“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” In a fantasy world, this proverb might seem easy to apply, but in the real world, it's a lot harder. Whether it is sending expense reports, filing paperwork that has been sitting on a shelf for months, or simply moving a project forward, we are all prone to procrastination. But is this inevitable? Or could we overcome procrastination at work by putting some good methods into practice?

Read on to find the answers. (Today, not tomorrow.)

What exactly is procrastination at work?

Procrastination is defined as behaviour that makes us put off accomplishing an action. It often manifests itself as thoughts such as “I’ll do it tomorrow”, “I’m more efficient at the last minute, it can wait”. According to Albert Moukheiber, a doctor of neuroscience and psychologist, procrastination is not a lack of willpower. It is different to laziness and slothfulness because the intention is good, but taking action is the hard part. How do we explain that?

Researcher Piers Steel put his grey cells to work to try to understand this phenomenon. His work resulted in the motivation equation: Motivation = expectancy x value / impulsiveness x delay. According to this theory, there are 3 parts to procrastination:

• Expectancy: confidence in your ability to accomplish the task in question;
• Value: the interest you take in accomplishing the task. This is basically asking whether the reward meets your expectations;
• Delay: will the reward come sooner or later?

The more we lack self-confidence, the less desirable and long awaited the end reward, the more tempted we are to procrastinate.

Are we all procrastinators at work?

Again, according to the Piers Steel study , 95% of humans procrastinate, but only 20% are chronic procrastinators. Is there a neurological explanation? An environmental one? Well, yes. Let’s start with the neurological explanation. Since Homo Sapiens exists, our brains tend to prefer the pleasure circuit. We are programmed to seek immediate pleasure rather than face a difficult task, even if that task will offer greater pleasure when it is done.

A study published in Psychological Science showed that the size of the cerebral amygdala (a cluster of grey matter located in the temporal lobe that plays a role in decision-making) is larger in procrastinators. Why is that? They would appear to be more concerned about the unpleasant emotions caused by the vision of an aversive action.

With the advent of ****social media and the internet, an environmental dimension has been added. Distractions interfere with our work and they are always close to hand. This increases the temptation to be deflected from our professional goals. Diane Ballonad Rolland, author of the book “ Stop procrastinating” explains that procrastination has increased by 300% in 40 years and the main reason is in our pockets: our smartphones. They offer access to any amount of pleasure in just a few clicks. In other words, it just became easier and faster to procrastinate.

The development of remote working has not helped. The home is a hotbed of distractions. Staying focused on tasks can require extra effort from a person who tends to procrastinate easily.

Finally, perfectionists will also tend to postpone difficult tasks, because the thought of an imperfect result makes them anxious.

Is the battle to overcome procrastination a lost cause?

Now that we have laid out these explanations, the answer seems obvious: it is impossible to put a stop to procrastination. To prove it, a study reported on by Desktime, software that can monitor activity, showed that the average duration of perfect concentration varies between 1 hour and 90 minutes. After this length of time, we rest our brain by indulging in small pleasures: a chat at the coffee machine, browsing your Instagram feed, messaging a friend, thinking about what you would like for dinner. The study adds that this session can be repeated 2 to 3 times a day for the best performers. In other words, we can envisage at best about 3 to 4 hours of complete focus in one working day.

This explains why some experts question the traditional “9 to 5”working model. Hoping that employees will remain focussed and productive, in a state of action for a whole day, is a lie that arose from the industrial revolution of work organisation.

However, if procrastination behaviours cannot be permanently suppressed, they can be reduced at work by adopting the right techniques.

4 solutions to put in place to procrastinate less at work

Solution 1: The chunking technique

The most famous ant-procrastination technique is chunking. It involves breaking the task into bite-sized chunks or stages. To do this, you have to visualise the process, the things you need to do to reach the final goal. We often take the example of climbing Mount Everest or the famous proverb “Rome wasn’t built in a day ” to illustrate this technique.

By breaking down your task into small pieces, action becomes easier. With each step you complete, you reward your brain, and quickly. Chunking is therefore a great way to reduce the gap between the will to do and the action itself.

Solution 2: Organise your activity according to your personality

Do you have several irons in the fire? Are your days are so busy that you barely know where to start? You may feel that if you are drowning in work and projects, you are in constant action. Not necessarily. In fact, the opposite effect can happen. The weight of your workload paralyses you, leading to procrastination. To get you started, one solution is to effectively plan your tasks and projects taking your personality into account.

To learn how to get organised, you can do the following:

• Order of priority: try this is you are someone who responds well to working under time pressure. If you are organised in nature and plan your projects on a daily basis, this way of ordering your work will not suit you.
• Order of ease: this is ideal if you have recurring thoughts like “I’m never going to make it” or “it’s too hard.” These thoughts promote procrastination because the difficulty of the task makes you more anxious than stimulated.
• Order of motivation: favour this if you are sensitive to the interest you have in the project/task to be carried out regardless of its urgency and/or difficulty.

Solution 3: Schedule time slots for procrastination

If procrastination is basically a natural form of behaviour, why not schedule moments of procrastination in your working day? These planned distraction times offer several advantages:

• You improve your patience. Through repetition of this technique, waiting until the allotted time slot will become easier;
• You feel less guilty about procrastinating. Knowing that your concentration time is limited makes it easier to accept a few minutes of distractions;
• You increase your productivity. Engaging in a different activity (e.g. reading this article) or interacting with a colleague who works in another department can also be good, especially when you encounter a complex problem and need to be creative! During these moments, you feed your curiosity and knowledge, and when you take a step back from your work, you can find solutions and increase productivity. For example, a study conducted by Francesca Gino, a behavioural professor at Harvard Business School revealed that curiosity prevents us from falling into the trap of confirmation bias (looking for information that supports our beliefs). We make fewer mistakes and better decisions.

Solution 4: Ride the wave of being “in the zone”

Being in the zone at work is characterised by pleasure and motivation, accompanied by total focus on the tasks in hand. In these moments, your focus (and therefore your productivity) is at its peak. So when it happens, why not let it continue if you can, even if you had planned something else (e.g. take a late lunch, postpone a non-urgent task)?

To sum up, we all procrastinate to a greater or lesser degree at work. As long as it does not become chronic, there is no need to worry. By implementing these techniques, you should be able to tame and limit this behaviour!