‘Ask yourself this question, do you want to be rich?’ the Pet Shop Boys sang in their hit single Opportunities – Let’s Make Lots of Money.
But you will have to ask yourselves not one but four questions if you want to defeat procrastination, a common stumbling block to success.
These questions are striking in their lucidity and import. According to the BBC, they were deduced by Australian psychologist Jason Wessel as part of his PhD at Griffith University in Australia. Go over them every time you feel lazy about completing a task.
“If you notice that you are always putting stuff off, they could be a good way of checking your behaviour,” says Wessel, who has also designed an app for diet goals called ‘Contemplate’.
A simplistic definition of procrastination is laziness. But it also has far-reaching implications on mental and physical health.
The BBC wrote that according to the temporal motivation theory, there are four interlinked causes of procrastination. Cause no. 1 is 'expectancy'. People underestimate their abilities to perform a task, which dampens motivation.
Cause no. 2 is 'sensitivity to delay', or the lack of. Procrastinators do not fully appreciate the impact of their tardiness on deadlines and projects.
Cause No. 3 is failing to appreciate the value of the task and the benefits of getting it done on time. Instead, we fall prey to the instant gratification of distractions and forget the long-term consequences of such actions.
Cause No. 4, Wessel says, is that we lack ‘metacognition’, the self-awareness and ability to analyse our own thinking, which would allow us to eliminate harmful behaviours.
Normally, people look for answers to their problems. In this case, the answers lie in the four questions mentioned above.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
