I just did my taxes and I had the occasion to reflect on the causes of my procrastination. First of all, it's almost always easier to put off an unpleasant task, even if it's only slightly unpleasant. Someone might think I don't do things just because I'm lazy or don't care. By my behavior that would not be unreasonable to infer, but actually I think it goes like this: I have something to do->I put it off-> In the meantime I think about what it is I have to do-> the more I think about it the harder it is for me to do. The harder it is for me to do, the less likely I am to do it and the more I think about it, and so on. Actually, it's amazing I do anything.
Why do things become harder to do because I think about them, you ask? Because I build them up into something more than they are. Now you might ask, why do I do that? Well, I do, and on some level it doesn't matter why as it's still true. Or you might ask, why don't I do them right away then? From experience it would seem that the logic behind that question is not persuasive enough, since I am aware of that option.
But there is another side to the equation, if I don't do it, the pain level rises, and at some point if the pain of not doing it is greater than the pain of the imagined task at hand, I do the actual task. Then the former pain goes away, as does the latter. From my experience this process doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times I go through it. This is also true even if the benefit (a refund) is much greater than the downside (spending an hour doing taxes).
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