I still have to do that awful thing while I am engaged and getting tireder doing less important stuff. Again it is positively reframing the task and our ability to do it.
Now we have made a plan and broken it down into specific sub-tasks with reasonable time frame goals. If at this point we are starting to be aware that we are starting  to lose our motivation, implementation intentions are a very useful way to kick start us in the right direction. They work like this. You may have a goal to lose weight by Christmas, your plan involves sub-tasks of diet and exercise regimes over a certain number of months. One of your sub-tasks in your exercise regime is to walk daily but you know from past experience that you find it hard to motivate yourself out of bed early enough. An implementation intention here to help you to achieve this could be the action of setting the alarm and having it far enough away from you so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off. You’re up now, and near the alarm and you have your walking gear ready to slip into. Mentally you are pre-preparing yourself to doing it and you have put things in place to make it happen more easily. Research has found using any implementation intention increases our chances of doing rather than delaying. Follow this up with accountability where you agree to walk with a friend then procrastination becomes a lot harder because your sense of responsibility/accountability is engaged in some way with others.  
Through all these strategies we are enabling a restructuring of how we are thinking and feeling about aversive tasks and our ability to procrastinate. We are enabling and increasing our will to achieve our goals so that they move from the “too hard basket” into the “I can do it and it feels good basket”. Nothing achieves like success and the positive feed back loop we create helps us feel less adverse to completing similar tasks in the future.
Robin Botic