Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to Food
for Thoughts. If it were you, Season 3, I'm your
host, Neo Gentrics, the podcast where we chew on
the big ideas that shape our lives. And today,
we're diving deep into a topic that, let's be
honest, almost all of us have wrestled with,
procrastination. You know that feeling, right?
You have a huge project due, a deadline is staring
you down, but suddenly... Cleaning your desk
or organizing your bookshelf becomes the most
urgent task in the world. We've all been there,
trust me. And what do we usually tell ourselves
in that moment? We call it laziness, a lack of
discipline, maybe even a character flaw. But
what if I told you all of that was a lie? A growing
body of scientific research is completely reframing
how we understand procrastination. It's not a
moral failing, okay? It's a complex and deeply
ingrained psychological phenomenon. This is today's
food for thought. The common belief that procrastination
is more about time management is a fundamental
misunderstanding. In reality, bad time management
is just a symptom of a much deeper emotional
struggle. Think about it. For real, like, think
about it. When you label your own avoidance as
laziness, you're actually making the problem
worse. You're at a whole new layer of negative
emotions like guilt and shame for the next that
have nothing to do with it. This extra emotional
baggage makes the past you're already avoiding
feel even more unpleasant. Which only increases
your brain's impulse to avoid it even further.
It's at least a cycle where beating yourself
up actually fuels the fires of procrastination
and makes the whole situation a lot bigger and
more grand than it should be. Though the first
step to breaking this cycle isn't just to try
harder to apply more willpower. The first step
is actually to dismantle what I'm calling the
laziness lie, if you catch what I'm saying, and
replace that self -blame with some genuine self
-awareness. So today, we're going to deconstruct
this myth. We'll explore procrastination as a
problem of emotional regulation. We'll also look
at the neuroscientific conflicts happening within
your brain, you know, the little wiggly cell
on the top of your head that helps you think,
and identify the common triggers, and most importantly,
I'll give you a whole suit of evidence -based
strategies to take back control. You ready? Let's
break that down, shall we? All right, everybody,
let's begin with part one, though. Why? Emotional,
but yet not a time problem. So, what is the real
reason we fall asleep? Modern psychologists and
consensus says that procrastination is fundamentally
an emotion regulation problem, a time management
issue. Scientifically, procrastination is the
voluntary and unnecessary delay of a task intended
to do. Even though you know that delay will just
lead to horrible consequences in the long run.
And that's a key distinction. As Dr. Tim Cycle,
like that's the type that has this guy's name,
P -Y -C -H -Y -L, puts it, all procrastination
is delay. Not all delays is procrastination.
The funny word for a family emergency is irrational
choices like procrastination. Putting them off
to watch TV when you know there's a deadline
will mean death procrastination. That's the irrational
act where we're that we're talking about right
there. The core idea here is something called
temporal mood regulation. Okay? We procrastinate
on the tasks that make us feel bad. Any task
that makes us feel bad, we tend to put it off.
Tasks that trigger anxiety, boredom, or self
-doubt. Believe it or not, I'm just as guilty
of this as anyone else. Most of the time how
I put off a task is not because I don't want
to do it or I can't do it. It's because I'm bored.
I have to at least admit that. First step is
always a minute when there's a problem before
you can actually go forward. But hey, we all
do it as a short -term strategy to manage our
intermediate moods, however we're feeling. You're
not actually avoiding the task itself, you're
just avoiding the uncomfortable feeling that
that task brings up inside you, more or less.
By sidestepping those difficult emotions, your
present self gets an immediate reward, relief.
But that relief comes at a huge cost to your
future self, who has to still face the same task.
But now you're under even greater pressure. And
that's not exactly fun for you, is it? Now, this
internal struggle you feel is not just a metaphor.
It's a literal neurological tug -of -war happening
inside your head between two very different parts
of the brain. The limbic system and the prefrontal
cortex. First up, the limbic system. This is
one of the oldest, most dominant parts of your
brain. It's your, as I say, automatic, powerful,
emotional hub. Its main job is to seek immediate
reward and avoid discomfort. In the other corner,
you have your prefrontal cortex. It's a more
recently evolved and therefore weaker part of
the brain, if you will. As they've defined it,
it's your brain's CEO or rational twin. handling
things like long -term planning and impulse control.
Procrastination happens when the limbic system's
primary screen for immediate emotional relief
overpowering the prefrontal cortex' logical long
-term planning. Basically, you want the sweet
relief versus trying to actually do the work.
It's like trying to keep yourself from going
to use the bathroom, knowing you have to go because
you have to finish something, but the urge to
scream it. It's there, pushing, pushing, pushing,
until at some point you give in and you go. You
get the sweet relief now, you do feel better,
but then what happens? You still have all that
work you gotta go back and do. You know? The
Linux system is your brain's default setting,
okay? If your PFC isn't actively engaged, your
brain will automatically do what feels right
in the kind moment. This is why a lot of people,
when bored, tend to go drive off into a different
direction, not literally drive, but... fall off
in a different direction and do random stuff
that they know they really shouldn't be doing.
This battle has been reinforced by dopamine.
Y 'all remember this. We've talked about this
before in previous episodes. When you give in
and do something distracting, your brain's reward
system releases a little hint of this feel -good
chemical. This creates a powerful feedback loop
that actually straightens the neural pathways
for avoidance. Each time the limbic system wins,
that procrastination habit gets more and more
automatic to the point where you just kind of
do it without thinking. So consider that in the
process of what you're doing, that the moment
you feel like you should probably go do something
else because it feels better rather than doing
the task you need to do, you should probably
face up and just go ahead and do the task that
needs to get done. The longer you hold it off,
the more likely it is you'll never get around
to it. All right, everybody. Welcome back. Let
me go and talk about the triggers, unmasking
your procrastination profile. So, first off,
to really beat procrastination, you have to know
your enemy. The act of delay is often a symptom
of a deeper trigger. Let's unmask the most common
ones, okay? First off, task aversionness. We
abide allegedly a wire to avoid things we find
unpleasant. A task might be boring, frustrating,
difficult, unstructured, or just lack personal
meaning. The more of these boxes we tick, uh,
with tasks tick, tasks tick, there's a phrase.
The more of these boxes that we, uh, of tasks
that we tick off, the more you're going to resist
it. In other words, the more work you have to
do within a short period, the more daunting it
feels, the more likely it is you're going to
want to not do it. The second thing is perfectionism
or fear of failure. Which, I feel like fear of
failure is something we should definitely talk
about in the future moving forward, so look forward
to that. But anyway, for a perfectionist, the
real fear isn't the task itself, it's producing
something that falls short of impossibly high
standards. It feels psychologically safer to
not even try than to risk creating an imperfect
product. I've been there, and it took a while
for me to climb down that ladder. The fear of
success, this is another one. The myth of succeeding
in itself is something that people are afraid
of and therefore they don't wish to do anything.
It's a fascinating one when you think about it.
Success can bring its own anxieties, new responsibilities,
higher expectations, and more visibility. Although,
procrastination can also become a way to unconsciously
self -sabotage yourself to avoid those heavy
consequences. As a result, that kind of brings
us to the fourth one. Decision Paralysis. I know
you've heard it before. It's a thing that exists.
This happens when you're overwhelmed by choices
or the fear of making the wrong one. But you
just can't make any decision at all. Avoidance
feels like a relief in the time being. Except
it's only temporary. Like the feeling or high
that coffee gives you. Remember, we talked about
this before. Now it falls into the same category.
Not quite procrastination. The expression says
coffee is more related to... how your body deals
with energy and drowsiness. The last one is low
self -efficacy. This is the belief in your own
ability to succeed. I'm like, uh, uh, what's
the word I'm looking for here? I do believe it
is self -confidence. When it's low, you doubt
yourself, which triggers anxiety. Procrastination
then becomes a defensive mechanism to postpone
that anticipated failure. Because you don't want
to have to sit there and deal with the result
of not doing good enough because you don't think
that you're possibly capable of doing better.
Richest researchers break these patterns down
into different art types. Basically, the question
to ask is, are you the perfectionist, the worrier,
the crisis maker who thrives on the last -minute
pressure, or the dreamer who loves planning but
hates doing any of it? If I'm being perfectly
honest here, and I'm talking about myself as
a whole here, There are times I find myself in
the dreamer category. I like planning and I like
doing a lot of different things. But sometimes
when it comes down to doing it, it just seems
like too big or too daunting a task. Or worse.
I start off in the dreamer archetype and I end
up moving over to the perfectionist archetype.
Where now I'm trying to perfect everything I'm
doing to the point where I'm actually avoiding
finishing the project entirely. You don't have
to be any one of these four or five things. You
could end up being in multiple categories by
trying to avoid being in a certain gun. You know,
moments where I feel like I'm the dreamer, I'm
fine, but then I realize I'm not doing anything,
so I try to work on it, because then now that
puts me in the worrier category. Now I'm trying
to make sure I finish it, but then I'm looking
at what I'm doing, and I'm like, this isn't good
enough. So then I move into the perfectionist
category, art type. You know, I'm trying to get
it done, get it right, get it right, get it right,
get it right. Until I realized that I don't have
a whole lot of time to still finish this and
now I'm in the crisis maker archetype. Not very
many people fall into all four or five. But they're
young at the same time. But everyone has the
same issues now. Even if I said four, not five,
right? That's because the last one with the self
-confidence issue isn't as common. This is one
that's more of a personal thing. It depends on
how you were raised or how you look at the issues
as a whole. It can affect your ability to do
work, which then in itself makes it its own level
of procrastination in the six ones that I listed.
But the top four, being a procrastinator, the
warrior, the crisis maker, and the dreamer, these
are the four that are the main issues and the
main driving problems, especially for students
nowadays. Identifying your profile is a huge
step in finding the right strategy to fight back.
And I recommend this for a lot of people, especially
those who are going to do whatever it is they
need to do, but it takes them a while to get
there. All right, time for the last part of this.
Ah, let's talk about the antidote, a toolkit
for taking action. Okay, so we've diagnosed the
problem, now for the antidote. Overcoming procrastination
isn't about becoming a productivity machine,
okay? It's about becoming a more self -aware,
compassionate strategist, if you will. And the
foundational mindset shift you need is a radical
self -compassion. In other words, be nicer to
yourself, okay? The more effective antidote to
delay is not harsher discipline, but greater
self -kindness. When you procrastinate and then
you berate yourself, you're just amplifying the
guilt and the shame that made you make the task
feel awful in the first place. It's better not
to make the situation worse. If any way, it's
better to try to find a way to solve it by going
easier on yourself in the sense like, oh, okay,
well, I wasn't able to do it. I failed it, but...
The bright side is I now know what I don't need
to do or what not to do, and I can move forward
from there. You know, like, what did you learn?
Okay? Forgiving yourself for past procrastination
actually reduces the likelihood that you'll actually
do it again because you're becoming a little
bit more forgiving. And this kind of also relates
to a topic that I plan to cover next, which is
forgiving others. Before you can serve, what
do you think about how to forgive others and
move forward? That'll first learn how to forgive
yourself. Because most of the blame when it comes
to issues moving forward, especially relationships
and dealing with other people, is the inability
to forgive others, even when it isn't their fault.
Or is in some cases. There's times where issues
have occurred and I know it's their fault, but
I'm still going to forgive them anyway. Because
if I can't forgive them or I can't forgive myself
for allowing it to happen in the first place.
I'm never going to be able to forgive anyone
else, and I'm just going to be walking around
with a chip on my shoulder. You'll never get
anything done in a way. Once you have that foundation,
you can start using some practical tools. So,
with that being said, let's build your toolkit.
First things first, the two -minute rule. If
a task takes less than two minutes, just do it.
Do it immediately. For bigger tasks, the goal
is just to start working on it, even if it's
just for two minutes. This lowers the mental
barrier and helps you build momentum. By doing
it in two -minute bursts, here, here, here, here,
and there, you'll get little bits of it done
at a time to the point where at some point, you'll
be almost finished. You'll be like, oh, well,
if that's all I have to do, then you'll just
go get it done. Simple as that. Then there's
the other part of it. The next one is tasks.
E -composition. Or, as I was just explaining,
chunking. Break a huge, ambiguous project like...
or writing a report, or in my case, writing a
book, or writing a chapter, right? I do a series
of small, concrete, manageable sub -tasks, like
find resources, email for your report. This makes
the project feel less strained. Like, this is
how I handle writing my books, okay? A lot of
people ask me if I'm able to write, how do I
write my books? How long does it take me to write
it? I can honestly tell them it doesn't take
me more than a week or two to write most of my
stories that I have to write. This isn't me showing
off. This is me telling you that the reason that
I'm able to do this is because instead of literally
as a story as a whole, I break it up into three
sections. I have them beginning, middle, and
end. And then I break those sections down into
chapters. Then I break those chapters into smaller
sections. By writing them in sections and then
writing them as chapters as a whole, like each
chapter is its own individual small short story,
it's a lot easier to focus on the whole thing
and get it done. By writing a chapter by chapter
by chapter by chapter. And if I happen to go
a little bit longer than I originally wanted
for either each chapter or I write an extra chapter
or two, that's not a problem because it's smaller
tasks. These are things that are a lot better
to digest. So it makes it easier to progress
forward. Which kind of brings me to the third
tool. Eat the frog. And that sounds stupid. And
most of y 'all will be like, no, I don't want
to eat a frog. That's gross. That's not what
I mean by that. Identify your single most dreaded
task of the day. That is your frog. I don't know
why it sounded weird when I said that, but that's
the idea. And do it first day in the morning,
when your willpower and cognitive resources are
at its peak. By doing the thing you dread the
most in the morning, the first task that you
touch, after you've had your honey coffee and
everything else, right? You knock it out early.
By knocking that out early, it becomes the least
likely issue of cause or provocation or procrastination.
This will keep you on task. It'll allow you to
move forward. And again, you're still chunking.
You're still breaking everything down into sections.
But now you're able to get it done faster because
you're focusing on the portions that you know
are going to be the hardest to get, which brings
us to the fourth tool in this toolkit, the Bramadoro
technique. Work in a focused 25 -minute interval,
okay? The two -minute interval issue is great
for when you're handling small tasks like creating
outlines or something. When you're focusing on
the bigger things, focusing on 25 -minute intervals
separated by short five -minute breaks, well,
this gamifies the work, preventing burnouts,
and it aligns with your brain's natural attention
cycles. Some people have longer attention cycles,
and this works fine. I'm one of them. I can sit
here and work for an hour and a half on something
without losing concentration unless someone comes
in and bothers me. And this is great, especially
when you're working on your projects, handling
homework assignments, or in college students'
case, multiple homework assignments from different
classes all on the same day. Especially when
you have exams coming up, you know? But so pretty
sure, like now, that we are at the end of September,
so midterms should be coming up soon, if they
haven't already started. So this is something
that would definitely help when handling homework
assignments, projects, or anything of the like,
and get them mocked out as soon as possible.
So, what's the big takeaway from all of this?
The journey to understand procrastination reveals
a profound shift. It's not a character flaw or
devoid of laziness, but a deeply human, emotional,
driven coping mechanism. Overcoming it isn't
about brute force. It's about replacing that
cycle of avoidance and self -criticism with a
cycle of awareness and action. But that forward
begins not with an iron will, but with a single
compassionate act of self -forgiveness. The ultimate
goal is not the total elimination of procrastination,
but the cultivation of progress, one small intentional
step at a time. This is something for you guys
to keep in mind moving forward. Well, that's
all the time we have for today. Thank you for
tuning in to Food for Thought. I'm Neil Gentry,
reminding you to think deeply and be kind to
yourself. If you haven't already, feel free to
check me out on any of the many platforms that
I'm on, whether it's iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts,
Pandora, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, you name it.
I'm even on Deezer and YouTube. And for all you
too, when you're listening to this podcast here,
feel free to leave a comment down below on what
you liked about this episode or any feature topic
you would like to see me cover. That's it for
today. Have a great rest of your day.