Procrastination and emotional regulation are more closely linked than most people assume. Alison touched on this recently when she joined Dr Nonhlanhla Dube’s TikTok Live to talk about ADHD in academia, and procrastination came up, as it always does.
Before you even start a task, you get a preview of how it’s going to feel. Boring. Vague. Slightly uncomfortable in a way you can’t quite name. Alison used the example of admin work she doesn’t enjoy: she doesn’t know exactly what to do or how to do it, and the dullness of it is enough to make her put it off. Nothing has actually happened yet, but the anticipated feeling has already done its work.
Why this matters more than a better schedule
We see the same pattern with a lot of the PhD students and academics we work with, particularly around writing. It’s rarely that writing itself is frightening. It’s that they already suspect what comes out won’t match what’s in their head, and that small flicker of anticipated frustration is enough to stall the whole thing.
That’s emotional friction, and no amount of rescheduling resolves it, because the problem was never really about time. We wrote a bit more about this a while ago in procrastination is not a time management problem, and if you’re looking for something more practical to try, we’ve also written about how to overcome procrastination by just getting started.
It’s worth noticing, this week, what task you keep sliding past, and asking yourself honestly what feeling you’re avoiding rather than what slot in your diary is missing. If that’s something you’d like to work through properly, we’d be glad to help.
If this sounds familiar at work, our ADHD leadership coaching helps leaders and managers build support around what gets in the way.
