When we see procrastination as being mainly an issue of difficulty in coping with negative emotions, then it becomes clear that if we want to reduce procrastination we need to understand and reduce the sources of these emotions. — *location: 257* ^ref-31697 --- responding to your procrastination in a kinder and gentler way is not only something you deserve but actually one of the best ways to ensure that you can and will complete your tasks and goals on time and with compassion toward yourself. — *location: 303* ^ref-16783 --- Procrastination is a common self-regulation problem involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay in the start or completion of important intended tasks despite the recognition that this delay may have negative consequences. — *location: 362* ^ref-35717 --- Self-regulation involves the processes that people use to manage their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. In practice, this involves three sets of related activities: (a) setting goals, for example, making an intention to write a 10-page report; (b) engaging in the actions needed to accomplish the goal, such as starting to write; and (c) monitoring your progress toward reaching the goal, such as checking how many pages you have left to write, so that the goal can be reached. — *location: 370* ^ref-19643 --- Sagacious delay, also called wise delay, also is not procrastination. This form of delay involves making a decision to temporarily put off an important task rather than pushing ahead with it because you are lacking key information, support, or other resources that are essential to successfully complete the task. — *location: 417* ^ref-32209 >StrategIc procrastination --- “Procrastination is a form of self-regulation failure that involves prioritizing short-term mood repair over the long-term pursuit of intended actions.” — *location: 610* ^ref-55614 --- A central theme in this definition is the idea that procrastination involves putting more importance on trying to repair or change your immediate mood than simply getting on with what needs to get done. In short, we procrastinate to avoid the negative feelings associated with a task, but we do so at the expense of following through and completing our task. — *location: 615* ^ref-52432 --- Researchers refer to this type of rumination that is focused on past and current procrastination as procrastinatory cognitions. Basically, they are repetitive, self-critical thoughts people have when they are feeling bad about their procrastination. Like your garden variety rumination, procrastinatory cognitions focus on trying to make sense of the negative emotions people experience as a means of regaining control over the situation. But these types of thoughts focus on trying to understand the emotional states linked to a failure rather than on actions that might help us avoid the situation in the future. This is why they can leave us feeling overwhelmed and in an even worse negative mood than what we began with. And when these procrastinatory cognitions occur while you are procrastinating, they can be even more harmful by generating additional negative feelings about the task that you are procrastinating. These feelings, in turn, can drive you to procrastinate even further. — *location: 1077* ^ref-54079 --- When we procrastinate, we sacrifice making progress toward an important, often long-term goal that could have wide-reaching and beneficial effects for both ourselves and others. We also incur costs to ourselves and others in terms of health, well-being, productivity, social trust, and lost opportunities. In effect, we trade the future for the present. — *location: 1622* ^ref-20172 --- positive hedonic shift. — *location: 1669* ^ref-37089 --- Youʼre not doing the task because it is connected to unpleasant, negative emotional states. — *location: 1674* ^ref-15422 --- We are not simply avoiding a task; we are in fact avoiding the negative emotions linked to the task. In essence, when you procrastinate you are managing your emotions by avoiding a task that triggers unpleasant, negative emotions. — *location: 1678* ^ref-58153 --- Research that I have conducted has consistently found that people who are prone to procrastinating report feeling more emotionally and psychologically distant from their Future Self than those who are less apt to procrastinate. — *location: 1862* ^ref-30503 --- Although the amygdala is involved in the regulation of emotions more generally, a key function that has particular relevance to understanding how we think about time is its role in vigilance. The amygdala helps orient our attention to threats in the environment so that we can be prepared to deal with them. — *location: 1912* ^ref-60130 --- Once we have detected a threat, we also want to keep a close eye on that threat so that it doesnʼt cause further harm. — *location: 1917* ^ref-48270 --- When our focus is mainly on the present moment, and narrowly directed toward detecting any further threats to our well-being, it can be difficult to think about the future, let alone our Future Self. This threat-induced shortsightedness can be thought of as a temporal myopia. — *location: 1919* ^ref-38700 --- Participants who were prone to procrastinate saw their projects as being less reflective of their sense of identity and found their projects to be less absorbing; in other words, they did not view their projects as tasks that truly reflected their core values. — *location: 2011* ^ref-62759 --- Compared with participants who were more action oriented, they saw their projects as being more uncertain, less controllable, and less likely to be completed. — *location: 2005* ^ref-38116 --- blaming the task takes the focus off an important source of those negative feelings, namely, how we view ourselves in relation to that task and the meaning that task has for the way we evaluate ourselves. These evaluations can, in turn, take us down difficult roads on our journey toward completing tasks that will most likely end in procrastination. — *location: 2067* ^ref-58837 --- You could see this struggle as a natural part of learning something new or as the chance to get better at something and hone your skills, or you could view it as a signal that you are doing something wrong, that you lack the skills or competence to have everything go smoothly, or as proof that you are a failure. Viewing ourselves in a negative light as we work on a task will lead to the sorts of thoughts and negative scripts about ourselves that amplify any negative feelings we had about the task (and ourselves) in the first place. — *location: 2080* ^ref-41118 --- Much like the shame that people prone to procrastination often experience, self-critical perfectionists are often too ashamed to draw on their social resources to help them with their goals. Now, if you add to this low self-esteem and low confidence in being able to actually accomplish the goal in the perfect way they envision they should, then it becomes clear that they will assess the resources they have to successfully reach their goal as falling short. And if they are concerned that their performance on the task or goal will fall short of their and othersʼ expectations, then not starting it or completing it is a good way to avoid disappointing others and themselves. — *location: 2228* ^ref-15312 --- Blaming ourselves for the difficulties we experience as we grapple with a task is a bit like regaining a sense of control over those difficulties. When we attribute those difficulties to our lack of competence, poor performance, or unworthiness, our feelings of uncertainty about why we are struggling are replaced with certainty and control. — *location: 2262* ^ref-42405 --- But although self-blame can restore a sense of control when we are struggling with a task, it does so at a cost. That cost, of course, is the hit our self-esteem takes when we place the burden of blame on our own shoulders rather than looking for external sources of our struggle. — *location: 2268* ^ref-29906 --- The key to tackling the source of negative emotions that can prompt an urge to procrastinate is self-awareness. By becoming more aware of the negative emotions you experience when you are struggling with a task, and the negative self-talk that can stoke and maintain these emotions, you can start to diffuse and replace your self-blaming script with one that is supportive. — *location: 2280* ^ref-41812 --- The scripts or stories about yourself that play automatically in your mind when you encounter difficulties are usually underpinned by irrational beliefs. — *location: 2282* ^ref-22695 --- being self-compassionate involves three core elements that work together to help people manage the negative emotions and stress they experience after setbacks and struggles or when they notice aspects of themselves that they donʼt like: (a) responding to ourselves with self-kindness rather than self-criticism, (b) feeling connected rather than isolated in our suffering, and (c) being mindful of our emotions. By being self-compassionate, we support and motivate ourselves to improve and persist with our goals. — *location: 2429* ^ref-42813 --- Those who were self-compassionate naturally saw self-compassion as an effective strategy for reaching their goals and rated themselves as being ambitious, responsible, and a success. In contrast, those who were low in self-compassion did not see any benefits of self-compassion to achieving their goals. They associated being self-compassionate with being less motivated, less industrious, less ambitious, and irresponsible. These beliefs stand in contrast to what a large number of studies have found to be true: that self-compassion is an effective way of helping people reach their goals. — *location: 2579* ^ref-56498 --- When you reframe your goal as a journey rather than an outcome, the process of reaching the goal comes to the forefront. The focus becomes what you can learn along the way, rather than simply what you gain when you reach the end. From this perspective, simply engaging with the goal can become a goal in itself. The means becomes the end. — *location: 2904* ^ref-13502 --- But what if, instead of thinking about this task as something that is not as much in your control and that you have to do, you thought of it as something that you get to do? This simple substitution of “get to” for “have to” can help shift your perspective from one of obligation to opportunity. When you see even small tasks as opportunities—perhaps to demonstrate or hone your skills, develop greater self-confidence, or show someone you care—you can feel more grateful for these tasks and infuse them with greater meaning. — *location: 3037* ^ref-58405 --- Meaning making can help reduce procrastination. — *location: 3112* ^ref-7656 --- Having a future time perspective was linked to better goal setting and goal monitoring; a higher likelihood of taking action; and better outcomes in health, academic performance, career, and other important areas of life. — *location: 3164* ^ref-30836 --- This gap between the Present and Future Self creates a temporal tension that can make you feel uneasy. This uneasiness comes from being aware of the discrepancy between where and who you currently are and where and who you would like to be. This isnʼt necessarily a bad thing; in fact, numerous studies have shown that awareness of this gap can generate negative feelings that have motivational value (e.g., Phillips & Silvia, 2005). — *location: 3187* ^ref-37535 --- The issue is that taking steps to close such a gap isnʼt the only way to manage temporal tension between the Future and Present Self. Thereʼs another, simpler solution we can default to. We can also avoid the negative feelings that arise from this tension by taking one of the players out of the equation. If you avoid thinking about your future, aka your intention to follow through with your task, then you are also avoiding thinking about your Future Self. A consequence of this is that there is no longer any tension with your Present Self: problem solved. — *location: 3193* ^ref-51234 --- Doing what you can today with what you have to make progress on your goals is one of the best ways you can show compassion to your Present and various Future Selves. — *location: 3282* ^ref-64823 --- vividly imagining and empathically engaging with your Future Self will make that Future Self feel more real and less abstract to you. — *location: 3342* ^ref-60598 >Use first person perspective --- We know from the research on procrastination that tasks that raise feelings of uncertainty, perhaps because we have insufficient information, can create stress and anxiety, and in turn result in procrastination. In short, task uncertainty is a precursor to procrastination. — *location: 3507* ^ref-6869 --- Preparing your task as a series of smaller subtasks rather than one larger, more complex task establishes a momentum of success that can carry you through to complete the overall task. — *location: 3545* ^ref-59306 --- Procrastinogenic environments include tempting options that provide a quick fix for mood regulation when you are struggling with a task. From video game consoles, to television, to social media channels and other digital distractions, if your environment includes any reminders of what you could be doing that will make you feel better than working on that newsletter for your community group, it will be that much more difficult to stay on task. And they donʼt always need to be fun things, either. — *location: 3567* ^ref-47824 ---