I really don’t like tapas.
A dinner made of a bunch of tiny plates, with two-bite morsels on each? Eh, I’d rather stuff my face with a giant cheeseburger.
At least . . . that’s what I always thought. But the thing is, when I actual…
Procrastination. Most of us struggle with it, at least to some degree and are eager to find an effective solution. Some people procrastinate so much that they’re willing to pay people to (nicely) force them to get stuff done.
But why is procrastination such a challenge to combat? Avoiding your to-do list is a common problem that seems like it should have a simple solution. After all, we just need to motivate ourselves to do whatever it is we’re putting off, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Our tendency to procrastinate has very little to do with willpower and self-control and everything to do with emotion regulation. When we think about completing a task, we project how we’ll feel about undertaking that activity. If we predict that it’s going to be unpleasant, we procrastinate.
The different ways we’re wired to procrastinate
Of course, emotions are complicated. Two people can experience the same emotions but have completely different triggers for them. And that’s what Dr. Linda Sapadin, a licensed psychologist, success coach, and coauthor of It’s About Time!: The Six Styles Of Procrastination and How to Overcome Them discovered. “Some people in my practice would discuss things they might want to do or change,” Sapadin says. Some of those patients would go on to execute those changes, but then others would find “one reason after another as to why they couldn’t do it.”
That observation led her to develop a questionnaire, which she sent to people around the country. Upon analyzing the results, Sapadin concluded that there were six different styles of procrastination that people tended to exhibit.
1. The perfectionist
The perfectionist procrastinator, according to Sapadin, pays too much attention to details. They have such high expectations about themselves that they can’t bring themselves to start a particular task or finish it because they fear that it won’t be good enough.
Sapadin advises perfectionists to try to banish “shoulds” from their vocabulary and try and substitute them with “coulds” instead. “Instead of imposing unnecessary pressure on yourself, it’s more like you have a choice,” Sapadin says. Time limits and constraints can also be helpful for the perfectionist who finds it difficult to finish a project.
2. The dreamer
Unlike the perfectionist, the dreamer procrastinator doesn’t pay enough attention to details. They may have aspirations to do or complete something, but they don’t often have concrete plans to take that first step. Dreamers often use vague words like “someday” or “soon,” says Sapadin.
For dreamers, specificity is the key to tackling procrastination. Rather than say “I’ll do something when I have the time,” Sapadin recommends that dreamers make a plan to do one particular thing at a specific time on a specific day. If a task is big, make the commitment to do one part of that task a day. It’s about telling yourself “Everyday, I will do that in order to move ahead in this particular goal that I have,” says Sapadin. Without setting specific goals, dreamers will never have the time to finish a task.
3. The worrier
Worriers procrastinate by letting their worrying and overthinking tendencies take over their behavior. They tend to put off making decisions, often telling themselves that “they’re waiting to find out something.”
Sapadin says that the most important thing for worriers to recognize is that “not making a decision is in fact making a decision.” They’re choosing inaction and justifying it with their worrying tendency. Sapadin recommends that rather than trying to change their worrying tendency, they should lean into it. While they wait for something, Sapadin says, they should focus on doing something else that moves a project forward.
4. The crisis-maker
Opposite of the worrier, the crisis-maker is inherently optimistic (mostly about time and their own capacity). They’re the ones who wait until the very last minute to do things, and they justify it by saying, “I can’t get motivated until the end.”
Like the worrier, Sapadin says that there is a way to tackle procrastination that leans into their tendencies. For starters, they can create that kind of rush by setting a timer and giving themselves X number of minutes to do something. Sapadin also recommends that crisis-makers should switch from using “feeling’”phrases (“I feel like I’ll have enough gas to get there,”) to “thinking words.” (“It will be safer to fill up on gas now.”)
5. The defier
There are two types of defiers—those who refuse to do things because they resist succumbing to expectations, and those who say they’ll do something but don’t (Sapadin calls this the “passive aggressive” defier.) This latter sort of defier tends to create more anger, Sapadin says, “because when you say you’ll do something but you don’t, people get upset.”
For defiers, Sapadin recommends getting away from the “reacting” mindset. When someone asks the defier to do something, the defier needs to shift their mindset from reacting to someone to choosing to act. They need to stop seeing requests or tasks as “a demand that [they] have to defy,” says Sapadin.
6. The pleaser
Contrary to the defier, the pleaser hates disappointing people. They find it difficult to say no, so as a result they often end up juggling more than they can handle. They find it difficult to prioritize, so they procrastinate because they have too much to do.
The procrastination solution for pleasers is simple but not easy to do. They need “to learn how to say ‘no’ in a gracious way,” Sapadin says. They need to be comfortable saying things like, “No, thanks for thinking of me,” or “No, I can’t do the whole thing, but I can do this part of it,” or “No, I can’t drive you today, but I can do it tomorrow.” Pleasers also need to learn to be comfortable to ask for help and accept that they will not be able to do everything, says Sapadin.
Sapadin believes that one of the biggest misconceptions about procrastination is that it’s a negative trait—and that people who do it just don’t care. It’s a human trait, she says. Chronic procrastination can have serious effects, but for most people procrastination isn’t “an awful and horrible trait if it’s mild and on occasion.” After all, Sapadin says, “everybody procrastinates on something.”
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What I remember was not being able to get an elevator.
Though I wasn’t late for my job as an assistant at the University of Southern California, it seemed the sluggish building elevator was going to change my status from slightly early to paycheck-docking-ly late. After close to 10 minutes, I trudged up the stairs, grumbling under my breath. Some kids were probably holding the elevator door for their classmates. It was only as I walked into the studio suite that I grasped the grim reality.
It’s been years, but I still remember seeing the neighboring department head lying on the floor, paramedics on top of him, around him, trying to pound the breath back into his lifeless body. It was a shock, and not just because you don’t expect to see paramedics in your office. The man, a former movie studio executive, was older but remarkably fit and full of energy. He didn’t seem like a candidate for a massive coronary.
I remember making a hasty exit. Worried bystanders were being shooed out of the hallways to give the paramedics room to leave. Someone was, as it turned out, holding the elevator doors open.
After the paramedics had taken him away, I remember how teachers and students gathered in the office, talking in hushed voices, eyes wide. I wondered why my own boss was so distraught, unable to stop crying for hours. Later, word circulated that, despite exhaustive efforts, the department head had died. This news resulted in a mix of reactions: students worried about their studies, colleagues in tears, others glassy-eyed and seemingly lost. What was consistent was the sense that no one knew the right way to move forward.
Fortunately, death in the workplace is rare. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 5,147 workers died on the job in 2017. That may sound like a lot, but it’s only 3.5 deaths per 100,000 workers (and one in five of those deaths was in construction).
“It’s incredibly shocking and graphic if the person died in the workplace, but mostly it’s someone who died at home of a heart attack or had an accident over the weekend,” says Jeff Gorter, clinical director at behavioral health company R3 Continuum, adding that about half of the 1,500 “crisis events” his company responds to each month are for the unexpected death of an employee. “The shock for employees is to come into the office and be given the news.”
Death in and out of the office will likely become less of a rarity as the workforce ages. Eighty-five percent of baby boomers plan to work until their 70s or 80s, according to a report from the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging. Almost a quarter plan to never retire.
An increasing number of workplaces have an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) on call to bring in grief counselors when needed. Handing off the uncomfortable work of letting employees feel their feelings has a strong appeal for many executives. “A lot of times the managers at a company want to contain everything,” says Rebecka Mevorah, a licensed clinical worker and senior EAP counselor for COPE. “They don’t want employees’ reactions spilling out all over the place.”
For a lot of workers, the fact they have any reaction at all to the death of an acquaintance—someone they may have only chatted with in the office kitchen—is jarring. “People think, ‘Why am I feeling this?’ But sometimes working with someone for five years can be, unfortunately, more significant than the time we spend with good friends,” says Litsa Williams, cofounder of the site What’s Your Grief? “We don’t have a framework for that, and we may feel we have less of a right to have emotions about that.”
Those emotions can be wildly varied and aren’t often ones someone wants to have in a work environment. Anger, guilt, and tears can bubble to the surface. “Grief reactions can be unique to our relationship to the person who died, but also include all of our life experiences and other things from our past, ranging from our own mortality to personal losses,” says Williams. (My boss who wouldn’t stop sobbing? She later told me that around the time our coworker died, she learned that her breast cancer had returned.)
Counselors are quick to point out that whatever reaction people have is just fine. “A lot of what we do is try to normalize what employees are feeling,” says Mevorah. These external counselors can also help bosses understand how best to step up at a time when employees need leadership and compassion most. “I often encourage people to follow ACT,” says Gorter, explaining that this is an acronym for acknowledging the event, communicating with compassion, and offering a transition to a “future focus.”
Though grief counselors may help employees process a colleague’s death, Williams says not everyone will be ready to share their feelings. They may not have fully processed events when a grief counselor is available. Or, if they are ready to talk, they may be unwilling to speak about their feelings to a stranger, especially in the middle of the workday. “No one wants to do that, then go back and finish their day in the office,” she says.
Williams says speaking to a grief counselor isn’t always necessary. “Eighty-five percent of the time, people can cope without professional support as long as they get normalization validation and learn a little about grief and that it’s normal,” Williams says. “Often it seems that HR feels they need to take care of it instead of having an honest conversation with the employees, sitting down and saying, ‘You worked closely with John, what do you think would be appropriate, what do you think feels right?’”
Though the heavy lifting often gets passed to professionals, a boss who’s able to rally is ultimately most important. “A leader can make people feel supported and valued,” says Gorter. “They don’t have to do anything magical. When I ask employees what would help, they say they just want to get back to normal, get back to work.”
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