How Procrastination Causes You To Work Harder

When people procrastinate, they do it in an effort to avoid an unpleasant or less desirable task they want to avoid doing.  They think that if they avoid doing that task, it will be easier to complete the project they are working on.  In truth, procrastination only makes you work harder to accomplish the project you are trying to complete.

When you procrastinate, you lose valuable time because you slow yourself down in an effort to avoid the unpleasant or less desirable task you wish to avoid.  You cause yourself to slow down on a part of the project that you could be doing a lot quicker and still do at a high level.  Due to the fact that you are slowing yourself down on a more desirable task of the project, you take away time you will likely need to complete the less desirable task of the project.

Giving yourself less time to handle the less desirable task of the project is not a good habit to get into.  It’s likely that this less desirable task will need more of your focus and concentration in order to do it well.  Therefore, it’s likelier you will need more time to complete this part of the project.  The fact you subtracted time from the overall project because of your procrastination will lead you to work faster on this less desirable part of the project in an effort to make up for the lost time and still meet the project completion deadline.

As a result, you will be less able to take breaks away from the work because you procrastinated on an easier, more enjoyable portion of the project.  This means you’ll have to work even harder and faster on this less enjoyable portion of the project in order to meet your deadline, or you will miss your deadline, which can cause damage to your reputation, credibility, and profitability.  

Chances are high that you will also produce lower-quality work on this less enjoyable portion of the project, and the project in whole as a result, because you have to work harder and faster on this portion of the project.  

As you can see, procrastination doesn’t help to make your project easier or go more smoothly; on the contrary, it causes you to have to work harder, faster, and fewer breaks than if you avoid procrastination and work diligently throughout the whole project so that you can spend a roughly equal amount of time on each portion of the project, have optimal focus on each portion, and produce your best work for each portion of the project.