How to Overcome Procrastination While Developing Your Business?

Postponing is a strange overwhelming feeling that everyone experiences, but identifying the underlying causes may not be easy.

Note: This article is based on the work of entrepreneur Aytekin Tank, who tells us about his experience in overcoming procrastination.

Procrastination leads to delays in performing activities that will bring people closer to their goals, whether about opening a project or building a sports body, so why do people refrain from seeking a prosperous future financially or enjoying a lean body?

What do scientific studies say?

Scientific studies have been abundant on procrastination over the past 20 years, and scientists used to view it as a time mismanagement problem. Still, now they view it as a unique and complex phenomenon.

“True procrastination is a complex failure of self-regulation,” author Eric Jaffe writes in the Observer. Experts define it as voluntarily putting off some essential task we intend to do, despite knowing the consequences. However, misunderstanding the idea of time may exacerbate the problem, but the core of the trouble lies in the inability to manage emotions.

Greek philosophers used the word "Akrasia" to describe the situation in which a person behaves in an act inconsistent with their interest. Based on this term, the author James Clear believes that everyone has a personality that focuses attention on the moments of the present and seeks to obtain an immediate sense of satisfaction.

Another personality focuses attention on the future and seeks to obtain long-term results." Clear wrote: "When the time comes to make a decision, you do not make the decision that concerns the personality that cares about the future, as you are now in the moments of the present, and your mind is busy thinking about your personality that cares about these moments."

Personal Motivation

Back in 2006, I had a hard time waking up early, and when the alarm went off at five in the morning, I always asked myself, “Should I stay in bed or get up and spend a few hours doing my project?”

I was working as a programmer for a media company based in New York City, and at the same time, building my own company, JotForm. I learned a lot about myself while working full-time scaling a startup and avoiding procrastination.

I began to think about why I was late completing specific tasks, and once I identified the main reason, I was able to plan to regain my productivity. This method may seem simple, but most tips do not care to dig deeper into the root cause of the problem. Instead, society usually teaches people to overcome the desire to postpone by simply resisting it.

The “just do it” approach can work sometimes, but not always. If you constantly avoid specific tasks, there is a fundamental and strangely enough reason behind it. It is often personal.

Factors that are likely to be behind your procrastination

Here are four factors that are likely to be behind your procrastination, along with some ideas that can help you counteract each of them:

1. Making progress does not seem to be fast enough

Think about the last time you started your own business. You may have been overwhelmed by the excitement of the challenge, and after two months or a few years, you felt your enthusiasm fade, you may have been frustrated or a little bored, and you were in conflict with time as well as with your body's hormones.

Dopamine is often described as a reward hormone for the brain and can be activated when you hear your smartphone ring or eat a plate of pasta. Still, new research shows that dopamine is more closely linked to diligent behavior in getting a reward than the reward itself.

When your brain encounters something new, it releases dopamine, which in turn motivates you to look forward to a reward, but when it gets a bit old, your motivation recedes when your mind gets caught up in the thought that your hard work is not rewarded and it's no longer fun.

The attention-focused personality of the present moment and its need for instant gratification makes it challenging for you even to open the spreadsheet again or drives you to continue making a frustrating mockery of your product's advantage.

BJ Fogg, a behavioral scientist at Stanford University, suggests that you can address low dopamine levels by working on small wins and celebrating every critical event. According to Fogg, each task should be accompanied by a simple stimulus.

Imagine that you want to create an online course. You can commit to writing a paragraph after each time you drink a glass of water and then continue this stimulating behavior throughout the day.

Once the job is done, it's time for a small celebration where you can listen to your favorite song, take a little walk, or read a great book. Repeat this process until you reach your goal. Small gains reward your thirsty mind for renewal and motivate you to reach the finish line. It also creates a powerful feedback loop that can finally eliminate the need for motivation.

2. Don't know where to start

It's normal to feel overwhelmed by the rapid developments in the world, and the seemingly endless list of tasks makes you feel like there's no good place to start. Unfortunately, distraction usually leads people indirectly to evade missions by busying themselves with non-significant activities, such as reading emails or browsing social networking sites.

Business founders are more likely to experience these feelings because there is no clear path forward. If you are like the rest of the entrepreneurs, you can carry huge responsibilities and suffer from the congestion of your agenda.

In talking with my fellow entrepreneurs, I learned that it is normal to feel suspicious, especially when starting something new. Constantly remind yourself that it is normal not to always have the answers and allow yourself to begin wherever you can.

Brainstorming solutions with friends, mentors, or advisors can help you prioritize more clearly, find people who are not stressed by the demands of everyday business and can usually help you realize where you can better invest your time and what you can delegate to someone else.

Putting systems can also break procrastination. My family owns a small olive farm. Every year, I join them in the annual harvest. The whole process is very orderly, as everyone is familiar with each process step, which makes procrastination almost impossible.

3. Fear of failure

Founders love to chant “fail fast, fail often” as a form of bravado, but most are afraid of making the wrong decisions.

On a recent visit to Silicon Valley, author Rob Asghar spoke to one of the incredibly honest founders, who asked to remain anonymous: “A lot of people here talk about accepting failure. Still, it is usually a form of propaganda.”

Some are too afraid to fail to postpone what is essential, and others can postpone launch dates, miss completion dates, or overemphasize small details instead of issuing a trial version. I am not immune to falling into the trap of postponement as well.

I suffered from an obsession with perfectionism during the first days of my work. We might have grown faster. Still, I was an experienced founder. I did not have a board of investors to monitor every move. When I was afraid, I could not be hard on myself and move on.

Joseph Ferrari, an assistant professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, calls people who experience fear based on postponement “evaders,” "whether they avoid failure or success, they are worried about the opinions of others. They would prefer people to think they are remiss than lack ability."

4. Dissatisfaction with the task

Some activities can lack fun, as few people enjoy going to the dentist's office, paying taxes, or going to government departments, and starting a business requires many activities that are more than boring, but when many developments must be followed up, who wants to spend time preparing bills?

This is probably the most familiar form of procrastination, as people put off rigid, boring, and uninspired tasks they don't want to deal with.

“At one point, we were all convinced, without realizing it, that the feeling of motivation and effectiveness stemmed from the feeling that we were about to take a certain action,” wrote social psychologist Heidi Grant.

Grant suggests that instead of waiting for what motivates us to happen, we could implement a mechanism called “conditional planning”. First, identify the steps required to accomplish the task, and then the most critical step is to determine when and where you will start acting, and tell yourself, for example, “At 10 am, I will close my email and start looking for design agencies.”

The execution of the previous operation does not require willpower, which is essential because the lack of willpower in the traditional sense may lead you to postpone things in the first place, as Grant recommends the need to accept your limited determination and use conditional planning as a backup tool to avoid procrastination.

In conclusion

Each of us has our own motives, goals, and personality, so it makes sense that each of us has different reasons for postponing things. Once you understand what is stopping you, finding the best solution becomes easier.

So, ignore the other tricks and do not worry if the advice of experts does not produce good results. In the end, the most important is to know yourself, try and adhere to what suits you, and know that everyone has faced the same challenge, from the ancient Greeks wise to the founders of startups in Silicon Valley.