Procrastination Part II

by Lisa Philippart, Licensed Professional Counselor

and social environment. It’s not all in your head! If you struggle with chronic procrastination, take some time to think deeply about the environment in which you keep procrastinating. What could you remove from your environment that would make it easier to start working and stay focused? Sometimes it is just a matter of adding something to your pre-work routine that would make it easier to get started. Or, there may be people in your life who distract you or pull you away from following through on your commitments. Look for people in your life who help you focus and do good work. There may be small ways you could make doing your work easier or more enjoy- able. Do you have appropriate lighting? Could you use aromatherapy? Would instrumental music help you focus and/or relax? You may also seek alternative times or places where you could experiment with doing your work. If you think carefully, I can all but guarantee that some relatively simple solutions will present themselves. But that doesn’t mean that those solutions will be easy. Here’s an example: Suppose you realize that you’d probably procrastinate less on your goal of exercising more if you had a small home gym in your garage. It would be simpler and less time consuming to try to get in a workout regularly. However, making enough room in your cluttered garage might require a lot of work, including a difficult conversation with your partner about how much stuff to hang on to! Your environment matters...a lot. And if you’ve struggled with chronic procrastination for a while, and tried lots of other things without much success, it’s entirely possible that what you really need is a significant change in your surroundings. So, get out of your head, and change your environment instead!

Lisa Philippart is a Licensed Professional Counselor, providing mental health services through her own private practice in Madison, Alabama.