Is it really Procrastination? Or something else?

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Procrastination, in my mind, is closer to the way the psychological field views it than the way I've seen a lot of others describe it. Briefly, I've seen it described simply as "putting off important tasks," but I feel it's deliberate as opposed to simple appearances. In other words, just because someone puts off important tasks, doesn't mean the act is deliberate.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/procrastination

I put off important tasks, but I don't do it because I think I work better under pressure. I know for a fact that I don't. I do not LIKE putting anything important off. I like to be prepared, and putting things off leaves me unprepared. There are a few reasons why I do this though. They're not excuses, just reasons.

When I wake up in the morning, my mind is not fully functional. It takes me at least a few hours and up to several hours to stimulate my brain to the point of functioning well enough to perform important tasks effectively. Sometimes the way I do this is to come here and post on WP for a while. If I can't yet "output" effectively, I may watch television as a passive way to get my mind thinking about things. I usually start with some mundane entertainment, then switch to the news or something educational. Then I'll either come here for some time, or start working on a music project, or anything that involves writing and thinking, but not yet anything that really needs to be done.

Once I reach the point of feeling "effective," I'll switch over to some more important things that really need to be done. These things can include important letters to the schools, to creditors, paying bills, working on my resume, job searching, contacting employers, and other things like them.

The problem for me is, quite often by the time I reach the point of feeling fully effective, it's already late in the day, and too late to get out of the house and get anything done "out there." Many days, I never get to that point. Many days, I never even reach the point of preparing to get out there, because I've already gone through the "window of time" during which I am most effective, never having reached full effectiveness, and my brain is already shutting down, done for the day.

When I say "shutting down," I MEAN shutting down. It just stops functioning. I can't think straight anymore. Some days when this happens, I literally have all I can do to find the shutdown buttons on my computers. I'm mentally and physically BEYOND exhaustion.

Some of this, I know, is due to my ADD. It takes me a long time to remember what really needs to be done each day. Even with a well organized calendar and task list, all prioritized, I have it all organized, but just can't actually perform any of it right away. That part, I think, is coming partly from my Autism, and partly from stress related side effects of Autism and ADD.

Many days I actually FEEL motivated, but simply cannot perform. It's damned frustrating. Time passes, and nowhere near enough gets done.

For all intents and purposes, I'm busy all day, but feel like nothing's getting done. I know from many others with ADD and ADHD, that this experience is very typical. By all objective observation, it looks like true, deliberate procrastination, because I am doing other things that are not high on my priority list.

The thing is, it's NOT deliberate. If I attempt the most important tasks before I am mentally effective, I know from experience I will screw them up. I will put things in resumes that should not be there. I will say things in letters that end up misinterpreted, damaging relationships and wasting a lot of time. Rather than risk that happening (and the chances of it happening are very high if I don't wait until I'm in the right "zone"), I do other things designed to stimulate and get me to the zone first.

The problem, of course, is that getting to the zone takes too long. It's not that I never get anything important done. I do, but it's not enough of the important things.

I've read quite a few books that include strategies for combatting procrastination. Those strategies have helped, but I've not been able yet to completely overcome the problem. Probably because "procrastination" isn't the real problem. I'm not being deliberate in putting things off.

Some of the strategies include:

1. Doing the thing you fear the most first.
2. Always organize, prioritize and schedule FIRST, then execute tasks.
3. Focus on the 20% most important tasks, and forget the rest unless you end up with extra time. Most of the time you won't.

Fear is only a problem for me in terms of being afraid to start on important things when my head isn't up to it. That's when I screw things up royally. It's not an irrational fear. It's based on experience. Once my head is awake, alert and sharp enough, I have no problem attacking anything. If I attempt to attack any truly important tasks before my brain is running at full speed, the results are almost always not good. So I guess in actuality, it's not really fear at all, but a sureness of the results. Truth be told, I'm not afraid of making mistakes. There is a big difference between the lack fear of making mistakes and doing something you know for certain will cause mistakes. To take it one step further, if you act in ways that will certainly cause errors, those errors are not mistakes.

Thus, I don't even try to accomplish anything that really matter until I know my mind is at least at some level of effective operation, which takes a while to reach, leaves little time left in the day, and that level doesn't maintain for me as long as it does for most people.

If you add to all that the complication that it also takes me much longer to process any task than the average person, things are pretty bleak.

So the problem I'm pointing to in this post is that while many strategies for dealing with true procrastination do help, with the added time constraints from narrow windows of daily productivity as well as everything taking so long even when I am in top form, these strategies do not help enough.

The only way I have found so far to deal with it is to just do the bare max that I can of the most important stuff, and leave the rest. Trouble is, in this world, that isn't good enough.

If there is anybody here who can relate to this problem:

Have any of you found ways to deal with it that actually work?

Last edited by MrXxx on 15 Nov 2011, 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I get so worried thinking I'm procrastinating it can be ridiculous. If I'm assigned something on Monday, and it's due on Friday, I always feel guilty if I don't have it done by Tuesday. I never wait until the last minute to do anything, because I can't. I guess it could be described as almost OCD like. If there's something I need to do, I can't rest until its done. I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it helps me make sure I manage my time efficiently. But it really stresses me out sometimes.

You know? That reminds me of one other aspect of this whole thing with me that is pretty typical of ADD at least, but is also typical of AS. If the task is something that highly interests me, I do the same thing. Tasks or assignments that involve things I'm very interested in and enjoy, are EASY, so I do get them done as far in advance as I can. My mind isn't so hard to get "in gear" with those. I did that in college once I switched to Music Tech. I loved it so much, my assignments were always done early, and done to extremes far beyond my class mates.

It's the stuff I DON'T enjoy, that is of high importance that's the problem. It takes a long time to get the mind in gear for that stuff, else I screw it up. I've HEARD the advice to "just buckle down and do it" all of my life. I'm sorry, but that just does not work. If it did, I wouldn't be here asking about it, trust me.

It doesn't work, and this is a very typical, and very real symptom of both AS and ADD.

I get up and first thing I like to do is draw or paint because it's what I like to do the most, and what i'm most interested in, and the morning is when I have the most energy to start things. (really I could draw all the time, if it weren't for other stuff that has to be done.) But maybe there is some aspect of unconscious procrastination in your functioning. If I have something that I have to do that is important and HAS to be done and I CAN'T screw up, it makes me anxious and uncomfortable and I'll end up cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry or a million other things before, thinking that once everything is organised and I have less anxiety about the problem I'll get back to it, WHILE I'm doing a million other things I'll be worrying about the important thing I have to do, and when and how I should do it that I'm just too exhausted to actually DO it. Isn't that procrastination?

I love analysing procrastination, it beats getting round to doing stuff. *gurn*

One thing I've taken to doing is finding ways to make uninteresting tasks stimulating. A specific example of a trick I use is to keep a selection of stimulating podcasts on my phone, and listen to them while I'm doing boring tasks.

One of the mechanisms that keeps me from getting important but boring things done is that I'm utterly addicted to mental stimulation. I literally almost need an intervention just to leave the house

Moog! You've changed!

I'm always changing. Is there some specific way I've changed that's caused your alarm? I do apologise if I've alarmed you.

Specifically? Entirely! I identify people by their icons. I didn't think they'd change.

Research "Demand Resistance" It's where you feel that a demand is being made from you and your mind chooses to resist doing it. It's like one part of your mind telling another part "I won't and you can't make me!" Even if the demand is something that you want to do, or at least to have already done, it still happens.

Frances

I am aware of Demand Resistance actually. I had that going on when I was much younger, and less so as I grew older, but did have it going on still quite a bit in my Forties. That isn't really what's going on with me anymore. During my Forties, I learned about it, and learned the techniques to deal with it. Some books refer to it differently (usually with no name). The techniques worked, but only to a degree, which is part of several things I tried to increase effective productivity. It was the extent to which they were not working, coupled with discovery of my AS and ADD that alerted me to the fact that it is the AS and ADD that's causing other types of "resistance" that are ingrained or hardwired resistances I haven't learned to deal well with just yet. That's what I'm trying to figure out what to do about now.

It really is an inability, not for the entire day, but for a good deal of it, to process the important but not so interesting stuff.

There is one more thing complicating it all, that I didn't think of until it just came up today. That is the things that "come up" or things that are referred to in The Seven Habits as "Important AND urgent" things. Things that truly must be done, and done right away. Just as I was ready to dive into the last important task for today, that has been put off for the past few months for many different similar reasons, I had to leave to take care of some business for a relative in need. I forgot about it, in part due to ADD, and now I'm home, mentally drained, and shutting down for the night yet again. I'll have to tackle those letters tomorrow. Again.

Demand Resistance is more about subconscious self-sabotage. That really isn't the problem here. Do I resist demands? I sure do, but I resist based on what's truly not important, not what is. I screen calls just to stop erroneous demands from being put upon me. There are certain things, many things really, that are put upon me that may be important to others, but are not important to me, simple because there is no benefit or gain for me even in the long term. I'm talking about other people's catastrophes and crises. We sometimes do a lot of things in response to others because we THINK they're important when they really aren't. For example, most phone calls go straight to voice mail. Most emails don't even get read. Few are answered.

The issue of performing tasks I enjoy and find interesting isn't one of choice. It's a genuine ADD issue, not a subconscious choice. It is actually more difficult, not emotionally, but MENTALLY difficult to perform uninteresting tasks. It's not that I don't want to do them, it's that even though I know I could, the results are almost always a disastrous mess unless I can bring myself to top form first. To attempt anything important but uninteresting while not in top form is a huge mistake. Having done it many times, and gotten the same disastrous results, usually having to do it all over again, I know what a waste of time it is to attempt these things without first "pumping myself" up mentally.

Seriously though, it does help if you don't overanalyze, which I am prone to do (WHAT ME? NOOOOooooooo! Couldn't be! )

I am starting to see patterns just from reading what I've already written here. Time and mental constraints are definitely the problem.

Now, just what to do about them?

And that's where we're different. Even if it's something I really don't want to do, I make myself do it, because that's the only way to escape the hell that is the guilt of thinking that I'm procrastinating.

I think procrastination is impulsiveness. Instead of doing what needs to be done, I'm going to do... THIS OTHER THING THAT IS SO MUCH BETTER YAY.

But I procrastinate on things I want to do in order to do lower-effort things that are kind of "meh", as well. Mostly, I don't think a lot about why I procrastinate. I tried for years but I couldn't figure it out, even when it cost me work or otherwise hurt me (I once procrastinated on going to the ER after I had severe gall bladder pain, and by the time I got in, no one found anything wrong).

That is me also. My morning routine is 3 hours long for that reason, and goes like this: Cigarette. Cat food. Coffee. More cigarette. Me food. Book. More coffee & cig. Then either guitar or drawing. Then yoga. Then shower.

Only after this can I have any kind of conversation with another human. So if I work at 6am, I wake up at 3am.

Sometimes I have a bad funk of prolonged procrastinations. Probably a big part of why I am having trouble finding a job here in new town.

I procrastinate for different reasons. Sometimes I can't marshal my energy and focus and I've read that those with adhd get the focus to get things done at the last minute because of the adrenaline rush that panic gives them. Like writing that paper the night before it's due. I've done that a few times. It was torture but I would be pleasantly surprised to get an A. I figured that all the time I had been procrastinating I had been writing it in my head all along.
Other times I procrastinate because I'm afraid of screwing up.