Why you should not do things you love while Procrastinating.

Disclaimer: This article is not about “Overcoming Procrastination”. I love doing anything but stuff that is important for my life and goals, and somehow realized that focusing on the things you love doing ( like just lying down for hours doing nothing) can actually make you get the important stuff done.

I am a Data guy and I love doing analysis. I analyze myself, the people around me (without being judgemental), and pretty much everything that happens around me.

Along with this, I am a huge Procrastinator. If there were a certification available for Procrastinating, that would have been added to my LinkedIn profile.

I recently realized something powerful and believe it will benefit others as well, so I decided to share it with you all.

The Situation:

1. I procrastinate a lot.
2. I do stuff at the last minute, correction, the last second.
3. While delaying the things I need to do, I do things that I like doing.
4. The things I like doing include watching some TV Series and Movies which I have already watched many times because I love them and I like rewatching them. Along with this I love going out for drinks with my friends and even just lying down doing nothing but doing deep thinking sessions about the most random and useless things.

The Problem:

1. Slowly and steadily, a feeling of discomfort and guilt started building up whenever I did things I loved.
2. I want to watch those series and movies. I want to go out for drinks, BUT now every time I did those stuff, I felt guilty and couldn’t enjoy them as much as I could earlier.
3. In the back of my mind, something keeps bothering me and I am not able to enjoy those moments.

I gave it a lot of thought and here is what I realized

The Analysis:

1. When I was procrastinating or delaying important work, I had those feelings of guilt and discomfort in me, because I know the work that I am putting off, is actually very important.
2. Now, I kept putting off important things and kept on doing the things I like doing and the feelings of guilt kept merging with the things I love doing.
3. My brain mapped things I like to do with feelings of guilt, discomfort, and uneasiness.

Now, even if I did not have any important pending work, I still could not enjoy the things I liked doing.

I am not a psychologist and have not googled these things as well, but realized this based on the data of my own life and you could do it too.

Advice:

1. Try to map the situations and problems I mentioned above and analyze if you also have such a pattern.
2. I realized, while putting off important things that we know we need to do because of their importance to our future and goals, we should not be doing the things we love doing.
3. Instead, have a realization about how this is impacting your life, how you are not able to enjoy those things you love doing even when you don’t have any pending work.
4. This can give you the pump you need to even overcome procrastination and get stuff done.
5. Also, you will notice that now you are able to enjoy the things you love doing even more like have never experienced before without any feelings of discomfort at the back of your mind.

So basically, if you love doing nothing and want to keep enjoying doing nothing, you need to finish the things that you know are important for your life and future goals, however, dull they may be.

Ciao.