Procrastination can take many different forms. These include poor attention to priorities, distractibility, lumping several smaller tasks into one big jumble, perfectionism and fears about trying to complete tasks. Instead of doing the more important tasks first, procrastinators tend to do the tasks that are the most comfortable, convenient, interesting, or within reach. Procrastinators tend to be easily distracted when something else comes up, especially if they are attempting to do a task that is somehow difficult, challenging or triggering. "Lumping" or "chunking" is the erroneous perception that most tasks come as an inseparable whole, a "lump", that cannot be subdivided and dealt with systematically. Perfectionism is putting things off for fear we won't do them exactly right or until we think that we can do them perfectly. Or we may tell ourselves that we are afraid of the process involved in doing a task.

Regardless of how it manifests itself, procrastination is a form of avoidance. Avoidance is a major symptom cluster in PTSD. In procrastination as in other forms of avoidance there is the desire, conscious or unconscious, to not feel something that we are feeling or to not feel something that we anticipate feeling. So we forget about it, put it off, and work around it. In other words we do whatever we can to not have to deal with it. Now we may not even know, and in fact probably do not know what it is that we don't want to feel. If we knew, we would be feeling it and that's what we're trying to avoid.

Clearly procrastination is primarily a process that operates below the level of conscious thought, much like so many other aspects of PTSD. And, as with other aspects of PTSD, part of the solution is to become conscious of the unconscious mechanisms that are operating. When we procrastinate, our tendency is to try to fix it by focusing on our behavior. This is addressing the symptom and not the cause. Sometimes this does in fact work. When it does that is a good thing because it gives us one more experience of facing our fears, feeling our feelings and discovering that they are not as bad, not as uncomfortable as we feared.

An approach that holds even more promise for long-term improvement is to address the underlying fears. The approach to doing this starts with an acknowledgement that we are procrastinating. Once we recognize the procrastination, we can begin to explore what is causing it. We can look at our feelings around the task. When can examine the steps to completion of the task to see if there is something there that we feel is or fear will be unpleasant. We can examine the expected outcome to see if there is something that we anticipate bringing about uncomfortable emotions or an uncomfortable state of mind. Once we have uncovered and faced whatever it is that we were trying to avoid, we are in a much stronger position to address the task that we want to accomplish and complete it.

Desired Outcome: To gain a better understanding of why we procrastinate and a better ability to overcome procrastination.

Discussion Starters: When am I most likely to procrastinate? When have I procrastinated in the past? When did I procrastinate as a child? What are the fears that have gotten in the way of my getting things done? When have I managed to overcome my tendency to procrastinate? How have I accomplished this?

John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com

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