bestmediablog

Nowadays, though, for those living in technically advanced societies, procrastination has become a "modern malady": everything must be done now or, even better, three weeks ago. For good or evil there are now endless to-do lists to work through, appointments that must be kept and commitments that have to be fulfilled. Such is modern life.

Whatever the cause a number of people certainly view their procrastination as a problem. Psychology experts have observed that college students consider themselves champion procrastinators with almost half considering it problematic. Adults are not far behind with some 15-20% self-identifying as "chronic procrastinators". Meanwhile the rest of us are guaranteed to procrastinate from time to time. So, perhaps psychology can offer some hope in the ongoing fight against procrastination.

It"s all in the construalIn a new study published recently in Psychological Science of using contrasting points of colour to build up an image.

After this both groups completed the same survey which they were asked to return within three weeks. The survey"s question, however, were essentially irrelevant, the only thing experimenters were interested in was how long participants took to complete and return the questionnaire. This was their measure of procrastination.

The results of this apparently simple manipulation were striking. Those who were thinking about the techniques of pointillism (concrete construal) returned their questionnaires in an average of 12.5 days while those thinking about emotion and harmony (abstract construal) took almost twice as long at an average of 20.5 days. This is an impressive result which seems to point to one very straightforward way of avoiding procrastination: to get tasks done, make sure you focus on the details.

Another reason this research is potentially very useful is its simplicity. A number of of the other techniques for avoiding procrastination seem to involve a lot of mental effort - surely not good for procrastinators! Steel (2007) mentions things like increasing the expectation of success, increasing the value of the task and reducing distractions - all good suggestions but largely effortful. For example it"s difficult to increase your expectation of success without the evidence of having completed a similar task successfully. In other words you have to do the task to find out you can do it - exactly what procrastinators are avoiding!

There is, however, another simple technique for avoiding procrastination that has been examined experimentally: using deadlines. Ariely and Wertenbroch (2002) observed that self-imposed deadlines were effective in improving task performance but, watch out, people aren"t as good at setting their own deadlines as they are at conforming to deadlines set externally. Strangely, when left to their own devices, people seem prone to handicapping themselves with irrational deadlines.

Self-control and procrastinationEventhough McCrea and his colleagues" new research has a neat conclusion, it"s vital to consider it in the context of two other studies recently covered here - these show that concrete, low-level construals aren"t always the answer.

In the first on self-control experimenters observed that higher level construals increased self-control (Fujita et al., 2006). At first glance this appears to be saying the exact opposite of the present study - that procrastination is decreased by higher-level construals - but they are actually looking at subtly different situations.

Here"s why: in the present study participants were being asked to carry out a task which they didn"t place much value on and was very easy, it was just something that had to be done at some point, a chore. In other words people weren"t debating with themselves whether the task had to be done, just when it had to be done. In Fujita"s study, however, looking at self-control, it was a question of whether or not participants would do a task. It"s the dimension of time, then, that most distinguishes between procrastination and self-control. Concrete, low-level construals help you start a task sooner but don"t help you decide to do it in the first place.

A second study covered here recently looked at how to get big projects done. This added another piece to the picture, suggesting that a low-level, task focus was a great way of coping with demotivating failures on hard tasks. This adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of how we can get things done. In fact taken together these studies start to uncover the complexities inherent in procrastination and self-control.

Summary: how to get things doneHere"s a summary of the main conclusions from all the studies discussed:

To avoid procrastinating on a task, focus on its details and use self-imposed deadlines.

To stick to a task, while actually carrying it out, now it is beneficial to keep the ultimate, abstract goal in mind.

When evaluating progress on a hard task, when the chance of failure is high, stay focused on the details of the task.

Once tasks are easier or the end is in sight, a more abstract, goal focus is once again the psychological approach to choose.

So, whether or not you feel procrastination is something in need of a "cure", McCrea and his colleagues" study does show that a very simple manipulation of our thought processes can be incredibly powerful. Who would have thought pointillism could save us from procrastination?

[Image credit: monsieurlam].

Posted by: Jerry    Source