Procastination

5/7/2025
19-minute read

guy literally sleeping with a book on his face and procrastinating

I procrastinated a lot writing this very long read (Started in 2018, still not done, probably will never be done), you are welcome to procrastinate as much as you want reading this. This will Probably gonna end up in some corner of the internet and For those who find this useful, you’re welcome!

Well this article title is self explanatory, but I don’t want this to be another rant. I want this to be a thought experiment on what causes much of the problems in adult life and what steps that can taken realistically and what it takes to overcome the challenges that come with the adult life.

Its impossible to tackle all the problems, I’m going to tackle one at a time. This time its procrastination. If you’re like me you’re probably working somewhere maybe the first or the second “proper” job (as per social norms). Some good days and some bad days come your way. You’re probably wishing if there’s more time for other stuff apart from the Job and the occasional outings. I came to the realization that major boon to getting things done has been procrastination.

Its 2025, six jobs later, things are still the same. You’re not going to get done unless you get it done. The work will be endless, so you got to put down your feet and decide and prioritize. This is the only way you’ll have time for your true passions.

The definition for Procrastination is: The act or habit of procrastinating, or putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention.

So what makes us delay work? Is it intentional or is it by choice. This had got me thinking for a while, why is this affecting me and many others and why is it affecting us on different levels. I’ve had colleagues who simply wouldn’t do anything unless they are accompanied throughout the task. There are some who would delay it to just few days before deadline. Some do things at a pace of a turtle but eventually get there on time. And the others like to engage with their tasks as if they’re defusing a bomb on the last minute of the final count down.

From all the readings and talks I’ve listed to I’ve come to understand that we’ve been treating the symptoms and not the causes. If you’ve been beating up yourself over for putting off work and procrastinating you should stop that. Procrastination is a very human behavior. Its often influenced by a mix of external factors and internal.

Its 2025, I’ve come to a different understanding that the procrastination as a reaction by our brain as a form of a soft reset. Its not exactly a burnout. Its just that even your subconscious mind knows that report your boss asked for could be a single email. So the mind decides to de-prioritize it to make more room for more important tasks.

Most articles, MLM motivational speakers weaponize your procrastination and use this against you. They’ll tell you that you’re lazy and you need to work harder. Here’s a common occurrence, call your audience lazy, but hey if you buy my program I’ll teach you how to be less lazy. This with many other things work like a charm, its a Billion Dollar Industry. While this link is directed to a blog actual data can be purchased at links provided at the end.

Previously I mentioned that few characteristics I’ve seen in people that exhibit procrastination. The same people however have also exhibited hyper productivity at certain occasions. This was something ive noticed and the same reason why I believe that calling them lazy doesn’t do much justice to them or ourselves. Aim of this article is to understand the cause than the symptoms, because this affects us and we’re not aware of our own shortcomings.

I understand that its unrealistic to be hyper productive throughout your day or to eliminate procrastination all together. What i aim to do is to maximize what time we have at hand so we can get the most and the best out of our adult life.

These are the things I’ve identified as things that affect wellbeing.

Nutrition
Physical Activity
Psychological Wellbeing
Distraction by Design
Lack of Social Activities
Economic Circumstances
The Network Effect

1. Nutrition

There have been multiple researches linking mental activity with what food you eat, I’ve added links below under references, one from Ted-X and few other YouTube videos on this subject matter. In short summary you are what you eat. The food pyramid that we all know and learnt in school perhaps may not be the most accurate.

Its 2025, My summary would be to see what works for you, for me its to maintain a calorie deficit and reduce carbs increase minerals, fats and proteins, I hardly take coffee, but I’ve not gotten over my love of tea. Cutting alcohol and smoke helps a lot.

2. Physical Activity

This should be a no-brainer, our ancestors didn’t evolve to sit at a desk and type away at a computer. Do your best to get lot of walks, start with a small goal first.

Hit the Gym, even if its just once a week Your brain is an integrated part of your body, if your body is weak, your mind will be too. I’m not some fitness nut waking up 5am to go jogging. Just average dude working in IT making effort for daily improvements. Even if its once a week just go, you’ll get there. Fitness isn’t just six packs, its also mental clarity and healthy living. Its a lifestyle not an end goal.

3. Psychological Wellbeing

Exposure to Content

If you read, watch or listen to lot of depressing stuff its going to make you depressed. And here’s the catch, this includes lot of the advertising that’s circling these days.

I’ll give you an example.

You’ve probably been working out, lets say three times a week. You occasionally post it on social media or search it on your phone. One fine day you open instagram to check out what your friends are up to and bang! You’re hit with multiple ads telling you either you’re not making gains because you’re not using this x product. Look at these models with chiseled abs, this could be you if you use our app/product. Sounds familiar?

Lets look at this objectively

The models were probably doing workouts longer than you, and probably already had those abs before joining the said company.
Much of the before and after photos are misleading because they’re always photoshop/good lighting
Their lives depend on looking like baywatch models.

I’m not saying you can’t achieve those insane abs, but do you really want to spend the time, effort, energy on something that gives you marginal returns? Does it align with your long term goals? If you’re an athlete this makes perfect sense to spend 3-4 hours a day working out. But is that your priority? Getting some exercise is an absolute must, but family and friends are also important.

I am not encouraging you to be a couch potato and Netflix all day. Its absolutely necessary for humans to get exercise. But with the advent of the technology the need for such activities have gone down. We live in an age of hyper specialization. There’s a good book called Shift, you should read it.

It pains me to accept this, humans were not hyper specialists by nature but the Socio-economic climate we’ve created for ourselves compels us to do so. Also betting all your cash on one horse is not the best idea, but a one we have to put our trust upon.

Unrealistic Goals

Having long unrealistic goals can set you in a path to procrastination, instead of one big target set small achievable targets. This will build the momentum and keep you motivated. For example if the allocated task is to build a website for a client, and you’re the developer you could break it down to smaller tasks. Keep in mind you can’t do everything, so share the work with your team mates and have a discussion on sharing the work.

This works if your team and your boss are truly understanding individuals.

as the tasks get cleared up you and your team mates could see yourselves getting better at beating procrastination to non-existence

Another tip is to take regular breaks, I’m not sure what is your companies policy on these. But understand that the Human Attention Span is only 30 mins at maximum. (go cite this yourself, I’m lazy, there’s some citations at the end of the article).

When I started writing this TikTok didn’t exist, its crazy how long I’ve been sitting on this article. But I doubt the attention span has improved that much, probably gone down the drain with all the short form content.

The pomodoro technique (setting a tomato clock like for a kitchen oven, and working for 25 mins and then taking a 5 min break) is a good way to get started. But it didn’t suit me for certain cases. Lets say I’m working to solve a problem, and the problem is interesting enough that I get hooked on to it. At that point I don’t want to be interrupted. The work I am doing is important enough I’ll have a break when I need it, not when I’m forced to. This way I would have solved the problem once and for all.

Its 2025, I don’t do pomodoro, I mean, your brain isn’t exactly like an oven is it??? You can’t just set it and forget it.

Quality of sleep over quantity of sleep

There’s numerous Ted Talks and Research studies on how much sleep and when you should be sleeping. This is hard to come by if you’re working in IT (I can only speak for this industry). I use an app for sleep time calculation, there’s a lot of them.

this was good advice in 2018, now in 2025, you can get a smart watch or a smart ring to check your sleep quality. The apps themselves are smart enough to give you good recommendations to fix your sleep.

Increased Information Overload

Historically humans were never exposed to the amount of information that we do now, it is said that on a daily basis people nowadays are experiencing an entire load of information that a person in the did throughout an entire year in the past. Like the human attention span the mental will power is in limited reserves. This is why its important to manage the limited brain power power that you have throughout the day.

At the present moment 2025 I’m actually only using web apps for all Meta Apps. Any “Proper Apps” that I use are for productive reasons.

Read more books that help you become a better person and make more informed decisions. I find all my books on Good Reads. You’ll find curated lists made by others and summaries to describe them without spoiling the story for you. Has a handy star rating system as well.

This was good advice in 2018, but now good reads kinda feel dead and manipulative. Best choice right now go talk your nerd friends. They know good books.

Its better to consume content that are well crafted than simple reads like buzz feed gif articles. Go on feedly and subscribe to long reads. I have a separate article on how to get stated with feedly. Instead of Political tweets, read the long articles on politics. You’ll be less outraged and more informed.

The above links won’t work. I don’t use feedly anymore.

Learn the Keyboard shortcuts to your everyday Applications

Why spend precious time looking for items through the menus, write down the shortcuts and put it on a sticky next to your screen. After a while you won’t even need it.

I don’t watch TV

TV became irrelevant to me ever since History Channel started airing Aliens Built the Pyramids garbage. I still do watch content from YouTube. But this is fine tuned to my liking. Some DIY channels, documentaries, some are nature related, some artisanal or even more on the edgy entertainment side.

Why I recommend YouTube? Because its on demand, and you can get top quality content that would even make you think its made by BBC Production Crew (its not like the days the Pink Guy doing weird stunts got famous). And the Adverts are minimal.

I still don’t watch TV, I do if its a movie, otherwise just use a news app for the news.

Read a book before bed time (Just read more Books)

Better way to put it, read more books. Unlike the blogs such as the one you’re reading right now. Books have to go through lot of auditing, spellchecking and fact checking. You’ll likely find my blog to be filled with spelling and grammar mistakes enough to put a grammar nazi to paralysis state. This page was never meant for monetization so I wouldn’t’ bother much about it. Idea is less screen time is better for overall health.

I actually did a bit of spellchecking before posting this, maybe the grammar is still whack.

4. Distraction by Design

All products that we use are designed around the concept of “How do we get your attention, and how do we keep that attention”. This has been true for the realm of digital software, but not limited to that.

Just doing a quick web search can reveal that this has been the case for social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, they feed the content that confirm to our biases. This gets us hooked on to their platforms. From doggos to politics this is the reality that we face. The News headlines read out that our society is becoming increasingly polarized. This is true, because we are not consuming the same content, the content we consume are meticulously crafted to feed our egos. Feed our egos and we feed our own demise.

This was true then this stands true even now.

The phones all look the same, all product design guidelines are designs that make products scream BUY BUY BUY. From iPhones to Cars, we are faced with products that we don’t need, but told otherwise. Even the supermarkets are designed to make you buy more than what you came for. In down trend market economy this is expected. Avoiding or resisting these temptations will drain out our mental energy.

Don’t take the Trolley to the Super Market

Remember those days you just want to buy one thing, but end up buying random stuff you never needed. Yeah! So don’t take the trolley, just a recycle bag and just pick up the essentials. If you live close to the super market don’t drive. Just walk, you’ll notice a difference.

Take a Break

Its not obvious how much will power is drained from you on a daily basis. Just for the sake of clarity take a break from all the products around you and go for a vacation in somewhere far away. Keep a dumb phone with just enough GSM coverage for emergencies (Don’t worry you’re not missing out on anything). See what happens when you take a break from all these. Your motivation and productivity is restored to an all time high, this seems impossible but yet it happens.

Use a desk lamp for reading

Focused lighting will remove visibility from any and all attention grabbing items on your desk.

Turn off notifications on your phone

This one should be fairly straight forward, whenever you want to do focused task turn on airplane mode or don’t disturb mode (depending on availability). If it buzzes you’re going to spend too much time on the phone than you intended. The app will show you one notification, but there’s 8 more waiting your attention. Next thing you know you’re browsing memes. I think many of us can relate to this issue. So turn off your notifications.

“Don’t let the phone become the master

This also means no more calls during productive hours of your day. Calls can ruin the tone for the day depending on who you’re speaking to, depending on your Service Provider you can have automated call responders also called voice mail. Get that activated. If its a really important call they can leave a voice message at the end of the automatic response. Once you’re done with the work call your voicemail number (usually some thing like 111, long press #) and listen to them. You’re saving a lot of time.

Its 2025, my mobile provider no longer offers this for free, so using builtin Do not disturb is your best bet.

Get people to either message you or email you on one platform

Lets be honest once you come to a certain age and certain level of responsibilities it becomes difficult to maintain too many social media and messaging apps. It also eats up your storage on the phone, this is the space you should keep for your personal memories either photos or videos. Back in the day I used almost every social media app that came out, I was on them all. Now I’ve cut down to Whatsapp (Pretty easy to convince everyone to get on board), Instagram (I happen to like Good quality photos) and Facebook Messenger (I don’t use the main app, refer to point no 1). I have also removed snapchat.

Start making calls instead of messages

My generation has few fears prevalent and getting a phone call is one of them. This one you really should get over. Services like google hangouts and whatsapp can cost next to nothing if you got 5GB or more data plan (I envy you lots with Unlimited Data). Unlike a message thread its quick and straight to the point, no need to beat around the bush. I for one have started to appreciate those who call over text. There are psychological reasons why hearing a persons voice could help you understand them better, so there is less margin for potential miscommunication.

This is the other important thing we just overlook. I’ve seen enough Gary Vee videos, the guy says eat shit for 5 years and caviar for the rest of your life. Again, how practical is this? If you’re building a business or building a career its equally important to have a balanced lifestyle. Your mindset is your business, if your mind is frail so is your business.

So I’ve highlighted lot of the underlying reasons why the current social and economic conditions may be affecting your productivity, I should mention these are mostly external things that are out of your control. So start with the simple things that you can control.

Make new friends, go out and meet new people. Create culture. Don’t just passively consume culture.

6. Economic Circumstances

No matter how hard you work, the things you want, may be miles away.

This is certainly the case in the downward economic times and the added debt burden on the individuals. Bad economics can hurt mental wellbeing. The issue is cyclical and has affected an entire demographics of people. You could argue that things will get even worse in 2019 as more adults members of the Baby Boomer and Gen X enter the retirement age. This will push the panic button on the wall street as more of them begin to cash out on their equities holdings. The current millennial generation are entering the work force with the highest debt in all the generations that have come and gone. The reduced spending habits of these millennials means that lot of them won’t be buying up over priced equites. The retirees cashing out on their retirement funds could blow up the entire equity bubble. Again I can only speculate on what I see. I do not have access to 1000+ /Month USD analytics services. So you too should do your own fundamental research.

Its 2025, things haven’t gotten any better. I’ve been in Sri Lanka. We survived COVID, Economic Collapse, Terror Attacks. We’re still here. WE BALL.

As I see it there are two ways to deal/prepare for this

Re-evaluate your needs and wants
Have a financial plan

When you’re better prepared there’s less mental stress on you, so you can maintain your mental clarity. Losing your mental wellbeing over finances is a sure way to lose your motivation to work. Lack of productive output would lead to further demise of your own personal finances. The reality is grim, we will likely not enjoy the economic freedoms of the generations before us, and might even have to work harder to maintain the lifestyles we have.

Its 2025, called it then. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m just a guy who’s been through the same sh.

7. The Network Effect

There’s a saying You’re the average of the 5 people you hangout with. This is true in the work place as well. If you’re surrounded by people who are not productive, supportive or toxic. You will likely end up being the same.

Work Culture

Something I noticed in the work culture is we tend to reward those who stay behind in office for longer hours than those who work effectively to get the work done and leave early. While it implies that the person is working hard to the bosses, the reality could be quite different. This is a collection of different issues piled up that deserves to be written in a separate article.

But the main point I would like to emphasis is, people seek out employment not always because of their passion for the said career, but for acquiring the financial means for getting their actual passions fulfilled. For example you don’t need to be passionate about frozen yogurt to work in the industry. But it helps to have a interest towards the work you do. But passion is not a good excuse, companies have long used this word to damage long term health of their employees. In the social media and work culture over working is celebrated as a virtue, at the expense of the employees health for the profit of the shareholders. Should this continue further things would go downhill for lot of people. Even for the shareholders.

Passionate or not, over working is one way to kill your motivation. In a nutshell the work culture can affect levels of procrastination a person will exhibit. There isn’t much you can do as an individual at this point, you could attempt to raise the concern and get the team to actively acknowledge and improve each other or an open discussions with your team leaders might help you with this.