The Solution

The key findings for techniques to control problematic procrastination were found to be quite specific depending on the type of procrastinating occurring. Approximately 65.5% of survey applicants were interested in learning techniques to control their procrastination. The majority of these people believed that “getting work done more effectively” was their biggest motivation for learning techniques to control their procrastination.

Self-doubt can be controlled by not tolerating the negative behaviour of putting oneself down. One must learn to rate themselves, not by how others see them but how they see themselves. They must also treat every task individually and not rely on their ego to complete every task. One must only consider society's opinions and compare them to their own personal behaviour. This will allow adjustments to be made based on the behaviour that is working and is most beneficial. Undesirable behaviour which causes problematic procrastination can be removed by rating oneself highly when one stops doing that particular behaviour. Over time, this technique allows all of this negative behaviour to be removed. (Albert Ellis & William J Knaus,1977) (William J Knaus,1979)

Low Frustration Tolerance is often caused by a lack of motivation. Hence, those who are experiencing LFT will find that the motivation technique will allow them to maximise their efficiency. Using behavioural methods one can reinforce themselves by rewarding themselves after healthy procrastination and punishing themselves after problematic procrastination. Alisha Dalton elaborated by saying “...the mind will adapt to the positive and negative reinforcements which will lead to less procrastination, every time.” This motivation allows short-term benefits to be present as well as the original long term benefits which will help end LFT related problematic procrastination. Teenagers can reward themselves by purchasing clothes or taking short breaks. It is important to note that positive reinforcements work better than negative reinforcements. Therefore, teenagers may take away something enjoyable that they would normally do (such as watch a television show) as a form of punishment and negative reinforcements.(Albert Ellis & William J Knaus,1977) (University of California,unknown date) (charlieissocoollike, 2011)

Organising your schedule and prioritising your tasks will allow more time to be freed for other tasks. It also allows work to be distributed over a period of time, keeping stress levels to a minimum. People often classify time-consuming tasks as hard and put them off as they “take too much time to compete”. This is very likely to lead to problematic procrastination. One may divide a task into smaller tasks will result in manageable tasks being completed which will contributed to the entire task overall. It is also recommended that one keeps a to-do-list that prioritises tasks based on their importance and difficulty levels. One would then complete and tick-off each task, effectively allowing one to feel a sense of accomplishment. It is vital that the any developed organisational system is regularly updated. (University of California,unknown date) (Pick the Brain Editor,2012) (Arina Nikitina,2009) (Mary Eule Scarborough,2007)

When it comes to completing a task one must tell themselves that the level of perfection “DOESN’T MATTER!”. The most important thing to do is to complete the current task at hand at the level that one is able to. Refinements and alterations will come naturally as one practices the task and implements new skills and techniques into the same task next time. Once perfectionism is addressed it is often fairly easy to eliminate which will result in much more productivity. (Marc and Angel Hack Life,2010) (Albert Ellis & William J Knaus,1977)

A colleague of mine undertook a two week test in which he kept a diary of his procrastination habits. For the first week the participant recorded how much time they procrastinated and for the second they recorded how much time they procrastinated while using the aforementioned techniques.

The observed test results are shown below:

Time spent Procrastinating (Week 1)

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
2.5 Hours	30 Minutes	2 Hours	1 Hour	30 Minutes

Time spent Procrastinating (Week 2)

Monday Technique: Perfectionism	Tuesday Technique: LFT	Wednesday Technique: Organisation	Thursday Technique: Self-Doubt	Friday Technique: LFT
1 Hour	10 Minutes	30 Minutes	25 Minutes	15 Minutes

Figure 4: Table of Results from Observed Test.

The observed test revealed that the amount of procrastination was certainly minimised in the second week, with the most effective technique being motivation and organisation. The total procrastination time of 6 hours and 30 minutes in the first week was minimised to 2 hours and 20 minutes which is a remarkable achievement.

Procrastination is something that occurs for us all so it vital that its ‘problematic’ aspect is kept under control so that people may be successful in the present and for the foreseeable future. Using the previously mentioned techniques many of my colleagues have learnt to control their problematic procrastination which will truly advantage them in the future. I myself have conquered my habit of constant unhealthy procrastination, some of which occurred during the creation of this website (oh the irony!).

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