WEBVTT - Why Do We Procrastinate? 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:05.280 Hey, welcome to Science Stuff production of iHeartRadio. Hoarhitch Ham 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.560 and do they We're finally getting to the science of procrastination. 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:14.280 Why do we procrastinate? Who procrastinates? And is there a cure. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.520 We're gonna be talking to not one, not two, but 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.400 three psychologists about this phenomenon, all of whom have a 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:24.599 different take on why we procrastinate, and then we're gonna 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.480 talk about possible strategies you can use to stop procrastinating, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:33.560 including some that you might find unusual. So, whether you're 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.120 someone who keeps putting things off, or if you want 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.720 to understand people around you should do, then don't delay. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.400 Listen on as we tackle the science of procrastination. 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:45.479 Y enjoy. 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:53.280 Hey everyone, So I am a big procrastinator. If you 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.760 work with me, then you probably know to give me 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.960 a fake deadline just to make sure I don't turn 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.800 things in late. I've also written comics groups about procrastination. 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.200 It was a big theme in PhD comics, and I've 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:10.480 delivered a lecture on procrastination in academia called the Power 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.160 of Procrastination about four hundred times in universities all over 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.600 the world. So I was very interested and a little 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:23.840 scared about tackling today's subject. Now, I know I'm not alone. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.319 According to the experts we're talking to today, about ninety 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.720 five percent of all human beings report procrastinating at least 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.440 a little bit in their lives. I mean, come on, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.240 we all do it. I say that other five percent 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:42.520 of the population is just lying. But some people procrastinate 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.360 a lot, and they do it to the point where 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.120 it starts to affect their lives. Maybe it's a nagging 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.920 sense of guilt they carry with them, or maybe it 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:56.760 results in misopportunities, or there could even be health consequences. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.520 By the way, if you have any medical issues that 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.080 you need to get checked or anything, go do that 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.400 right now. Don't mess around with that now. As it 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.640 turns out, there is a whole field of scientific research 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.679 into procrastination. If you search for academic papers with the 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.639 word procrastination, you get about three hundred thousand results, about 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.040 thirty thousand of those just in the last three years. 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.880 Like I said, it happens to a lot of people, 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.000 and according to the first expert we're talking to today, 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:31.520 it's kind of a consequence of our evolution and our history. 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.440 So here's my conversation with doctor Pier Steele, a professor 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:40.839 of organizational psychology at the University of Calgary. Well, thank 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:42.639 you so much, doctor Steele for joining us. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:43.560 Great to be here. 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:44.000 Thank you. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.119 Now I reached out to you, I want to say, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.960 maybe like ten years ago, and we put it off. Yes, 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.120 we procrastinated a little, but we finally did it. We 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.119 finally connected. Is this a historic case of procrastination? 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.200 Well, I did a historic review of it, and some 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.000 of the ones are pretty out there. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.480 You've seem worse, seem worse, far worse. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.560 One thing, I've always wanted to restart the Procrastination Club 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:12.240 of America. 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.560 Oh, but something keeps getting away. It might take a 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.040 while to get members to sign up. 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:18.880 Yeah, it might take a little bit of a while. 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:24.240 But procrastinations funny, right, uh huh, It's tragic and funny simultaneously. 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.400 Right. Oh no, we take it very seriously here at 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:28.040 sign stuff. 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.280 Well, I know the science of it, if that's what 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.760 people want, but it has you know, deep lines going 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:35.840 back in history. 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.200 Tell us about the history of procrastination. 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:40.440 Okay, well you want to go back. It's as old 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.840 as time, really as old as us. If you go 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.840 back far enough. I mean one of the first historical 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.400 references to it are in about fourteen hundred BC in 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.400 ancient hieroglyphs. And the reason why, of course, is because 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.560 we just started getting our civilization together. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.800 According to doctor Steele, yea of procrastination basically started with 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:08.240 complex civilization. Before women were just hunters and gatherers. We 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.640 just kind of did whatever we wanted to do. But 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:16.200 then things got complicated. Society has got more complex. We 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.200 needed to coordinate with others and do things in groups, 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.080 and suddenly we had deadlines. 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.080 That's right, we had coordination problems. Agriculture is like the 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.800 first long term basically goal. You had to plant in 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.240 the spring to reap. 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.120 In the fall, right, you had to plan ahead. 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:37.880 Yeah, that's right. Things have to happen. 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.200 So before we evolved as animals in the wild and 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.279 we just did whatever we wanted to do. In fact, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.920 we should have all to not worry too much about 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:48.760 the future. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.040 Back in the day, when food was short and it's spoiled, 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.080 you better gorge what's good because it's really difficult to 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.640 get food and high energy ones that's what you need 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.800 to serve. We have like one hundred million years of 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.640 evolution and ancestors that go along with So if you're 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.440 living in an environment where there are no long term 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:14.960 goals and projects, your mind evolves towards the short term. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:16.000 It naturally does. 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.919 And this, Dougor Steele argues, means we kind of evolved 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.680 to have two brains in our heads. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.599 So we have this kind of clusion of a brain. 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.279 We have this older limpic system, which kind of wants 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.200 things that sees right, and you have this prefront the cortex, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.200 which is good for planning in the future. 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.000 I see, it's not like someone designed a human being 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.320 from scratch. It's like we evolved and we built on 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.840 top of what sibilis there and what's under there was 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:47.240 least be an animal. 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:49.800 Yeah, I mean we evolve from that. We didn't get 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.480 rid of that, We just added to it like an extension, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:55.280 so that part of us is still there. 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.560 This is what psychologists call the dualistic theory of mind, 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.880 which says that we kind of have two brains, the 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:08.200 primitive animal brain we evolved for millions of years, called 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.520 the limbic system, and the rational planning brain we've wrapped 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:17.240 around it called the prefrontal cortex. And doctor Pierre says 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:21.320 that procrastination is basically what happens when those two brains 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:26.160 fight with each other, especially about something called temporal discounting. 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.480 Procrastinations is simply an expression of our temporal discounting, which 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:33.880 we fire value the now more than later. 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:37.120 Okay, here's an example. Let's say you want to exercise 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:42.000 more well, when the time comes, your prefrontal cortex knows 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.839 that exercise is good for you and that it will 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.560 pay off in the future, But your limbic system doesn't 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.560 really understand the future. It just knows that you're tired, 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.800 that exercise is boring and it's uncomfortable effort. Or let's 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.880 say you need to work on your taxes. Your prefrontal 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.560 cortex knows you need to do it or you'll get 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.640 in trouble in the future. But all your limbic system 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.760 knows is that it's a pain in the butt. And 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.520 so the two parts of your brain are always fighting 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:17.160 it out. And sometimes your limbic system wins and you procrastinate, 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.720 and sometimes your prefrontal cortex wins and you get things done. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.200 All of this can be captured. It's something that doctor 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:31.520 Steele calls the procrastination equation. Yes, there is math involved 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:32.400 in procrastination. 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.200 Well, there's an equation, right, I wrote the book the 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.440 Procrastination Equation, So there is actually a mathematical formula for 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.920 Oh what is it? There's three basic variables, and the 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:44.600 first is just rational gambling. 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:50.280 Okay, here's a mathematical equation that doctor Steele says basically 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.080 can predict whether you're going to procrastinate or not. The 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.200 equation says that how likely you are to do something 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.040 is equal to how confident you are that you can 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.360 do it times how much value you think you'll get 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.640 out of doing it, divided by the amount of impulsiveness 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.680 in your life. So if you're really confident you can 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.280 do something, the more likely you are that you're going 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.800 to do it. The more something is worth to you, 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:19.080 like how much money you'll get out of it, or 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.800 how much trouble you'll get into if you don't do it, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.880 the more likely also that you're going to do it. 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.840 But then both of those terms are divided by the 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.800 impulsiveness in your life. So if you have a lot 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.040 of impulsiveness in your life, you're less likely to get 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.320 things done. But if you have less impulsiveness, the more 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.960 likely you're going to do things, and this impulsiveness, doctor 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.200 Steele says, is a combination of a the personality you're 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.320 born with. B the skills you've learned in life, and 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.079 see how many distractions you have around you. Now, two 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.080 of those things you can change. You can learn new 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:02.360 skills to get yourself organized and avoid procrastination, and you 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.360 can reduce the number of distractions in your life, like 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.080 turn off your cell phone or don't work in front 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.080 of the TV. But the third, your personality is something 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:13.440 you're just born with. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.400 Well, the degree of procrastination is really it's genetic. It's 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.520 eighty percent. Because it's a personality trait. It comes under 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:27.640 conscientiousness and boat's neuroticism. Anxiety is a better, more transparent 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:28.199 term for it. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:32.960 Psychologists can track personality traits in people, and the two 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.240 scientists have found that are most associated with procrastination are 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:42.400 called conscientiousness, which is how diligent you are, and neuroticism 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.679 or anxiousness, which is how much you tend to worry 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.640 about things and overthink them. In scientific studies, people who 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.199 are diligent tend to procrastinate less, and people who are 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.160 anxious or neurotic tend to procrastinate more. And we know 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.840 these are genetic from twin studies. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.280 So you can do this by twins raised together versus 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:06.520 raised to part So then you can see if they 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.160 are still like pretty much identical despite being never have 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.040 met each other and raised in different households. Be given 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.240 things like, you know, a procrastination or impulsivity test, and 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.199 all the rest of them. And if they both have 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:24.240 a strong agreement correlation with each other, you know with 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.960 a high degree of certainty it's genetic, right. You don't 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.000 actually have to go in the DNA to do it. 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.960 So if your twin is a procrastinator, chances are you're 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.080 a procrastinator too. Or if you find that your daughter 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.520 is a procrastinator, uh like I have, then you have 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.520 no one to blame but your own genes. The tendency 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.760 to procrastinate is hereditary. Okay, So to recap, scientists have 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:56.400 a mathematical formula for procrastination. It says that you're less 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:59.640 likely to procrastinate if you're confident and the task is 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.840 important to you and you've learned how to organize yourself. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.440 But you're more likely to procrastinate if you're impulsive or 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.440 if you have a lot of distractions around you. Now, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:16.520 does that mean we've solved procrastination? Not quite. According to 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.679 the next scientist we're going to talk to, this a 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.040 question doesn't answer one of the main questions about procrastination, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.840 which is why do we do it? If we know 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.320 something is important to us, why do we still choose 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.080 not to do it. When we come back, we're going 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.439 to answer this question, and we're also going to talk 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:40.240 about how to stop procrastinating. So don't procrastinate. Stay with us, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:56.720 we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.320 the science of procrastination, and so far we talk to 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.679 one expert who says procrastination is simply an expression of 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.560 our temporal discounting. That's the idea that we value the 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.439 present more than we value the future. For example, if 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.439 I give you the choice of taking one thousand dollars 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:20.120 in cold hard cash right now versus taking one one 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:24.520 hundred dollars in say, two years, your brain is probably 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.200 thinking I'll take the cash now. That's what's happening. According 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.240 to doctor Pier Steele, when you procrastinate, you're discounting the 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.320 potential negative consequences that might happen in the future if 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:43.600 you procrastinate. Doctor Steele even has a procrastination equation. But 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.840 according to the next procrastination expert I talk to, there's 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.520 something missing from this view of procrastination, and that is 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.000 why do we do it? It only counts as procrastination 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.120 if you feel you should be doing something else, So 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.440 why do it? Why do we still make that choice 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:04.400 to put things off? And for chronic procrastinators, why do 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.679 they keep making that choice over and over again? To 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.480 answer that, here's my conversation with doctor Fusia Sira, a 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:16.440 professor of Social and health psychology at Durham University in 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.920 the UK. Well, thank you, doctor Sirah for joining. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.760 Us, no problem, thanks for having me. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.800 And we finally were able to connect. We've been trying 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.280 for a while. We've been procrastinating. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.280 No no, we've been making wise delay to find the 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:32.040 perfect time. 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.440 Okay, this is interesting. According to doctor Sira, there is 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:41.600 an annual conference on the scientific study of procrastination. Well, 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:43.199 it's not quite annual. 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.400 We had a procrastination conference in Yutrik University in Netherlands 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.120 this summer. We do it every two years. As a 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.080 running joke that that's about as often as we can 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:53.920 get around to doing it because it's procrastination. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.520 These are people who procrastinate or people who study procrastination. 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.120 People who study procrastinations. That's sort of the the international 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.319 group of scholars who study procrastination, which has been growing 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:05.959 over the last few years, which is good to see 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.760 a lot of new young researchers coming into the fold 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.240 and taking up the call to better understand procrastination from 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:13.479 a scientific perspective. 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.360 According to doctor Sarah, there is still a lot of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:21.400 healthy scientific debate about what counts as procrastination and why 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.680 people do it. Well, they just start us off, can 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.560 tell us what is procrastination? How do scientists define it? 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.360 So procrastination is a form of delay, but it's not 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.720 your garden variety delay. So it's unnecessary and voluntary delay 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.320 of an important task that you intended to do, despite 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.800 knowing that there's going to be negative or harmful consequences 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:44.680 by not following through. This is why it is such 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.760 a fascinating phenomena to study, because people do this thing 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.560 that's so irrational. They know on some level it's going 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:54.240 to be harmful, yet they still do it. Like what's 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:54.960 going on there? 0:14:55.040 --> 0:15:01.000 Right? Yeah, what is going on here. Well, any Deductor Sirah, 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.360 the answer is actually not that complicated. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.320 I think the initial work on procrastination was taken up 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:13.520 by behavioral economists who look at the cost of things, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.880 the cost of behavior, and the trade offs, because it 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.520 looks like there's trade off with procrastination on the surface. 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.480 So there was this view that it's something that you 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.720 could put down to some sort of a formula, and 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.240 it was always about your what you expected and what 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:30.000 you valued, and things put into the formulas motivation times, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.680 you know, future value equals tendency. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.600 But here's the thing, doctor Sierra argues, people don't really 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.239 follow a formula when they procrastinate. 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.880 People don't think that way when they procrastinate. They don't 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:47.200 make a conscious decision to procrastinate. It's irrational. You can't 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.000 foot it in to formula. So it's absolutely rational. Yeah, 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.760 and that's why if you try to explain it using 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.600 rational formulas, you're always going to miss the footing. 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:03.720 Acquitting Deductor Surrah, the real reason we procrastinate is emotional. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.280 After several discussions, we did put out a theoretical paper 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.400 where we want to just turn over this idea that 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.480 it's just this rational formulaic thing, and no, this is 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:19.040 it's irrational. And what else do we know in our 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:24.720 human experiences is also i rational emotions. So we've put 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.280 forth the idea that is a sort of temporal mood 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:31.560 regulation sort of model where really what we're doing when 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.080 we procrastinate is we're trying to regulate our mood and 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.800 it's not the task, it's the emotions associated with that task. 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.960 What are Sura saying is that at the heart of 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.640 every decision to procrastinate, there isn't a calculation about what's 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.080 good for us now or later, or what is the 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:55.400 value to us. When we're procrastinating, we're simply reacting to 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:56.080 an emotion. 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.520 It's the low self esteem, it's the perfection is. It's 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.920 to worry about what's to come or not to come. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.440 It's the threats to our sense of competency. So you've 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.399 got this thing you're really worried about. It's like, it's 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.360 going to be horrible. I've never done it before. It's 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.040 not going to be good enough. I'm going to be criticized, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:13.840 I'm going to feel terrible about myself. Like, well, it's 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.119 just boredom. Sometimes because boredom is an unpleasant state as well. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.800 It's a full range of negative emotions. As human beings, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:22.800 we avoid negative emotions. 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:24.160 Oh I see. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.159 So we argued that what you're doing with procrastination is 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:31.280 you're avoiding the emotions associated with that task, right, and 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.600 we react to that. Okay, I need to regulate this emotion. 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.399 What do I do? I think I go do something 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.440 more interesting or that I enjoy, because that will help 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:41.200 me forget about this thing that I know I should 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:42.920 be doing right now that I'm not doing. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:44.119 Oh my goodness. 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.520 The unwillingness to work on that project or task or 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.600 goal that is causing you challenging emotions that you don't 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.760 know how to deal with except by disengaging from them, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.840 walking away from which we see behaviorally as procrastination. 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.680 Yeah. I don't know about you, but at this point 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.719 in the conversation I was feeling, as people say expost, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.720 what doctor Sira is saying is that at the heart 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.680 of every time you procrastinate, there's a core emotion being 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.879 triggered by the thing you're supposed to be doing. Maybe 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.320 you're afraid that people will judge you if you do it, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:20.719 or you're afraid it won't turn out as good as 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.040 you want it to be, or maybe you associate the 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.720 task with something stressful that's happened to you before, or 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:31.280 maybe it's just hard or boring, and that negative emotion 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.760 is enough to keep you from doing it and to 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.359 make things worse. The fact that you're not doing it 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.520 can cause the negative emotions to pile up. 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:46.800 But it doesn't last because it's not effective mood regulations. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:50.080 People feel bad about the procrastination, then they start beating 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.440 themselves up about procrastinating, and now they've gone another layer 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:57.159 of negative mood onto the task. And is that going 0:18:57.200 --> 0:18:59.480 to get them to do it? No, it'll make the 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.080 procrastination even more now to move away from that negative mood. 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.399 And so you get this precious circle. And if you 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.240 people stepping in going why aren't you doing this? Again? 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.200 More negative mood, they're going to put it aside. 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:10.440 Oh wow. 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.840 It doesn't help people to make them feel bad about 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:15.760 the procrastating. It has the opposite effect. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:19.080 I feel gotri Sura that you're peering into my soul 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:24.920 right now. You're laying bare all the hang ups and 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:26.359 decisions in life. 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.720 That's what we all go through when we procrastinate. It's 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.840 pure raw emotion and it needs to be managed. And 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:34.360 that's it. 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:35.000 I see. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.560 And there's different strategies you can take to do this. 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.040 But unless you recognize that emotions are ground zero for procrastination, 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.600 any other stuff you do isn't going to be effective 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:45.280 in the long run. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.080 All right, Well, I feel like you're making it sound rational, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.760 which defeats to the rest of the definition, Like if 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.040 I'm avoiding it for an emotional reason, then isn't that rational? 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.400 No, So he is rational in the moment. It apports 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.520 you short term mood repair. So there is a reason, 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.600 a short term reason. You get short term benefit. Yeah, 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.040 but it is irrational because the cost of not actually 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.800 getting that task done is the lot what's looming larger. 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.760 And so the reason to do it is you're afforded 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.240 this this shift from feeling bad to feeling not so 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.200 bad or to feeling better because you especially to go 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.600 off and do something that's more enjoyable. But it's not 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.560 effective emotion regulation because it comes back to bite you 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.840 ten times worse than it was in the first place, right, 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.639 because you start feeling bad about it, and other people 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:35.600 might be getting on your case, and then now it's 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.080 looking even worse. And you worry more, and it's getting 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.560 closer to the deadline, and you know all these sorts 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:41.040 of things. 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:46.199 Okay, so that's why we really procrastinate. We do it 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.800 because there's a negative emotion tied to the thing we're 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.320 supposed to be doing, and we don't know how to 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.439 deal with that emotion other than to avoid it or 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:59.080 put it off, Which means there's a very simple way 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.600 to stop procrastinating. We'll get to what that is, but 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:06.359 first I wanted to know procrastination is really all that bad? 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.800 What the science say is really the impact of putting 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.240 things off. When we come back, we'll talk to another 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.919 psychologist who was involved in the longest running study on 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:22.920 procrastination ever done, where they tracked procrastinators for almost twenty years. 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.840 We'll see what they found after the break. Stay with us, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:45.480 we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.840 the size of procrastination, and so far we learn what 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:53.960 procrastination is, who procrastinates, and why we procrastinate. Now there's 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:58.880 only two questions left. Is procrastination really that bad? And 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.080 how can we stop procrastinating? To answer the first question, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.960 I reached out to psychologist doctor Lisa boylke a research 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.320 scientist at the University of Tubingen in Germany. Doctor Bolka 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.400 is one of the authors of one of the longest 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:17.520 running experiments on procrastination ever done, where they looked at 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.280 what really happens to people who procrastinate to tell us 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:26.639 about it. Here's my conversation with doctor Bolka. Well, thank you, 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:28.280 doctor boylkeev for joining us. 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:29.760 Yes, I'm happy to be here. 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:31.600 Can you please tell us who you are and what 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:32.040 you do. 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:32.480 Well. 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:33.960 My name is Lisa Boyka. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:37.760 I'm a research scientist and postdoc at the Hector Research 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:42.400 Institute of Education, Sciences and Psychology at the University of Tubingen, 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.440 and I'm interested in understanding how procrastination emerges and how 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:48.440 it can be overcome. 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.040 Incredible, and we almost didn't have this meeting because I 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.160 procrastinated in sending you the link to. 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:56.760