When you feel like a deadline is approaching too fast, spend the whole morning checking Facebook, and being late for dinner with friends then you must have a problem with procrastination.
"We procrastinate because we give in to feel good," said Carleton University - Ottawa associate professor of psychology Tim Pychyl. "If a task makes me frustrated or bored, avoidance lets me escape those negative emotions."
According to CNN, severe procrastination often ends up with anxiety, stress and relationship problems. Procrastinating can even make a person neglect his or her heath needs which can eventually lead to illnesses such as heart disease.
"You have a 6-year-old alive and well inside of you (who) gets hung up on how you feel or what you want," he added. As Pychyl explains it, delaying an important task to do other things such as cleaning the house and checking monthly bills are signs of procrastination. "It is like a moral substitution because (those things) are still on your to-do list."
Another unhealthy behaviour linked to procrastinating is missing out on exercise. "Your (inner) 6-year-old grabs hold and says, 'I don't want to,'" he said. An effective way to get moving is to break that task into small actions like getting an exercise bike instead of going to the gym. "All of a sudden, you think you are riding the Tour de France.... The key is to find this very small actionable step that will prime the pump and get you in the zone."
Eating, sleeping, watching TV, and now - the social media has become the major procrastinating tools, said "The Procrastination Equation" author Piers Steel. For him, making these harder for you to indulge is one way to escape. "You want something that is almost like you are telling another person what to do."
"Just get started. That's my No.1 mantra," Pychyl advised. "It's not 'Just do it' because that is too big."
