Procrastinators come from every letter of the occupational alphabet, from astronauts to Episcopalian priests and from X-ray technicians to zookeepers. Whatever the job, procrastinators are more likely to be unemployed or working part-time compared to their non-procrastinating counterparts.
Procrastinators can be of either sex, though the Y chromosome has a slight edge. A group of 100 would likely be composed of 54 men and 46 women, leaving eight unmatched males vying for a female dalliance. You see, procrastinators tend to be available … sort of. They are more likely to be single than married but also more likely to be separated than divorced. They put off ending as well as beginning commitment.
Age also determines procrastination. … The closer we come to life's final deadline, the less we put off.
This demographic exploration, though interesting, isn't as useful as identifying procrastinators by their psychological profile. There is indeed a core trait explaining why we put off, but it might not be what you have heard.
It is commonly thought that we delay because we are perfectionists, anxious about living up to sky-high standards. This perfectionist theory of procrastination sounds good and even feels good. Perfectionism can be a desirable trait, as shown by the canned response to the interview question, “What is your biggest weakness?”
But the perfectionism-procrastination theory doesn't pan out. Based on tens of thousands of participants – it's actually the best-researched topic in the entire procrastination field – perfectionism produces a negligible amount of procrastination. When the counselling psychologist Robert Slaney developed the Almost Perfect Scale to measure perfectionism, he found that “perfectionists were less likely to procrastinate than non-perfectionists, a result that contradicted the anecdotal literature.”
My research backs him up: Neat, orderly and efficient perfectionists don't tend to dillydally.
How, then, did we come to believe that perfectionism causes procrastination? Here is what happened. Perfectionists who procrastinate are more likely to seek help from therapists, so of course they turn up in clinical research about procrastination in greater numbers. Non-perfectionist procrastinators (and for that matter, non-procrastinating perfectionists) are less likely to seek professional help. Perfectionists are more motivated to do something about their failings because they are more likely to feel worse about whatever they are putting off.
Consequently, it is not perfectionism that is the problem but the discrepancy between perfectionist standards and performance. If you are a perfectionist and are suffering from high standards that are unachievable, you might want to do something about that too, but you will need an additional book: this one is about procrastination.
What is really the main source of procrastination? Thirty years of research and hundreds of studies have isolated several personality traits that predict procrastination, but one trait stands above the rest. The Achilles heel of procrastination turns out to be impulsiveness; that is, living impatiently in the moment and wanting it all now. Showing self-control or delaying gratification is difficult for those of us who are impulsive. We just don't have much ability to endure short-term pain for long-term gain.
Impulsiveness also determines how we respond to task anxiety. For those of us who are less impulsive, anxiety is often an internal cue that gets us to start a project early, but for those who are more impulsive it is a different story: anxiety over a deadline will lead straight to procrastination. The impulsive try to avoid an anxiety-provoking task temporarily or block it from their awareness, a tactic that makes perfect sense if you're thinking short term.
In addition, impulsiveness leads procrastinators to be disorganized and distractible or, as my colleague Henri Schouwenburg puts it, to suffer from “weak impulse control, lack of persistence, lack of work discipline, lack of time management skill and the inability to work methodically.” In other words, impulsive people find it difficult to plan work ahead of time and, even after they start, they are easily distracted. Procrastination inevitably follows.
Editor’s Note: Excerpted from The Procrastination Equation. Copyright © 2010 by Piers Steel. Published by Random House Canada. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.
Source: The Globe and Mail
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