Scientists have recommended the most effective way to combat procrastination.
It turns out that you need to either set very tough, fast deadlines, or not set them at all.
How often do you find yourself wasting your time, putting off until the last day when you start preparing an important report or memorizing material for an exam? Surely there were such moments in everyone’s life. The process of “shelving” is called “procrastination,” and it’s not easy to fight it, even by setting deadlines.
At the same time, procrastination has nothing to do with laziness – we can do other things. It’s not a lack of character or willpower, but rather a way to deal with negative emotions – like boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt, and so on – as well as bad moods caused by certain tasks.
The exact reason for our aversion to a task we are postponing depends on its meaning or situation. This could be due to something inherently annoying, such as having to clean up or doing a long and boring data analysis. But it can also be the result of deeper emotions associated with the task, such as self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety, or insecurity. For example, when we look at a blank page in a word processor, thoughts may come to mind that “this is too difficult” or “I am not smart enough to write well.”
However, scientists from the University of Otago have discovered the most effective method to combat procrastination. It turns out that the best way to force yourself to get everything done on time is to set no deadline or set the strictest possible one (with a short amount of time to complete the task).
In the study, which was published in the journal Economic Inquiry, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire and send information by letter to decide how donations would be distributed to charity. They received information that there was either a week or a month to complete the task, or the exact deadline was not specified. A total of three mailings were carried out with a difference of several weeks, with 300, 390 and 402 letters, respectively. At the same time, the response rate was quite low: 8.32% in the group that did not receive information about the deadline, 5.53% – in the group that had a month to reply, 6.59% – in the group that answered within a week.
The smallest number of response letters with a completed questionnaire came from participants who were guided by a one-month deadline, and the largest – when the deadline was not explicitly set. Interestingly, scientists interpreted this result in the following way: when long time frames are specified, as opposed to their absence, it removes the urgency of action that we often feel when we are asked for help. Therefore, people tend to postpone the task and, due to forgetfulness or inattention, do not start it on time.
