Inside The Mind Of a Procrastinator

I have been a chronic procrastinator and have been trying to fight and beat procrastination since almost all my working life.

By the way, after a long stint procrastinating, I've devised another definition for it. Procrastination is the ART of ruining your own life for no real reason.

And its ironic that while I have written this post about what procrastination is, I had been procrastinating to write this article for the last almost 4 weeks.

I am not writing this post as a psychologist or a professional, but as a patient. As a chronic procrastinator.

I do not intend to show a scientific treatment for this problem but I intend to tell you what goes on in the mind of a procrastinator.

Why in the world do we postpone our chores for no apparent reasons.

I am trying not to judge myself or anyone by this, but trust me, this habit sometimes feels like a disease.

But why do we do it? Psychologists call this as the mind's habit to not accept change. Many people call it laziness or an avoidance behaviour, or poor time management.

But what actually is it?

From the procrastinator point of view, the problem with a real procrastinator is that he doesn't know how not to procrastinate.


He does not understand how not to do it. At times he doesn't even realise that he left his most important work, to do everything else like browsing, reading something else etc.

Tim Urban wrote a funny explanation about this in his blog "Wait But Why". According to him, the mind of a procrastinator is the same as a non procrastinator except for the presence of a little friend who he calls as an "Instant Gratification Monkey".

It is this monkey who is responsible to deviate the mind from making rational decisions. He is the sole guy who makes you browse facebook when you are supposed to finish writing your assignment.

 He is the one who tells you to watch a movie, for there is still time left for the examinations to begin.

Sounds familiar?

Yes this is the guy who makes a procrastinator focus on every other thing than the important thing.

It takes the procrastinator to that position in time where you are at the verge of being doomed. Your exam date has approached and you are not yet prepared, your thesis deadline is very near and you have not yet started writing it.

This is when another friend that Urban calls "The Panic Monster"" comes into picture and spurs us into action.

While in the non-procrastinator's mind the rational decision maker dominates, our monkey on the other side creates havoc in a procrastinator's mind and life.

If I write from my perspective, most people from both these categories plan their work/day/to-do list. After-all,  planning does not need you to do these tasks.

But only a non procrastinator does the planned tasks because doing things is his kryptonite.

The root of the problem is that a procrastinator does not want to involve in any activity that takes him out of his comfort zone or challenges him to put effort. His mind resists change.

Another thing could be a lack of self confidence. Being under confident about your own strengths helps the self gratification monkey take command and give us a feeling of being in a happy playground, by not doing things at all.

In reality, the monkey takes control and ruins everything.

Most of us have this monkey inside us, yet we try to survive in this competent world. But that is only survival. With the monkey in control we cannot reach our potential, cannot outgrow our fears of change and cannot avoid stress and cannot live our lives the way we want to.

A little change, if brought in ourselves can make us high achievers and help us exploit our potential. That little change does not let the panic monster and the stress monster hover our lives and trouble us.



For if we change ourselves, we might be able to lead a kind of life that we want to and achieve the success that we dream of.




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