Why You Procrastinate Even if You Don’t Want To

It’s not about what you want, it’s about what you do

Here are a few signs that you’re procrastinating too much:

1. You haven’t accomplished your goals in a long time.

2. You keep making excuses for why you’re not getting things done.

3. You find yourself distracted by activities that don’t help you reach your goals or are unhelpful to your progress.

4. You worry a lot.

Not getting things done puts us in a cycle of guilt: We come up with a goal, then we put it off until we find ourselves stagnating in life.

And we feel guilty for it. Which leads us to swear on doing that goal someday, eventually. But the cycle simply repeats.

Procrastination leads to regret and an unfulfilling life. Deep inside, we know that. But why do we put things off anyway?

Here are two commons reasons why people procrastinate. And how we can remedy them.

Too much commitment

Major assignments, cleaning your house, or creating a business plan — These things take time.

They also tend to not be that urgent. You think, “If I wait until tomorrow, no one’s going to die.”

So people put them off to do the really urgent tasks like responding to calls, emails, and making sure you have something to eat that night.

But delaying those other important tasks eventually impacts our lives. One day, you’ll find yourself buried underneath a mountain of unfinished paperwork, an overly messy house, a business that’s going nowhere (or non-existent because you never started).

Here is a simple solution: Work on your goal every day for 15 minutes.

“But the task is too big! What can 15 minutes even do?!”

It gets you started. That’s what it does. And starting is the most important thing when it comes to big challenges.

How do you eat an elephant? You don’t shove it down your throat all at once. Instead, you take one small bite today, then another tomorrow. And so on.