MC80 Why Do We Procrastinate? (or What is procrastination, anyway?)

Most of us are familiar with avoiding a task that we should be doing. But is there more to it? On the one hand we worry that procrastination leads us to being totally unproductive. But is being hyper-efficient realistic? Don't we sometimes need to break the cycle of busywork? Procrastination might actually be telling us something important about the task and ourselves.

Managers might find themselves rescheduling a difficult conversation or delaying a decision. It can be helpful to dig into the reasons why. Is it a task that we just don't feel like doing? Has the task become boring through constant repetition? Do we need something more (e.g. context, support, perspective, data, etc) before we are ready to tackle it?

This is a difficult thing to self-analyse because we are so good at hiding things from ourselves. And this is where managers might be uniquely placed to help their teams. If we become curious when we see someone procrastinating, we might help them understand why they are stuck. And help them make better decisions about what to do next.

For a timed set of show notes, head over to Management Café’s blog site.