We all find ways to avoid starting or performing certain activities for some unknown reason, until we are virtually forced to do so. This is procrastination. Procrastination is a choice people make to delay or avoid doing something, whether the choice is made consciously or subconsciously. Yet, procrastination is not necessarily bad. Many times procrastination can be considered good. In fact everybody procrastinates, countless times every day. As an example, I procrastinated in completing this procrastination blog, until I red a very negative and inaccurate blog about procrastination. AND I am procrastinating as I now complete this blog. I am choosing not to do something else at the same time. This could be called procrastination. Is that good, bad, or does it matter?

I bet if most people would look at the activities they delay or avoid starting and/or completing, they will observe fairly clear patterns. In essence, they will most often discover that they procrastinate performing the same or very similar activities. For example people who delay cleaning the kitchen, which constantly gets messy, will also find they delay cleaning their room, vacuuming the house and/or washing the car. These are all similar activities.

People choose not to do things they do not want to.

The real reason virtually everyone procrastinates is because they do not want to perform the activities they avoid. Instead of performing the undesirable activities, most people seek other more desirable activities to do. The undesirable activities are left undone, by choice, either consciously, or most often unconsciously. Frequently, outside pressures build up that become so strong that they outweigh the desire to avoid performing the activities and they force people to actually face the prospect of doing the things they had been avoiding so long.

Procrastination is natural and not bad

Unfortunately, too many people belittle themselves because they procrastinate, in believing they are inferior, or weak. They feel guilty because they have not done things the Should have done. They get caught up in the Should’s. With the Should's they try to fulfill the demands, expectations, or desires of others on the other person’s terms. Frequently the Should’s imposed by others are accompanied with heavy guilt to make you feel bad. People who procrastinate are not bad. Instead, they are human. If procrastinators were considered bad, then EVERYONE in the world would be considered bad. Because EVERYONE procrastinates every time they do something because they are not doing something else that would define them as a procrastinator.

For example, one of my first houses that I owned in Houston, Texas, had a well-established grassy yard that was fairly small. We were on a street of very well kept yards. Grass grows rapidly during all but the three winter months in Houston. I felt a strong community pressure to mow my yard at least once a week, normally on Saturdays, to keep up appearances. But I noticed early on that while it took my neighbor whose yard was more than 50% larger than mine, only 30 minutes to cut his yard, I would procrastinate as long as possible and spend at least five to seven hours to cut my smaller yard. And I was grumpy virtually the whole time, which ruined almost every Saturday during growing season. Winter provided me a welcome relief to actually avoid cutting the grass. I tried everything to overcome my supposed weakness of procrastination. It was not until I moved years later that I discovered through coaching that one of my main (subconsciously based) self-imposed obstacles was my strong distaste for cutting the grass. I do not know why this is true nor do I care. Since I discovered my subconscious distaste for cutting grass, I have organized my house ownership to always include having lawn cutting services. Now I spend every Saturday I would have wasted trying to delay cutting the grass doing other things that I enjoy and are frequently more valuable, like yard work, cleaning, tennis, writing blogs, and spending valuable time with my family.

Yet, there are just some tasks that you do not like performing that are much better performed by you for various reasons. Avoiding them might become a bad option for you. Everybody has these types of must do activities.

The four keys to completing undesirable, yet mandatory activities without unwanted procrastination

The first key is to discover which activities you dislike performing, whether consciously or subconsciously, that you feel must be performed by you. Be sure you really are the best person to perform these activities, knowing that you have a strong distaste for doing so, and that this conflict might reduce your capacity to produce the most favorable results you would want.

The second key is to create ways to avoid as many of the activities you dislike, that others can perform better, so you do not burden yourself with unnecessary stresses, and self-criticism. Reducing unwanted and unnecessary stress is always good.

The third key is to organize the timing and places to perform the activities you do not like but must perform in a manner that best suits your priorities and conditions, to allow you to perform these undesirable activities as quickly and effectively as possible.

The fourth key is to celebrate the completion of these must do distasteful tasks every time. Reward yourself to create positive events that are associated with their completion, which will reduce your reluctance to start performing them the next time.

Conclusion

Procrastination is a very normal human activity. Everybody procrastinates. All the time! But, too often people degrade themselves because they feel their form of procrastination is bad, or makes them inferior. Procrastination is a natural choice process, whether done consciously or subconsciously. Subconscious choices to delay or avoid doing anything are frequently the most troublesome, because people do not know that they are really making these subconscious delaying choices. Stresses are caused by the conflicts between their rational brains telling them to perform activities versus their unknown subconscious telling them not to perform them. These stresses invite guilt and frequently cause people to think less of themselves. When people really discover and understand what activities they do not want to perform, both subconsciously and consciously, they can turn negative feelings of procrastination into positive processes, which they frequently are.

This other blog prompted me to complete my blog on procrastination to present what I feel is a more realistic and human perspective about procrastination, which is too often treated negatively. The writer of this blog treats procrastination as negative behavior, claiming that 20% of people are chronic procrastinators, that many people procrastinate (in a bad way) because of controlling parents, and that procrastinators consume more alcohol than others.