How to Beat Anxiety-Related Procrastination

Did you know anxiety can be the reason behind procrastination? There are many instances where we find ourselves struggling to get the ball rolling. It can be when we have a huge test coming up or going to the gym or another crowded place. The situation can get out of hand when you realize there’s no other way to get the task done. Procrastination, at that time, only adds to the anxiety.

Even the sound of the clock ticking can make your heart beat faster.

We all have been there. But, is there a way out?

Yes. And the good thing is we are going to help you with multiple ways out of anxiety-related procrastination. In this post, we have listed some of the best ways to get rid of procrastination and live a normal life. Here’s how to get over anxiety-related procrastination:

Jump off the cliff

Not literally, of course. Ever heard of the ‘brute force’ method? Look it up: When you fear doing something, you do it anyway without letting yourself think much about it. It can give you momentum before those procrastination-inducing thoughts fog-up your mind. It is an effective technique to get things done.

Slowly get on the track

Here’s the thing: The reason you’re getting so worked up is that the task is important to you, but you can’t get rid of the anxiety. When you know the job at hand is important, you can bring your mind to the right track (track of progression) by making way for it. Let’s say you have to write a 2000-word essay — a big task no matter whom you ask. If there’s a section of the paper that you care about the most, start by writing about that. Build your way to the whole by working on only a part.

Take enough breaks

You don’t have to complete the 2000-word essay in one go. It’s not just about anxiety and procrastination, but also about taking care of yourself when you are at it. So, how do you maintain the balance? You do that by taking breaks. If sitting down for 6 hours and completing the task frightens you, break the task into 30-minutes. Heck, break it down even further if you need to. The task will become much more manageable.

Ask for help

You don’t have to get it done yourself. Most anxiety disorders often prevent the person from asking for help. That’s just counterproductive. So, what do you do? Well, you brute force through your hesitation to ask for help. Ask a friend of yours to help you through the essay or any other task that triggers anxiety. The whole idea is to ask for help to help yourself relax and focus on the task.

Limit distractions

Distractions are not going to help you beat anxiety-related procrastination; distractions will break your flow. Since you want to keep at the task for long hours, you eliminate as many distractions possible — or any other emotional or physical triggers that can make your work suffer.

The tips mentioned above will definitely help you in your quest against anxiety-related procrastination. The tasks that scare us automatically encourage your brain to figure out ways to avoid them. Procrastination is just how your brain responds to the tasks. Understanding anxiety-produced procrastination will improve your odds of beating it.

The INTJ (or “Architect”) personality profile is one of 16 different personality profiles identified through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which attempts to assign four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving.

According to the Myers-Briggs paradigm, an Architect (or “INTJ”) is “a person with the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one.” INTJs account for roughly 2.1% of the population.

Many people assume that INTJs cannot procrastinate as they are believed to be naturally highly productive. But in reality, like anybody else, INTJs can succumb to wasting time, just like everybody else. Although INTJs have excellent skills to keep themselves motivated and productive, sometimes procrastination comes to call. Even if INTJs are good at keeping things organized, sometimes they face a lack of motivation and inner doubts that keep them from moving forward.

How INTJs Procrastinate

INTJs struggle to execute tasks on time, especially when they are working on many unrelated projects simultaneously. Although the balanced INTJ understands his or her limits clearly and doesn’t take work beyond their limits, some may not have developed a clear sense of inner efficiencies. They may feel that they can accomplish things at first, but later they fail to scale them all in the right way.

When Architects try to focus on so many things at once, their brain is likely to feel overloaded, and they may feel overwhelmed when trying to execute tasks. Internal distractions can worsen the struggle of INTJs since they are continually coming up with new things to learn, new marketing strategies to try, new books to read (or languages to learn, or hobbies to master, etc.). For INTJ’s, the novel gets in the way of the mundane but necessary.

How INTJs can deal with procrastination

The best way to find the motivation to accomplish a specific task is to focus on the energy, instead of the overwhelming thoughts circulating inside. INTJ’s should take one project at a time and focus entirely on that. INTJs don’t like to pressurize themselves too much as it can worsen their struggles with procrastination. Instead, they prefer to work on things about which they are more confident to ensure better results. It helps them avoid frustration and fear of failure; with time, they find more growth opportunities with continuous learning.

Instead of jumping from project to project, they prefer to follow a practical approach to get things done in sequence. It helps them to stay focused and productive all the time. INTJs prefer to list things based on their priority and develop a reliable strategy to win. They follow the guidelines of their intuitive mind and find the motivation to connect to their goals. They also take enough time to relax so that they can get back their potential and energy. The fact is that INTJs know the importance of balance in the lie, and they follow a trustworthy approach to achieve it. With an organized lifestyle, they are likely to avoid procrastination with ease.

We hear about procrastination being a pernicious curse. But, have you ever heard the term “precrastination”? Simply put, precrastination is a mental strategy that some people employ to avoid procrastination. While precrastinating, one attempts to complete those tasks at hand that can be finished quickly instead of tasks that are more complicated (but also more important). This strategy is meant to achieve a certain level of productivity in your workday — after all, checking off those tasks from your to-do list does seem to be oddly satisfying, doesn’t it?

Still confused? Let’s consider a situation: It’s Monday morning, and you have a daunting list of tasks to be completed by the end of the day. You see the first few tasks, which include sending out a few emails and preparing an urgent and important presentation. Ultimately, you decide to spend 30 minutes (or less) on sending out the emails and plan to get down to making the presentation later. It’s just a few emails, right? Seems like you’ll get done with it in no time and achieve the efficiency that you want. But this is precisely where you go wrong – in the process of drafting those emails, you get distracted by even more emails and phone calls. By now, you would have spent the better half of your day (a “productive day”) sending out emails and answering phone calls. Subsequently, you are left with very little time to work on your presentation.

This is a prime example of precrastination: To avoid putting off a seemingly quicker task from your to-do list, you attempted to finish it before moving on to a more critical task.

Why do we precrastinate?

Why do we make these poor choices? The answer lies in the complexity of the human mind. Here are several possible reasons behind precrastination:

• Inflated satisfaction. Humans have an urge to achieve satisfaction, which can be instantly attained by accomplishing smaller, simpler, or quicker tasks at hand. Ever started with the easiest subjects while preparing for an exam, and felt productive and accomplished? You know you did it. Congratulations, you precrastinated!
• Survival of the fittest. Survival is hard-wired into human nature. Because of this, humans do things that are the easiest or quickest to do. You tend to go for the easy wins rather than those that can be fruitful in the long term. This might be why we try to make a few bucks fast instead of working our way to hoard earnings.
• Managing time vs. managing energy. From infancy, we are taught to manage our time against the work at hand. As a result, we naturally opt for completing easier tasks first and later move on to more complicated tasks. This is because the easier tasks can be successfully accomplished quicker, allowing us to feel as if we’re managing our time effectively. However, when operating in the real world, the better way to go about it is to manage your energy. It is no mystery that humans tend to be more productive and efficient during the day’s earlier hours. Hence, high energy levels should be reserved for complex and challenging tasks rather than more comfortable ones. The easier ones can be done with lower energy levels anyway.
• Diligence. Have you ever had an inner voice telling you to wrap up your work sooner due to a shortage of time? This nagging voice is the main reason some people — in an attempt to be diligent — want to just start checking off tasks from their frightening to-do list and work their way from most straightforward to more difficult ones. While trying to get your work done on time is an excellent trait to have, it needs to be interrogated every now and then. If you can only complete simple tasks by the end of the day, you aren’t really achieving an adequate level of productivity.
• A double-edged sword. It’s not all dark and gloomy when it comes to precrastination, though. Precrastination comes with a few benefits. It may enable some people to successfully complete their tasks; however, it is definitely a double-edged sword. While work and time management may be a good trait, it is vital to slow down, catch your breath, and reassess the situation to focus on the priority task. Crossing items off your to-do list does not automatically equal productivity or efficiency. It’s more important to get that massive boulder of a task off your list than all those smaller pebbles combined.

While it may be satisfying to see a number of items scratched off from your to-do list, doing so may compromise your ability to deliver essential results. Poor prioritization of tasks will not only lead to low productivity, but it will also leave you with little energy for more critical and challenging tasks. But it does not mean that you start slacking and start spending your entire day on one thing alone. Striking the right balance is the key — be balanced and mindful of both quality AND quantity.