Running to Get Nowhere
No being a human who answers with absolute sincerity could claim "I have never postponed a task." Our lives are filled with daily activities and commitments that we assume in our daily routines, and it turns out that sometimes, almost without realizing it, we end up absorbed by what is urgent and postponing what is important and truly transcendental.
It happens that the tasks repeated ad nauseam in our day-to-day no longer demand as much energy from us as do those other activities that force us to step out of the known zone. What we tend to postpone are those actions that force us to invest a lot of physical, emotional, and intellectual energy.
Therefore, procrastination is not just juggling priorities and doing as much as we can. Sometimes, we do "more" to remain entrenched in the same place. It's not always about doing more; sometimes, what we need is to do differently. The smart thing then would be to ask ourselves in which aspects of our life we are "postponing," "letting be..."
Sometimes, we do "more" to remain entrenched in the same place. It's not always about doing more; sometimes, what we need is to do differently.
Sometimes this "lack of action" hidden behind hyperactivity and rushing impacts substantial changes and can severely affect our quality of life, our professional career, our relationships, and even our physical and emotional health. What is postponed can range from a drastic change of direction to a different orientation of our energy that gradually transforms our life. Sometimes we underestimate what we think is minimal because we don't know the impact that the same sustained effort would have. It's that daily micro-decisions taken with awareness can be very transcendental in the broader context of our existence.
Postponing is a Habit, Not a Personality Trait
When what we promised to do is forgotten... we get angry and tell ourselves "I won't change anymore!" as if postponing were an inherent characteristic of our personality. We see it as the result of being lazy or having poor work ethics or even being incompetent. These negative ways of describing ourselves only feed our frustration with ourselves. And all that self-hatred ultimately changes our internal narrative from "I don't want to do it" to "I can't do it!"
Well, no! Postponing is a habit, and like any habit, we can unlearn it. We often fall into its trap and then struggle to get out. The worst part is that when we are in the midst of procrastination, we see ourselves being stopped by a paper wall that we cannot cross, even though it seems irrational. Sometimes we want to understand why what happens to us happens, and that is another way to keep postponing, now with guilt and a high degree of mental onanism.
We sit and wait for the energy to come out of nowhere, for the planets to align, for the perfect moment to start what we have been delaying for a long time. However, that overdose of energy never arrives because what we avoid is not precisely the task but the stress associated with it.
Procrastination is not a failure; it is a strategy to help us deal with stress. Whatever it is we've been postponing is something tied to an amount of stress we'd prefer to avoid. Naturally, if something stresses us, we try to escape from that burden and instead seek immediate gratifications or at least a distraction that shields us from facing what is difficult for us. Temporarily avoiding stress feels good; the bill comes later when we realize that this habit keeps us paralyzed.
We must understand that our brain is not interested in our self-improvement but in saving energy and keeping us safe. And for it, changing means traversing the uncertain, and it wants nothing to do with that. It's not through reason that we'll break free from procrastination. With reason, we'll find excuses and arguments to stay where we are: "I'll start tomorrow," "it's not the time," "I promise that from now on..."
We need to connect with the most visceral and emotional part of our brain, responsible for action and emotion, not thought.
I'll give an analogy. If you're sitting on a beach soaking your feet in the water and suddenly you see a child flailing their arms who is clearly drowning. There's no one around and no time to waste. What do you do? There's no doubt, right? The answer is obvious. I don't think you'd start evaluating the possible risks, pros and cons. You get up and spring into action. It's now or never.
Our emotional decision-making is as important as our more rational and analytical decision-making. In fact, if that part of our brain dedicated to immediate reaction were damaged, we would be trapped in hesitation even making the simplest decisions.
We often call these reactions "instinct." In truth, it's an evolutionary strategy to speed up what would otherwise be a very slow and inefficient decision-making process.
The link of this analogy with the habit of procrastination is that we need to activate this part of our brain to break out of the vicious circle of inaction. We always tell ourselves that "we have time," and that argument makes us "keep soaking our feet in the water."
The Five-Second Rule
The key is to activate our action instinct before we let ourselves be seduced by the siren songs. That's where the "Five-Second Rule" comes into play. Neuroscience tells us that we have a five-second margin to take action without delay.
The first thing we must recognize is that we are stressed and that postponing is not a defect but a short-term strategy to avoid stressing ourselves further. It's not an incapacity; it's a reaction that will become dysfunctional if we don't do something immediately.
The second step is to make a five-second decision that is directly contrary to the stress response. This decision, according to Mel Robbins, author of this theory, is called a courage decision. "When you act with courage, your brain is not involved. Your heart speaks first, and you prioritize it." It's what you would do when you don't hesitate to save a life. Wouldn't you do the same for yourself? That energy is within each of us; we just need to tune into it.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ¡Go!
Instead of trying to rationalize your stress by thinking and analyzing how you can deal with it, do the exact opposite. When you feel the urge to do something that you know is good for you and you've been putting off... count down: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO! And spend the next few minutes tackling whatever it is you're afraid of doing. Face the stress. Make that call, send that email, pick up that textbook, exercise, put out that cigarette, tidy up, raise your hand and make yourself heard. It doesn't matter how much you've advanced, you've taken control, you've broken that cycle, and you've proven to yourself that you can do something different and not always repeat the same thing.
Those five seconds are not whimsical or arbitrary; they're a critical neuronal time for both activating the brain's fast-action part and limiting the influence of the slow-action brain part. So don't extend it beyond that blessed time which can make a big difference in the future of your existence. Decide and act.
Sounds simple? It is, but like anything else in life that promises to change a fundamental behavior, it takes time to develop a new habit. But be careful! If you use the five seconds to make a decision that you then analyze for the next five hours, you've just fallen into the same trap. The key is to activate and do, not activate and then think about doing.
Understanding that procrastination is a natural and valid response to stress, and the knowledge that we are always just five seconds away from making a different decision than the one we've been making, can be a huge leap towards freeing ourselves from the irrational control that procrastination often has over us.