Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
Coping with Anxiety Through Procrastination
In "slider's CI 9:15 pm--more relaxed" on Tuesday, August 15th, I wrote:
"You know, the taxes were amping up my anxiety level to sky high. I'm allergic to anxiety. It drives me nuts. I know lots of people who live their whole life full of anxiety--and I don't know how they can stand it. (In case of extreme anxiety, I shut down into severe depression just to stop feeling anxious!) In fact, part of my procrastination is clearly about avoiding the things that make me anxious. It's about escapism from things I don't like and don't want to face lots of the time (I manage to do all five kinds of procrastination, though). Examining myself while going through this anxiety helped me face it and get through it--but it also elicited all kinds of squirrely behavior. Hmm. Guess I will have to show a little more sympathy to all the high-strung, annoying and, yes, squirrely people I deal with!"
I wonder how often this is the payoff for our procrastination--avoiding things we are afraid of? I've seen little snippets about this here and there in people's posts. Does anyone know whether some kind of anxiety management reduces procrastination, too?
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Anxiety
Anxiety is definitely a part of my procrastination. The things I avoid most are things I'm very anxious about. Sometimes I've tried a little relaxation routine or deep breathing to help calm me before tackling a nasty task. Seems to help somewhat.
Anxiety and "The Now Habit"
In "The Now Habit," Neil Fiore suggests that procrastination is often triggered by anxiety -- basically, procrastination is an anxiety-avoidance behavior. At least in my case, I think he's right.
We all have things to do, and when those things make us anxious, we try to get away from the anxiety instead of working through it to get those things finished and relieve the anxiety more permanently.
We end up with even more anxiety, because we haven't done the things which made us anxious in the first place, and we soon add the anxiety that we will be found out as procrastinators! Breaking that cycle means changing our habits -- in the ways we act and the ways we think.
For those who haven't read "The Now Habit," I recommend it. There is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book available in the Yahoo Group linked in my signature.
--
flexiblefine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNowHabit/
Happy Birthday for the 15th!
:)
reading files
Hey, flexiblefine, I clicked on the link and joined the yahoo group so I could read those files, but I can't read them--they don't wrap/unwrap right (I don't know which it is--but the lines are WAY to long to read readily). Any suggestions?
"Now Habit" summary text files
Those are just plain text files. If you save the files and then open them in a text editor (like Notepad), they should work fine for you.
Thank you for letting me know about this -- I'll revise the files and put in carriage returns so the files are easy to read for everyone.
--
flexiblefine
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheNowHabit/
some truth in this for me
Sometimes when I procrastinate it's from anxiety about the task I'm avoiding. Sometimes it's my soul saying I need to be doing something different with my life. Most times (for me), it's demand resistance.
Procrastination is a complex problem because it can be caused by so many things - even within the same person.
I have "The Now Habit", but never read it. I'll get around to it.
Now Habit Summary
i have the summary - want it?
who wrote the summary?
Who wrote the summary of "The Now Habit". I need someone to reassure me it was written by the person who posted it here, otherwise I have to delete it. I'm responsible for what's posted here, and I'd be the one who'd get sued for copyright infringement.
TuiT
What does this mean???
It's a "round tuit", of course...
You've heard the expression "I'll get around to it". Well, this is a round tuit. :)
Of course!
Duh! :P
Tuit Towoo
...which I guess is InTuiTively obvious when you think about it.
inTUITively - that's good!
:)
Cause or Effect?
I think that procrastination is definitely connected with anxiety, but sometimes I think procrastination is a symptom of anxiety, sometimes vice versa. Sometimes it's a vicious circle, with each feeding the other.