Precrastination: What It Is, Causes, Examples, And How This Problem Affects Us
In recent years the word “procrastinate” has gone viral. This refers to the act of leaving something important for later, whether due to laziness or anxiety. It is not a good strategy because, by making things pile up, the only thing we will achieve is having to do them at the last minute full of stress.
One might think that doing things as soon as possible is healthy. It is true that for many things it is better to have them ready as soon as possible, but what if rushing means as much stress, loss of time and energy as procrastination?
The time has come to talk about the other side of the coin, the twin brother of procrastination: precrastination
Everyone is familiar with procrastination, the bad habit of postponing tasks that we know we should do as soon as possible, the temptation to leave for later something that we know that, if we postpone it further, it will cause us more stress and work in the long run. term. Procrastinating implies suffering and loss of productivity, so one would think that the opposite, that is, doing tasks as soon as possible, would be healthy and positive. Actually, that can be equally or more harmful than procrastination itself. We talk about precrastination.
Precrastination occurs when We strive and hurry to have our chores done as soon as possible, before what is really necessary This translates into, for example, answering all emails, even the least important ones, as soon as we get up in the morning; Take the pasta out of the saucepan before it is done or remove the tea bag before it has infused the water with its flavor. Precrastinating is doing things ahead of time for the simple desire of wanting to have things done sooner.
This term is relatively new, although the phenomenon behind it has always existed and surely everyone has precrastinated at some point in their life. “Precrastination” is a word coined by the research group of psychology professor David Rosenbaum in a study published in 2014. According to him, precrastination can be defined as the tendency to do tasks as soon as possible, even if it means having to do more work, wasting more time or incurring extra costs which, if we had waited a little, would not have happened.
Rosenbaum, along with his colleagues Lanyun Gong and Cory Adam Potts, were able to study this phenomenon in a series of experiments. In their study they asked students to walk down an alley along which they would find two buckets full of water, at different distances from the end. The task was to walk through the alley without stopping, taking one of the two cubes and leaving it when reaching the end of the route. They had complete freedom to choose the bucket of water they wanted.
Despite being given the option of taking either of the two cubes, the trend observed was that the majority of students preferred to take the first cube they found, even if that meant having to travel a greater distance carrying it and, therefore, , greater effort. When asked why they chose the first cube, most students responded, “because I wanted to finish the task as soon as possible.”
The conclusion that Rosenbaum and company reached was that, by picking up the first cube, their experimental subjects felt relief by mentally crossing off the task of picking up the cube. When making the decision of which cube to take, The mental overload that comes with having that issue pending and unresolved was an obstacle when choosing the most efficient option, which was to take the cube closest to the goal so as not to spend so much time carrying it. They chose to work harder instead of working smarter.
Everyday examples of precrastination
Precrastination is a more common problem than many people think It is something that humanity has done throughout its history. We have all precrastinated at some point, the thing is that since this phenomenon had not yet received a name, it has gone unnoticed for a long time. Here we talk about some everyday examples of precrastination:
Shopping at the supermarket inefficiently
Many people go to the supermarket with a shopping list made, which is always recommended. One of the most common things is to load the shopping cart as we go through the aisles, instead of making several trips to pick up each item. At first this would make sense and could even be seen as something logical, however, becomes a problem depending on the type of product
For example, if the water section turns out to be the first as soon as we enter the supermarket and we have to carry four 5 L jugs, picking them up first is a sign of precrastination. We take them to cross them off the list as soon as possible, but without realizing that it would have been best to take them last because they weigh a lot, and now we are going to carry them all the time.
Another example would be frozen foods. If we have to buy frozen foods and it turns out that their section is near the entrance, picking them up as soon as we enter the supermarket is not worth it at all. As they are frozen, the longer we carry them with us, the more risk we run of the cold chain breaking and them going bad, so the ideal is to pick them up just before checking out.
Another example of precrastination is having a list of tasks and starting by doing the simplest ones as soon as we get up. We behave this way because it feels great to cross off tasks that are easy to do, because It feels like we’re being productive
The problem is that we are dedicating time and energy to unimportant tasks, while we should be investing them in the more complex ones, especially in the morning when we usually have the most energy. Leaving the most difficult things for the afternoon can be a problem because, perhaps, we no longer have energy and we do those tasks much worse.
What are the causes of precrastination?
Ironically, the root cause of precrastination is the same as that of procrastination: get rid of an unpleasant emotion
Let’s focus for a moment on procrastination, with “O.” If we pay attention, what causes us to procrastinate is usually accompanied by a strong and uncomfortable emotion. It could be anxiety, boredom, shame… whatever it is, it’s something we don’t like to feel. And, precisely, leaving tasks for later is a good way to temporarily get rid of negative emotions. In other words, when we procrastinate, we are making a decision based on what makes us feel good at that moment instead of thinking about what is our most beneficial long-term interest.
In precrastination, with “E”, a very similar, almost identical process occurs. The difference is that in this case anxiety, boredom or shame, among other emotions, They arise from the feeling of not having the tasks done and that they should be done as soon as possible, even if that means greater effort or cost. The goal is to stop feeling anxiety or other negative emotions. So, as with procrastination, precrastination involves making a decision based on what would make us feel better in that moment instead of thinking about what would interest or benefit us in the long term.
But, added to the main cause of precrastination, we can observe other common causes that explain why people often do a task sooner than would be ideal.
1. Cheap satisfaction
Science has seen that We tend to get more intense pleasure when we complete small, easy-to-achieve tasks with fixed deadlines, than the most important but of greater difficulty and unclear duration. It is more addictive to do simple and quick things than uncomplicated and slow things because the former generate almost immediate pleasure.
Throughout our evolutionary history as a species, pursuing things that were easy and within reach had more advantages than putting them off for long-term rewards. The primitive human being lived in a hostile world, in which he was in danger at the slightest, so giving up immediate benefit could mean choosing to die
For example, exploring a dark cave to see if there is any food doesn’t sound so good when you think about the possibility that you might encounter a bear that will kill you. Nor would it make much sense to embark on a long trip to look for a place with more food if you are not sure that you will find it.
Because our brains were subjected to these circumstances over thousands of years of evolution and we have only been in a relatively safe world for a couple hundred years, putting off the easy, immediately rewarding little things goes against our survival instinct.
You may be interested: “The 3 types of procrastination, and tips to stop postponing tasks”
3. Time management and energy management
Many people are raised to think about work and productivity in terms of proper time management For example, if a student only has an hour to take an exam, it may seem like it makes sense to start with the easier questions and then move on to the more complex ones. However, the smartest strategy is usually knowing how to better manage energy, not time.
For example, and related to one of the examples we mentioned before, if we are people with more energy in the morning than in the afternoon, it makes more sense to do the most complex tasks as soon as we get up. If, on the other hand, we are more productive in the afternoon, it is better to leave simple tasks for when we do not have as much energy or time.
4. Meticulousness
People who tend to be more diligent, attentive, and hardworking tend to precrastinate more than they procrastinate If you have a general rule of doing things the sooner the better, it is easier to start doing them early without stopping to consider whether it is worth the effort and time as much as other tasks.
Being conscientious and getting the job done as quickly as possible is generally a positive trait. However, it can become problematic if it is not controlled or if tasks are done sooner than they should and therefore one is not being intelligent with energy or time management.
