The existing research makes it quite clear that procrastination is a problem with emotion regulation. When we face negative emotions like frustration, resentment, boredom or anxiety that are associated with a task, we procrastinate on the task in order to regulate our emotions. I say regulate because that’s the effect in the short-term, but the simple truth is we’re mis-regulating our emotions because these tasks typically don’t go away.
We won‘t feel like it tomorrow, but we will probably feel more stress and even some self-loathing.
Feeling. That‘s the story here. It‘s about our emotions, and we have to learn to deal more effectively with our emotions if we want to procrastinate less.
Recent research reveals that our emotional regulation skills matter. More importantly, this research demonstrates that we can learn specific skills that will reduce our procrastination.
If we learn to tolerate and modify aversive emotions, we will procrastinate less.
If you want to learn more about emotion regulation skills and even take a brief emotion regulation skills survey read How to Use Psychology to Solve the Procrastination Puzzle(note this is a link available through Medium‘s new Membership program – well worth checking it out, but be aware of the fee structure. Alternatively, you can learn more about the research here).
The take away message is clear, If we don’t learn to tolerate or modify the aversive emotions that make some tasks so unpleasant to us, we’ll be likely to procrastinate. The good news is these are learnable skills.
References
Eckert, M.,, Ebert, D.D., Lehr, D., & Berking, M. (2016). Overcome procrastination: Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination. Learning and Individual Differences, 52,10-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.lindif.2016.10.001
已有研究已经非常明确地表明，拖延症是情绪调节的问题。当我们产生一些与我们做的事情有关的情绪问题，比如沮丧、气愤、无聊或者焦虑，为了调节自己的情绪我们就开始在任务上拖延。我之所以说“调节”，是因为这种方法确实能够在短时间内起作用。但是显然事实是我们错误地调节了情绪，因为任务基本不会自己消失。
我们在过后可能不会觉察出来这个事实，但是会感到更加紧张甚至有些自我厌恶。
感觉。事情就是这样。这跟我们的情绪有关，如果想减轻拖延症，我们必须学会更有效地处理情绪。
近期的一些研究也揭示了情绪调节能力的作用。更重要的是，研究表明了我们可以学习一些具体的技巧来减轻拖延症：
如果能够容忍和调节这些不良情绪，我们就会拖延得更少。
如果你想学习更多有关情绪调节的能力，或者是做一个有关情绪调节能力的调查，可以阅读《如何运用心理学解决拖延症难题》。
结果显而易见，如果不学习如何容忍调节我们的不良情绪，那些任务就会令我们产生不快，我们就很有可能拖延。好的一点是，这些技能都是可以学习的。
参考文献
Eckert, M.,, Ebert, D.D., Lehr, D., & Berking, M. (2016). Overcome procrastination: Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination. Learning and Individual Differences, 52,10-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.lindif.2016.10.001