Am I a procrastinator?

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1:06Kimberley Wilson:Hello and welcome. I'm Kimberley Wilson. I'm a counselling psychologist and this is Complex. The podcast that helps untangle the conversation around our psychology and state of mind. In this episode, I'm exploring procrastination. we've all done it deep clean the house instead of going to the gym baked a cake instead of cleaning your inbox that's one of mine watched one more youtube video before going to sleep procrastination is something a lot of us struggle with studies show that around 20 to 30 percent of adults experience it chronically and the figure is much higher if you're a student. But it's not because we're bad people.

1:57Kimberley Wilson:The evidence suggests that what lies behind procrastination isn't laziness but emotion. A lot of the things we have to do like filling in a form or writing an essay can trigger anxiety, boredom and self-doubt. Instead of pushing through we instinctively reach for something that makes us feel better in the moment. It's a kind of short-term mood repair. Psychologists describe procrastination as a failure of self-regulation, not a lack of ability or effort.

2:35Kimberley Wilson:So what can you do to help reduce your procrastination? Well, let's find out in this special episode with a very special guest, Dr. Chris Van Tulleken. Oh, hi, Kimberly. Hello, hello. Chris, how are you doing? I suppose the normal answer should be I'm very well, Kimberly. That's not what I'd normally say. I'm in the middle of a crisis of procrastination. So this is a good moment. Looming deadlines, work undone, personal obligations neglected. So we have a live case. It's current, it's fresh, it's real, it's happening. Or not happening. Now, you're the host of our sister podcast, What's Up Docs, with your brother, Dr.

3:19Kimberley Wilson:Zahn Van Tulligan. And listeners of Complex will know that Zahn and I talked about his inability to accept himself. And if you want to listen to that episode, you can find that in the Complex feed. But you and I don't know each other very well at all, do we? So tell me about yourself. I am a doctor in the NHS. so I'd spend a day a week at University College Hospital. I'm an academic at University College London so I do research as part of a team and I'm a writer so I'm currently writing a kid's book. I'm also contracted to write a what I call a grown-up book like I guess just a book so there are two book deadlines and I have three quite young kids and I live in London so there's a sense of some competing professional and personal interests.

4:08Kimberley Wilson:There's a lot going on. Yeah. Yeah.

4:14Kimberley Wilson:So you're bringing your procrastination into the Complex studio today, and we have had lots and lots of emails from listeners about their procrastination. And we might define procrastination as voluntarily delaying an intended action despite expecting negative consequences. So Chris, tell me how you're struggling with it. The things that really get under my skin are the long deadline, big projects. And you don't quite know the shape of it. You can't quite see the ending or how you're going to finish it. And you can't do it all at the last minute. So those things have an ability to destroy a year of my life really you know once the deadline is set in a year's time if there's a big project I will not be able to relax for the whole year okay so it will kind of tick over in the back yeah but I also find it very difficult to sort of initiate where to begin and it's not like I'm having a bunch of fun and I'm I'm not actually scrolling or you're not going to seeing friends I haven't gone to the water park I mean I love that I did I never do that you know it's much more kind of there's a paralysis with those things then there's the little things where I have sort of learned that actually I'm lastminute.com so I just if I have a big lecture to give I just clear the day before and I sort of know myself well enough so I've baked in the kind of deadline stuff and so I can be there's an efficiency to that just going I'm going to do things at the last minute I'm not going to worry in that example will you get them the slides by the morning yes I've never I mean sometimes it's mid-morning but yeah yeah so there there is also the sort of little tasks of daily life the the personal emails or just a lot of emails and whatsapps that there is a kind of probably 300 messages a day something like that i did audit it once okay there is so much input across so many different projects i can't really even though i'm immersed in it it is quite hard for me to categorize it all.

6:24Kimberley Wilson:It's enormously complicated. You know, it feels like one of those pictures of like data centers or like hydraulic machinery where there's pipes coming in from here and there. Is it a Rube Goldberg machine? It's sort of levers and bits of string. And it's kind of like this information coming in here and it needs to be churned and it needs to be outputted. But to where exactly will it go? And there's a lot of stuff where I get a message from a very old friend that you should just take a tiny bit of time to respond to it that might be something a bit serious. Then you get something absolutely frivolous from a friendship group.

6:58Then you get a work meeting request thing that actually requires you to open up your diary. And then there's the thing about kids pick up. And each one requires just a little bit more cognitive load than you have at that moment. So you just do none of it. And then you leave it all for a week. So I can paint you a victim picture here and go, well, life's so busy and I'm doing all this. If you'd spent the last three weeks with me, there were plenty of moments where you're like, Chris, you're just sitting in the kitchen, looking out the window, eating some food. Why don't you just quickly do that thing right now?

7:33Kimberley Wilson:I don't know. Maybe food is important. Well, okay. I have watched television. I've read books. I may have scrolled a little bit of social media. There was definitely a moment I could have taken to do that. You could have been more efficient with your use of time, is what you're saying. Yeah, guilt is a... When I was picking my psychological issues to bring onto Complex, it was a long list. You know, we could have done this on guilt and it might have been quite a similar conversation. I suppose there's also a moment where you start doing everything so badly that everyone's so annoyed with you that they want you...

8:12They would be happier if you don't start. They would be quite glad not to have you as a collaborator on there. particular academic project because they know you won't return the email and I think I have a sense of myself now that I sort of know that people that work with me a lot know that they will have to send three emails they know they will have to remind me and I don't I don't like being like that but

8:37Kimberley Wilson:I've probably just been like that since I was a little kid probably yeah which that's an interesting idea which is that if that's how you've been forever and ever amen there haven't really been any consequences yes and and that that may be not a good thing i suppose the thing i'm interested in is i'm gonna leave this in half an hour or so and i'm gonna find myself sitting at my desk at home going now what do i do and that's that that's the sort of moment i'm really interested in is the sort of um the why is it so hard because there's a moment of kind of getting out the laptop and opening the file and looking at the the draft of the book there's a sense of almost kind of the set of tasks that have to be done are things like there's a financial task an administrative task there's some calendar work there's the book thing those are the kind of top of mind and the idea of doing any one of them, it's viscerally, physically, like I don't want to do it.

9:42Don't make me. Don't tell me I'm going to have to go home and do them.

9:45Kimberley Wilson:It's a aversive. It's going to be effortful. It's going to be unpleasant. Yes. And I know I can't get any relief until the thing is done. But not even then, because once you've done that, then you've got the financial task and the administrative task and you've got the other book deadline to get to. the big picture is sort of overwhelming but i could buy myself a nice evening if i went home tonight and i put in a hard hour i could actually then put the gas to bed and do that but that will be i've worked fairly hard today um all i need to do is go home just do an hour on the computer but it will be but i think you've answered your own question you've worked fairly hard today but is there a way of being better at just getting home and going right i've got i watched dina i watched my wife dina can get in from work and she'll just put dinner on to cook and will just quickly in in five minutes takes the kettle to boil she'll send a couple of emails and she's just doesn't procrastinate whereas i will get home and i know i have to do the same and I do procrastinate.

10:52So it still feels like there are people who can do it and I would like the resource to be able to go, I've got a half an hour and I'm just going to very quickly send out the emails.

11:01Kimberley Wilson:Yes, okay. Is that achievable? Can you give that to me? Is there a pill, some sort of injection I could have? It's interesting because you bought a diner and so there is a question there as to whether this is, as you say, a resource, a skill, a way of thinking that you can learn or adopt in order to be able to function in that way, or whether you're just different people and that for all your talents and qualities, that might not be one of yours. And particularly since you said you've been like this since childhood, we might wonder whether this isn't a feature of you, of your personality. but I think more broadly there are a few things going on so while aspects of the things that you describe certainly look a lot like procrastination and so when you you get home you're exhausted you're so tired you know you should go to bed the best thing you could do for yourself for the world would be to go to sleep this was last night we sat in the kitchen and we started we kind of opened a loaf of bread you know just we'll just have one slice each half the loaf later it's 11 30 we've used up all the marmalade we've sat and we've scrolled we don't often do it but we see that in people who feel like they don't have enough time to themselves in the day and so so it's called revenge bedtime procrastination revenge revenge like revenge on your day kind of you kind of say to yourself, I had to give of myself to everyone else today.

12:42Kimberley Wilson:I didn't get a moment to myself. This is my opportunity to have some control over my own time for me. And going to bed is kind of another obligation. So I'm just going to stay up because this is the time when I feel like I have a little bit of autonomy, a little bit of control. I mean, it was nice. We sat together and we had a bit of time with the two of us. We just should have had a bit less time with the two of us. But do we beat ourselves up about that? That's never helpful. It's not. I don't know what I was expecting you to say. So when should I beat myself up? So some of these things that you're describing, I think, look like procrastination.

13:31But I think the lens is a little bit skewed.

13:35Kimberley Wilson:And you do this really interesting thing where you both acknowledge how busy you are and then dismiss it in the next breath. I can't play the victim. I signed up to these. I'm a volunteer. I haven't been conscripted. It's not about playing the victim. It's about acknowledging that tensions can exist, right? You can be incredibly lucky and fortunate and be overwhelmed. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. And to acknowledge the latter doesn't make you ungrateful. it's just acknowledging reality but I think you're so aware of how it might be perceived to say I'm exhausted I'm tired this is a lot that you don't even allow yourself to go there and so you you minimize and you invalidate your experience and that because you do that you stop yourself from actually taking the actions that would make things better for you.

14:34And for the people around me.

14:36Kimberley Wilson:And for the people around you. Because what you were describing sounds to me, you know, we can put procrastination a bit of a Venn diagram maybe, but the first part certainly sounds like decision fatigue. You've got the financial deadline, you said, the administrative deadline. You've got two book deadlines. You've got the constant deadlines of children and they present themselves as being of equal importance and also equal urgency and that is incredibly cognitively demanding to try to prioritize and organize which one of these things demands your attention first yes there's a lot of going oh how am i going to balance all this and And who exactly should I say no to?

15:27Or also saying yes to that requires me to clear that deal. I'm going to have to speak to that person first. And let me check that with Zand.

15:34Kimberley Wilson:Which is the other part of the cognitive demand, right? So we've got the pure decision fatigue of the number of options that lay out ahead of you. But then we have the way that when you're task switching, you lose efficacy. So when you're focused on one thing, you can put all your attention into that thing. But then if someone calls you and you're pulled away, it takes you about 20 minutes to get back into the flow of the original thing that you were doing. So you lose efficiency and that will be exhausting for you. But because you don't recognize the demand of that task switching itself, you will just think that you're not being very efficient and you're not being organized enough.

16:10Okay, that's a really useful thought because there's a lot of wheel spinning.

16:14Kimberley Wilson:Everybody finds it very hard. It's just not how attention and focus work. um so that's the second part the third part is around boundary setting forward slash saying no but just in the last week i think because i knew i was coming on here i have said i said no to to a person at work uh i just had to say no because i was busy and it was fine they were fine didn't matter and it took me i had to phone them up and and it was completely fine they're like no problem it didn't cause a collapse in the space-time continuum or in the relationship and actually that you admire the people who are able to hold a healthy honest boundary with you there's a funny vanity to some of this where there's a sense of um what would it be called like sort of a savior thing of like oh if i don't do this thing yeah i'll let you off the hook it's not it's not pure vanity it's really it's the spotlight effect which is a psychological effect where we're so inside our own the egocentric worldview right we so know our own minds that we see the world through the spectrum of our own minds and we assume that we're on stage the spotlight is on us and everyone's looking at us and everybody's making judgments about our motivations and our actions and our behaviors and most people are on their phones most people are on their phones and most people are thinking about themselves but i think you get a little bit stuck in it and you kind of perhaps use it as a way to maybe bully is a hard word but you know to strongly encourage yourself to say yes when a kind thoughtful boundary no would be entirely acceptable the procrastination interacts with this because if you say no quickly it's fine and people are like no problem we can get someone else yes you know full well that either you can't or you don't want to yes but you feel so guilty about saying no that you actually you make it worse for everyone dine is pretty good with this she has her head screwed on so tightly around this stuff with really good boundaries.

18:38And it's just like the invite comes in, she goes, no, no, that weekend is already a bit busy. Although there is theoretically time to go to that lunch, we're just going to say no because it'll create a bit of space in the day. And the idea of saying no to a thing when you actually could arrive a little late and leave a little early and squash it in is so weird to me.

18:55Kimberley Wilson:Absolutely. When we're thinking about developing these new skills, and I think it really is about skills here, because I don't think you're, certainly not as bad a procrastinator as you think you are so i think this is really about disentangling the emotional turmoil around it that sense of obligation expectation paying it forward save your complex bit vanity let's call it what it is so that you can allow other people to have their feelings but also acknowledge and respect them enough to know that they can probably cope if you don't go to their party as much as they love you. And that's a practice.

19:34Kimberley Wilson:Okay. And this stuff is skillful. Yes. If you get five invitations a week, one invitation a week, I will definitely respond to immediately. It's like learning a new language. It's about getting familiar with it. There's an aspect of feeling okay saying no and sending it and the anticipation you might feel of or a negative response. So the practice element is about becoming familiar with those internal states, the distress tolerance, we call it, of being able to do a new thing. But knowing that the reason that you're trying to do a new thing and the reason it feels difficult is because it's important and because what you're trying to do is to create more space and calm and clarity in your life so that you're not pulled in a million different directions, so that you have much more opportunity to focus and to sustain that attention.

20:23Kimberley Wilson:and we always start small we start teeny tiny and it's about getting that practice in of behaving in a different way demonstrating to yourself that you can because confidence is just the evidence that your mind has of previous successful attempts yeah okay so i think just going through it and kind of sifting through each one as they come in and then the other thought i had was about slightly more existential thing so i'm thinking about you sat there trying to work out which of these equally important things i get to first so tomorrow let's make it real tomorrow morning i can sit down i have to hand in this first draft of the kids book on by by 9am on Tuesday?

21:17Kimberley Wilson:So the first thing I would probably want you to do is to acknowledge how hard you think it's going to be, whatever those hostile, negative, aversive feelings are. Because I think if you're trying to sit there and be like, this is fine, you're kind of lying to yourself. That is also a psychological, emotional demand. You're depleting the energy you have by trying to kind of convince yourself of an untruth and simply by stating the reality of how you feel is going to kind of connect you much more with reality I would much rather be eating croissants in the garden and then you say but this is something that I've committed to that is something that I have to do you know I don't need to like doing it I don't need to be excited about doing it in this moment but we're going to do it and we're going to start and it doesn't matter where you start because actually the power is in the momentum and the momentum is in starting it doesn't matter where you start.

22:17That's a nice heuristic is if you have 10 things and you can't decide which one to do just just throw a dart at the board or flip a coin or just do a thing okay I really like that that's useful because there's definitely a thing where I just sit there doing nothing for half an hour sometimes and then you're like now it's 9 30 and i haven't got anything done and the day is wrecked

22:36Kimberley Wilson:so just now you're in a spiral about just begin just begin anywhere it doesn't matter the power is in the momentum that's the feedback loop your brain is going to go oh we have an outcome to our action now maybe we'll just carry on so i would probably start there give that a go and as we were saying earlier on by trying to do everything and saying yes to everything you kind of keep alive the fantasy that you can do everything all the time for all the people forever and ever are men. Yeah. Which would take us to maybe our final resting place, which is self-compassion. You're looking at me dazed and confused.

23:16Sorry, what?

23:19Kimberley Wilson:I think you feel as though actually you've got nothing to complain about, so get on with it and push on. I think I really do feel that. You know, I talk a lot about personal responsibility and I think people are not generally to blame for the situation they find themselves in. And yet with myself, I'm like, no, that is not, you can't do that. I mean, what do you understand self-compassion to mean? It feels like you think it's just kind of patting yourself gently on the head and saying they're there. Yeah, I think I do. Okay, so that's not self-compassion. Give me all of your burdens. So let's say all of your obligations are actually mine.

23:56Kimberley Wilson:if we're having a drink on a friday night and i say chris i feel really overwhelmed a bit and we go well you're an idiot why did you take all that on okay would i say that to you it was all forced on you but it wasn't forced on me i um talk about me well what would i say to you uh i wouldn't know what to say to you i think i'd feel you probably have to unpick some of this and it's got to be quite a practical approach like but what does self-compassion look like i think so we think about self-compassion in kind of three main components one is fundamentally about self-kindness so kind of treating yourself with the same kindness that you would treat a friend someone you love and care for the second component is a sense of shared humanity which is the idea that it is human to suffer and therefore if I suffer it's just a sign that I'm human not a sign that I'm a failure and then the third component is a mindfulness component which is the ability to observe your thoughts without judgment so that I can be overwhelmed I can be over committed without being judgmental about it okay so I guess then using that structure I would say, well, you didn't do any of this with ill intent.

25:24You didn't take on all this work because you're greedy or because you didn't care about it. You're trying to do some good things, but you're a bit overcommitted. So that might be a space I could give myself. That's so helpful. I can take purposeful action. I can do things that are positive. I can learn skills. I can get myself out of this and become easier to everyone I work with. And that needn't involve beating myself up emotionally.

25:52Kimberley Wilson:A hundred percent. And it's a difference, I'd say, between being nice and being kind or being a good parent, right? So being a good parent isn't just allowing the kids to eat marshmallows and stay up till 3am and not go to sleep. That would be being permissive or nice. A good parent says you need to brush your teeth and you need to go to bed because it's good for you. And so the boundaries, when they are thoughtful and when they are carefully imposed, are kind. I'm so obtuse about this. You're saying, you know, treat yourself, Chris, in the same way you would your children. That's a very clear mental shortcut.

26:37Kimberley Wilson:Chris, thank you so much for being so generous and being on the show, and putting yourself a little bit in the hot seat. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And what I love about a conversation like this is that a really common term like procrastination can actually be a cover for other things that are happening. Things like decision fatigue or the challenge of saying no. But there are practical things that you can do to manage yourself better. And that is so positive. So I hope for everyone listening, if you're thinking I don't know that there's something wrong with you for not wanting to leap into your chair to finish that report or work on the essay that's been hanging over you or that for some reason you're not desperate to tidy your kitchen then it might just be worth taking a look at the broader picture of what's going on in your life and I hope that feels kind and that you now know a little bit more about how to be kind to yourself And that's it.

27:42Kimberley Wilson:My thanks to my very special guest, doctor, broadcaster and author, Chris Van Tallican, and to all our listeners who wrote to us about their procrastination. And my thanks, of course, to the very special production team at Loftus Media. I'm Kimberly Wilson. Take care and go gently.