Procrastination

Some say Procrastination is merely the deferment or delaying of actions or tasks. But is is really avoiding the very decision to act and complete a task. This is usually done by doing something else thought more pleasant (compare temporisation). It is Latin for "foremorrowing," or making some such of tomorrow.

The satisfaction from not doing an unpleasant or unwanted task is pervasive in our society. This attitude has created jokes and cliches such as "never delay until tomorrow what you can delay until the day after tomorrow".

Procrastination has many faces. It can be as simple as waiting until the last minute to file your taxes, or never cleaning the garage. At its extremes, it can be life or career threatening.

Traditionally, procrastination is associated with perfectionism. This is the tendency to negatively evaluate results and one's own performance. It can be an unspoken but intense fear and avoidance of evaluation of one's abilities by others. And it can indicate, heightened social self-consciousness and anxiety, recurrent low mood, and workaholism. But research shows perfectionists are no more likely to procrastinate, though they do feel worse about it when they avoid decisions to complete things.

The term is referenced as a proverb, which in itself first appeared in the novel 'David Copperfield', by Charles Dickens: "Procrastination is the thief of time." This conveys the meaning avoidance is negative and wasting time during which the action could be finished. Don Marquis neatly parodied this adage with the following: "Procrastination is the art of staying even with yesterday."

Chronic procrastination

Procrastination can be a persistent trait in some people, known as “Chronic Procrastinators”. For those, it can be a self-destructive, persistant state where the procrastinator accomplishes nothing on time. The results are usually serious career struggles, persistent financial problems, and diminished life quality. Chronic procrastination often causes significant psychological disability and dysfunction in many levels of life through time. Procrastinators typically have significantly lower academic grades, worse health, and make less money than non-procrastinators.

Because of its serious effects, there is a desire among psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals to turn Chronic Procrastination into an actual mental disease. The result is a strong urge to define it as a syndrome or disorder, and to place it in the official book of psychiatric disorders.

Do not be fooled by this. Chronic Procrastination is not a mental illness. While some true mental illnesses may have it as a symptom, procrastination itself is nothing more than a state of mind. In normal people, to stop procrastinating, you only have to change your mind.

The same intent has been lavished on what people call Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome (ADDS). It has been “defined”, added to the book of psychiatric diseases, and “treatment” has been assigned. In most cases, that treatment is a long-term, daily strong dosage of a drug named “Ritalin”, which is a powerful brain stimulant. Many millions of dollars have been spent selling the idea of ADDS to the public as a devastating disease afflicting millions of Americans. But the simple truth this is nothing but a ploy to sell millions of doses of Ritalin and newer related drugs.

They use circular logic in positioning “Chronic Procrastination” with “Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome”. If procrastination is a disease, then anything which causes it must be a disease or part of the disease. In most cased, there is no “deficit” of attention, no “disorder” of action or thought, and it isn’t a “syndrome” at all. What we usually have are simply bored people who are avoiding doing things they don’t find interesting, or in which they see no value.

With too many children “diagnosed” with ADDS (usually by school officials rather than mental health professionals), it is a case of bored, bright students whose educational needs cannot be met by mediocre teachers and incompetent school systems. Bright students are always more difficult to educate than normal children. Most school systems are designed to make good citizenss from average students. So if some students cannot be taught with standards designed for average children, something must be wrong with the children. They must be “mentally ill”, and so they are medicated with strong drugs like Ritalin. But most bright students actually have greatly heightened powers of concentration – when it is focused on subjects which interest them.

Even more insidious, there has been the recent invention of a new fictitious disorder called “Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome”. This attempts to define as a disease the boredom of many adults working at dull and uninteresting jobs or careers. This is acute social redefinition to try and sell drugs, or get “underperformers” to “toe the line” and be more productive. The socialized position is “if you aren’t paying attention to what we think is important, there must be something seriously wrong with you. You must be mentally ill. So you must take this new pill to cure you.”

Fair is fair, though. Many individuals considered "Chronic Procrastinators" can be actually suffering from an underlying mental health problem like depression. Such individuals frequently do not understand why they cannot "get it together", and become resigned to a life of shame, underachievement, and constant struggle. Often these true disorders can be treated with medication and psychotherapy, whereby the individual can learn new behaviors and achieve a greatly improved quality of life. For for people chronically struggling with debilitating procrastination, it can be important they see a trained therapist or psychiatrist to see if an underlying mental health issue may be present.

Academic procrastination

Students of all ages have been procrastinating for as long as there have been students. This is called “academic procrastination”. In some, it is simply a symptom of senioritis (an imaginary syndrome seen in students nearing the end of high school and college). But in most cases, it is the failure of the teachers and the education system to TEACH subjects to students in ways which make them seem relevant and importan to the educution of those students.

However, students can also struggle with serious procrastination for medical reasons such as a learning disorder like dyslexia. Some students also struggle with procrastination problems as a result of stress, poor study skills, or being overwhelmed in their school. Teachers, guidance counselors, and others in school administration should be trained to help with these issues. Many many colleges and universities do offer classes, coaching, and tutoring in study skills for students who are struggling with procrastination or a learning disorder. But such courses and assistance should begin at younger ages if they are to be truly effective. Students with learning disorders often qualify for special considerations such as increased time for test-taking.

Procrastination and Addiction

There is a growing trend in American society to define any undesirable, repetitive, or obsessive behavior as “addiction”. This is nonsense and counterproductive. People mostly procratinate because they are doing something which is more fun than the thing they are avoiding. They procrastinate because they do not see real value in the tasks others assign to them. More recently, people are procrastinating because they are becoming overwhelmed by the ever expanding choices presented to us daily. At its root, procrastionation is too often nothing more than the avoidance of the decision to make a choice between excessive options to act.

Lately, there is an attempt to create a new, official disorder by defining something called internet addiction or computer addiction. In this instance the individual has a compulsion to avoid reality by surfing the web or playing video games (see Game addiction). Although these are relatively new phenomenona, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other health care professions are eager to define them as a real psychiatric diagnoses. They want to “add them to the book” of official disorders. And once they are in the book, they must be real … must they not?