More about procrastination

And about tricking out brains

Here’s a piece from a bit ago about why we procrastinate that I, admittedly, re-read often to give myself a sort of mental tune-up. This one tackles five different types of procrastination. Here’s another, about why we perhaps don’t have procrastination issues as much as impulsivity issues. This Atlantic piece is one of my favorites on the topic, reminding us that delaying hard work (or work that we believe will be hard) is about mood, about “feeling like it,” but that “feeling like it” doesn’t matter, only what we do about it.

This piece, however, quotes William James, “Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an unfulfilled goal” and reminds us that the longer we wait, the more we can become frozen by procrastination-powered fear.

To be sure, it is important to listen to our feelings in the moment and honor them and ourselves and our mental health and not mercilessly push ourselves when we need to unplug. But, also important is it to know when a feeling is truly protecting us from something unpleasant or unsafe, and when our brains are simply being uncooperative and fussy, especially given all that is at stake.