Mental Health Monday – Procrastination

"Hello Monday". Am I the only one who says that with the same cadence Jerry Seinfeld uses toward his neighbor? Let's face it. Mondays are just weekend recovery days. The only goal: Stay awake until 5 o'clock. Which means many of us are guilty of pushing our Monday tasks off until Tuesday.

But tiredness is only one of many reasons humans procrastinate. It's not just because we stayed up too late on a Sunday night watching one more episode of that show we binged watched over the weekend. Procrastination often has causes with much deeper roots than that.

One big reason people are guilty of procrastination is simply because they don't want to do something. When the task at hand is unexciting, there's not much motivation to get it done. This can be an even greater challenge for those with inattentive ADHD, who often need higher levels of stimulation to stay motivated.

Another cause of procrastination is perfectionism or a fear of failure. If someone requires perfection in their accomplishments, they may shy away from any task where they aren't guaranteed to succeed. Fear that their work might be judged by others can also be a contributor to putting things off.

And while fear of rejection and fear of failure hinder many people, sometimes it's just fear itself. Specifically, fear of a certain outcome. Like a medical diagnosis or the reaction of a partner to a certain conversation.

While procrastination might seem harmless, studies have actually linked it to many mental health challenges, according to McLean Hospital. Including depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.

Those with depression might focus on times of past procrastination and lack the self-confidence to believe they can accomplish the task. Thereby perpetuating the cycle of their depression and procrastination, according to McLean. Those with anxiety might also exacerbate their symptoms by prolonging the outcome of the task they are putting off doing.

Regardless of why we're procrastinating on a project, there's something we can try right now that could help. Simplifying a task and breaking it up into smaller tasks can mitigate the stress and anxiety attached to the task as a whole.

I like to use laundry as an example. A chore many seem to procrastinate doing. Seeing a huge pile of clothes that we have to get neatly folded and hung up can be daunting. But that's looking too broadly at the project. It's looking only at the laundry's present state (piled) and it's final state (put away). But there are many steps in between.

My daughter really struggles with doing her laundry. It would take her a week if I let it. So we break it up into many small tasks. First, she goes through the pile and turns anything that is inside-out. Second, she lays the clothing into piles according to clothing type. Shirts laid out on top of other shirts, pants laid on other pants, etc.

Next, she folds each pile. Shirts get folded twice and put back into a separate pile. Dresses get hangers put into their shoulders (but not hung up yet...that's the next step), etc. And finally, each pile gets put away.

What helps my kiddo even more (she's neurodivergent and easily distracted) is making a checklist. For each step, she gets to check off a box on the list. It helps her break up the larger task, keeps her from losing her place, and has the added benefit of a reward every time she checks a box.

This system can work with any task. If it's cleaning the garage, make the smaller goal of cleaning one section at a time. Or only doing the first step of bringing boxes down from the shelf. Even making the smaller goal of picking up things that are blue, then yellow, the red, etc.

As long as the larger job is broken up into smaller, more manageable tasks, it tends to not be as overwhelming. And feeling accomplished after every small task can help get us motivated to do more. Even making a game out of a task, like challenging ourselves to get a task done in a certain amount of time, can make it more enjoyable.

As the great Mary Poppins once said: "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game!"

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