Why do we put off the most important things to do?
It is a common human nature that contributes to the stubborn problem of procrastination, and it appears that the more urgent or crucial the task which we have to complete is, the better we are at pushing it until the very last minute, rather than getting it done early and putting our minds at ease. It is completely illogical by any standards, and our brains know that, but why do we still do it?
I do not think that the answer is esoteric at all, and I think deep down in our guts we all know the answer to this question.
This may not apply to everyone, but my guess is that we do it as a protective mechanism. The most important and urgent tasks usually have greater impacts or consequences in our lives, and we dread these kinds of tasks. We do not want to make the wrong decision or screw up that task that can negatively impact ourselves, and the more we think about it the more we stress ourselves out. And our minds, interestingly, to handle all this pressure from this very urgent task, decide to allow ourselves to delay doing that task and not think about it, to temporarily reduce the stress that we feel from just thinking about it (in the short term).
This mechanism may work for certain specific things, but we immediately realise that this kind of mechanism can lead to quite disastrous scenarios most of the time. By putting off the task so that we can spare ourselves from the stress from thinking about it, we become more and more stressed over time because the task is incomplete. This stress builds up until we are near the deadline of that task, and we have no choice but to complete it.
Some may argue that without procrastination, all this additional stress would not have been built up, and without this additional stress, we would not be pressured to complete this important task, leading to worse consequences. The additional stress built up acts as a “push factor” for us to get the task done before the deadline. While the additional stress makes us more likely to complete the task, I do not think that it is necessary for the task to be completed.
Many people have come up with various techniques to combat this problematic mechanism that leads to severe procrastination. Some include working on the task for just 5 minutes because if we can get the task started, we are more likely to keep the momentum going and go ahead and complete the task. This technique can be rather advantageous, because oftentimes our minds picture the task as more daunting than it actually is, leading to us to put off the task; however, when we actually start to work on the task, we realise that it is not as dreadful as we pictured, which raises our spirits and let us complete the task smoothly.
There are many more techniques to combat this destructive mechanism that we use to cope with urgent and important tasks, but without changing our fundamental nature on how we approach these urgent and important tasks, are these techniques painkillers or a permanent cure?