From Forbes
Study: The Secret To Ending Procrastination Is Changing The Way You Think About Deadlines
Amy Morin | Contributor
Quite often, the biggest obstacle to reaching our goals is our lack of motivation to get started. Whether we want to launch a new marketing campaign, get more organized, or lose weight, there’s often a long pause between thinking about change and actually creating change. This may be largely due to the fact that we put things off until “someday.” Since “someday” never appears on the calendar, our good intentions don’t turn into action until we create deadlines .
Research Shows We Categorize Time Illogically
A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals our natural inclination to categorize time. Researchers explain that we have a tendency to view things in terms of “present” and “future.” When we categorize a deadline as being in the present, we’re likely to start working on the goal. When we decide something falls into the “future” category, we simply file it in our “someday” archives and it’s easy for those goals to be neglected.
The most interesting aspect of the study is its revelation about the inaccurate and illogical ways we categorize time. For example, researchers gave study participants six months to complete a task (open a bank account and receive a reward). When participants were given the task in June with a December deadline, they were more likely to complete the task.
Participants who were given a task in July – and their six month deadline was in January – were more likely to put off doing the task. Since the task fell in the next calendar year, participants categorized the task as something that could wait until later. Even though both groups had six months to meet their goals, they treated the urgency of the job differently depending on the calendar dates of the deadlines.
Similarly, when participants were given a task that needed to be completed within seven days, they were more likely to begin working on it immediately. When the task was given on a Tuesday, for example, and the deadline was the following Tuesday, participants categorized the task as something they should begin working on now. But, if the deadline wasn’t until the following Wednesday, the task was categorized as a “future” project and they were more likely to procrastinate.
Read more from Forbes >>
Study: The Secret To Ending Procrastination Is Changing The Way You Think About Deadlines
Amy Morin | Contributor
Quite often, the biggest obstacle to reaching our goals is our lack of motivation to get started. Whether we want to launch a new marketing campaign, get more organized, or lose weight, there’s often a long pause between thinking about change and actually creating change. This may be largely due to the fact that we put things off until “someday.” Since “someday” never appears on the calendar, our good intentions don’t turn into action until we create deadlines .
Research Shows We Categorize Time Illogically
A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals our natural inclination to categorize time. Researchers explain that we have a tendency to view things in terms of “present” and “future.” When we categorize a deadline as being in the present, we’re likely to start working on the goal. When we decide something falls into the “future” category, we simply file it in our “someday” archives and it’s easy for those goals to be neglected.
The most interesting aspect of the study is its revelation about the inaccurate and illogical ways we categorize time. For example, researchers gave study participants six months to complete a task (open a bank account and receive a reward). When participants were given the task in June with a December deadline, they were more likely to complete the task.
Participants who were given a task in July – and their six month deadline was in January – were more likely to put off doing the task. Since the task fell in the next calendar year, participants categorized the task as something that could wait until later. Even though both groups had six months to meet their goals, they treated the urgency of the job differently depending on the calendar dates of the deadlines.
Similarly, when participants were given a task that needed to be completed within seven days, they were more likely to begin working on it immediately. When the task was given on a Tuesday, for example, and the deadline was the following Tuesday, participants categorized the task as something they should begin working on now. But, if the deadline wasn’t until the following Wednesday, the task was categorized as a “future” project and they were more likely to procrastinate.
Read more from Forbes >>
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