Be aware of the ethical implications of what I am asking. Some people may have very deep-seated trauma related to procrastination and distraction for a number of reasons, including experiencing ableism because of neurodivergence.
How can I be ethical in research of this nature?
Depositing information – how will I use key skills and competencies to facilitate my interventions?
Think about the comical aspects of teaching and play and how this relates to my project. Can procrastination be fun?
Devices: can procrastination be a tool/device for learning. See Kothari “If you are what you eat then what am I?”: Food as a device.
Could I create a toolkit via an app or device?
Suggestion – create an intervention which forces students to procrastinate and see what happens (thanks Odette!)
Suggestion – create an intervention which encourages participants to think of procrastination as a creative space rather than a barrier.
What does it look like to live “outside efficiency”?
Why do artists procrastinate?
Reference – In Practice PDP blog series.
Presentation Slides
Reflection
Overall I think the presentation went well. All of my colleagues thought that my field of research was interesting and asked lots of questions/gave me plenty to ponder moving forward. Lindsay stressed that I needed to be very clear with my participants about what I was going to use data I will gather from my interventions for and who I will share it with. She also advised me to think about how “deep” I want my participants to dive in terms of the inner workings of their own minds, since I am not a therapist this could enter dangerous territory if I am not clear in my professional boundaries.
I am definitely keenly aware that I need to spend more time investigating different research methods as well as looking up codes of ethics when it comes to creating interventions. However, because of the enthusiastic response from my colleagues I think this project definitely has “legs” and I am excited to explore it further and see where it leads.
Spotify link to an episode of Minds and Mics with Piers Steel
While listening to the Minds and Mics Podcast with Piers Steel and Nick Wignall, Steel was asked whether he believes procrastination and laziness are the same thing. To paraphrase, Steel does not believe they are the same thing, with the main difference being intent. Lazy people do not care about whether the task gets done or not; they never had any intention of doing it and it’s not important to them. Conversely, procrastinators usually care very much about the task, and they care whether it gets done – to the extent that they feel remorse or regret when it either doesn’t happen or when it does happen but the task is rushed.
I am firmly of the opinion that procrastination and laziness are not the same thing. For a few reasons, the first being that laziness is largely associated with the notion that in order for people to be worthy of something or to have virtue, that they must be productive. This ideology goes all the way back to Plato. However, I think that this stance ignores the fact that people with disabilities exist and they are worthy and virtuous regardless of whether or not they produce.
The second is that I question why laziness is bad in the first place? Of course in a Capitalist society that believes that human beings are only worthy if they produce, it makes sense that laziness would be a moral failing as well as a sin against the gods of productivity. This particularly applies to Black people and people of colour. (Grooms 2020). However, it is a construct, it only exists because humans believe it does. If we are to examine laziness as a lack of motivation or drive to do something, or as a purely selfish form of inactivity, then what is the result? Who suffers when someone is lazy?
Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness has definitely influenced my thinking in this regard as has Devon Price’s medium article and book Laziness Does Not Exist. Although Russell is actually praising idleness or laziness as a virtue and a necessity for creativity and reflection, I think that his point matches very well with Price’s. The concept of laziness is largely a human invention and is very subjective; one person’s laziness is another person’s reflection time. Particularly in a creative context, we need time and space to reflect and ‘dream’ in order to be innovative or creative in the first place (Cohen & Ferrari 2020).
Bibliography
Joseph R. Cohen & Joseph R. Ferrari (2010) ‘Take Some Time to Think This Over: The Relation Between Rumination, Indecision, and Creativity’, Creativity Research Journal, 22:1, 68-73, DOI: 10.1080/10400410903579601 https://doi.org/10.1080/10400410903579601
Wignall, N., 2020. The Science of Procrastination with Piers Steel. [podcast] Minds and Mics. Available at: <https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ONIHQCgQVxt5VcNCI1V4A?si=HhF2BK3NReuwepgZZlbxyw>
Grooms, E. C, ‘The Race for Time: Experiences in the Temporality of Blackness’ (2020). Senior Projects Spring. 241. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2020/241
Price, D (2021) Laziness Does Not Exist. New York: Atria Books
Numerous definitions of EF exist, from psychologists, behavioural analysts, cognitive behavioural therapists etc. For the sake of this project, I am choosing to use definitions given by educators to make it easier for myself and also to ensure that the definitions have specific relevance to HE.
Paula Moraine M.Ed author of Helping Students Take Control of Everyday Executive Functions: The Attention Fix defines EF as:
“Executive functions are the functions of our brain that control attention and behaviour”
Moraine, P Helping Students Take Control of Everyday Executive Functions (2012)
However, I prefer Moraine’s personal working definition of EF:
“… we use our executive functions to express how we think, what we feel, and what we do in relation to the world around us. The way to a working definition of attention could be through understanding how we use our attention in our thinking, how we use our attention in relation to our feelings, and how we use our attention in our actions.”
Moraine, P. Helping Students Take Control of Everyday Executive Functions (2012)
List of Executive Functions
Attention
Initiative
Flexibility (mental)
Shift/ Task-shifting
Planning
Organisation
Time Management
Memory
Working memory (
Self-monitoring
Emotional control
Problem-solving
Goal setting
Cognitive activation
Executive Function in Education
Essentially, all of these functions are necessary for anyone student undertaking a project, from students to project managers. In terms of education it is my personal experience that in education, teachers are far more concerned with the what of learning than the how. Much more time was given to explaining what I was supposed to be learning and very little time is given to teaching me techniques for learning it. Children, in particular, are given little variation in terms of learning techniques when they are at school, and this results in young people and adults who have a minimal understanding of their own optimal learning strategies (Meltzer et al, 2007). I had not even heard of the term EF until I was diagnosed with my chronic illness at 21, and was struggling to explain difficulties I was having with planning activities that I had previously had no issue with.
EFs “develop slowly, reaching maturity only after nearly three decades.” (Moraine, 2012). This means that if the how of learning is not illustrated very early on in a child’s education, their development of EFs in terms of learning will likely be underdeveloped. Leading to Executive Dysfunction (EDF) e.g.: poor time management, lack of planning, procrastination and a subsequent loss of self-esteem as students struggle to manage tasks in the classroom and beyond.
“…a large gap separates the skills and strategies taught in school from the executive function processes needed for success there and in the workplace. Both these settings now require individuals to take greater responsibility for their independent learning and to organize and integrate an ever-changing body of information that is available through the Internet and other web-based media.”
Meltzer, L Executive Function in Education: from Theory to Practice (2007)
In people who have learning difficulties, mental health difficulties, chronic illness or disabilities or who are neurodivergent EDF becomes a serious barrier to learning that in my experience goes unnoticed, particularly in Higher Education (HE). For example, it is widely recognised that dyslexic people may need extra help or alternative teaching and learning methodologies when it comes to reading and writing, but it is not noted that EDF can often come as a “package deal” with people who are neurodivergent (Meltzer et al 2007). Consequently, support is hyper-focussed on this aspect of their learning difficulty (the what), while their EDF (the how) remains a puzzle to be solved. Additionally, EDF can be very isolating, and students who are already disabled may have negative self-esteem as a result of ableism they may have experienced from teachers. This lack of understanding around EDF could lead disabled students, in particular, to isolate further and blame themselves for their procrastination behaviours or poor time management. Negative self-image is a major contributor to EDF, procrastination in particular (Steel 2007) & (Fridén 2020).
Worth noting at this point is that I do not necessarily agree with the term EDF, as describing anyone let alone people who are already disabled as ‘dysfunctional’ feels highly ableist to me. However, for lack of better terminology at this point, and also for consistency with the texts I am referencing, I have decided to continue using it.
The EDF Family
Understanding how EDF manifests is crucial to providing support for students who experience it. Difficulties with EF are closely related to self-regulation, the conscious and non-conscious processes that enable individuals to guide their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours purposefully (Kelley et al., 2019). Our ability to self-regulate directly impacts how well we use our EF skills and apply them to tasks that need to be done (Fridén, 2020). If a student is procrastinating, it means that their ability to self-regulate, to monitor their behaviour in the present in relation to their long-term goals, is impaired or has failed altogether. They are experiencing self-regulation failure. Specific EFs that relate to self-regulation failure are:
Inhibition – the ability to control one’s behaviour and override a strong temptation to do something if it interferes with a long term goal.
Updating– (aka working memory) the ability to keep information in mind and work with it despite distractions or other factors demanding attention.
Shifting – (aka cognitive flexibility) the ability to switch between tasks and perspectives and maintain focus.
In short, procrastination is a form of self-regulation failure, which is closely related EDF (Fridén 2020). Although my project does centre on procrastination, the wider understanding of this behaviour encompasses other traits consistent with EF/EDF (time-management, goal setting, organisation, planning), and that is why I think it is important to address them all in my project moving forward. Gaining a better understanding of one kind of EDF, could potentially have a domino effect for other kinds when I am conducting my research and teaching.
Cultural Contributions
Bibliography
Moraine, P., 2012. Helping students take control of everyday executive functions. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Meltzer, L., 2018. Executive Function In Education: From Theory To Practice. 2nd ed. New York, London: The Guilford Press.
Kelley, N. J., Gallucci, A., Riva, P., Romero Lauro, L. J., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2019). Stimulating self-regulation: A review of non-invasive brain stimulation studies of goal-directed behaviour. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12(337), 1–20. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00337
Fridén, I., 2020 Procrastination as a Form of Self-Regulation Failure. [online] Available at: <https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1446687/FULLTEXT01.pdf>
Roos, E. L., Beuchamp, G. K., Flannery, J., Fisher, A. P. (2017) ‘Cultural Contributions to Childhood Executive Function’, Journal of Cognition and Culture, ed Mikkola, C.
“No idleness, no laziness, no pro- crastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
– Phillip Stanhope
Recently, I have been reading Piers Steel’s 2007 meta-analysis on procrastination The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Steel is seen as one of the foremost authorities in the field of procrastination. His book The Procrastination Equation is a best-seller and comes highly recommended on sites such as Goodreads.
Steel’s work, specifically his meta-analysis, has been some of the most useful literature I have found on procrastination. Obviously, as a review of procrastination based literature up till that point, the paper provides an overview of not only the history of procrastination but also a breakdown of the personality types most associated with procrastination. Further to this, there are quantitative data analyses as well as equations on the statistical likelihood of procrastination to occur when certain factors are met.
Definition
Of course, there are as many definitions of procrastination as there are papers written on the subject. Likely the most used comes from the Oxford dictionary: “procrastination (noun) the action of delaying or postponing something.” While helpful in a short term analysis of the word, this definition leaves something to be desired – the human element or response to delaying action. While humans are not the only animals who engage in procrastination behaviours, rats and pigeons have both been observed ‘procrastinating’ (Zental et al, 2019), we are the only creatures to be aware of the fact that we procrastinate. This self-awareness is key. Largely animals are not observed to associate consequences to their actions in the same way that humans are, and consequence is key in procrastination. It would not have such negative associations attached to it if there were no negative consequences.
It follows that any working definition of procrastination must have the added element of consequence within it to be accurate. The Cambridge dictionary’s definition is slightly more helpful in this regard: “procrastination (noun) the act of delaying something that must be done, often because it is unpleasant or boring.” While the human element is featured in this definition, the identified cause is misleading. As a procrastinator, I can attest to the fact that I have procrastinated doing tasks that I enjoy or that will potentially have positive consequences for me in the future. I have simply favoured more immediate sources of gratification over long term goals, and that is partly why I have procrastinated. An example of this would be my choice, pre-pandemic, to going shopping with my friends rather than work on an essay I needed to write. Animals have also been known to procrastinate, not due to a task being boring, but because the gratification of one task is more immediate than with another. I will expand on the psychology behind procrastination a little later in this blog.
This brings us to Steel’s own definition of procrastination. I find it to be the most accurate of the ones I have read so far. It seems fairly obvious that a specialist in procrastination would give the best definition of the term, but it has been my experience that many definitions leave out the element of personal consequence which is so central to procrastination as a behavioural experience. Steel’s definition “..to procrastinate is to voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay.” not only encompasses the consequences felt by those who procrastinate, but the voluntary element in the behaviour. Procrastinators actively choose to procrastinate. We are usually aware that we may experience negative consequences when we delay necessary action, and we do it anyway!
The History of Procrastination
Until reading Steel’s analysis I had not thought much of procrastination as having a history per se. When thinking about it, I imagined it always being a present behaviour in both humans and animals. However, I did think that it was related very closely to ideals, notions and values of time and put me in mind of a proverb I often heard as a child:
“There are three things that you cannot get back: time, a spoken word and a sped arrow.”
Although I think exploring the relationship between time and procrastination is important, I have decided to do this in a separate blog. However, I will touch on it briefly here as Steel raises some interesting points about historical literature surrounding procrastination. The first, is that most of the authors he cites in his analysis are male. Second is that barring one quote from The Bhagavad Gita, they are Western although Steel does quote Greek philosophers in his text they are largely seen as existing within the Western tradition. Third is that they all appear to be from cultures that largely have a colonial, hierarchical and/or Capitalist mentality. I would be curious to see what literature, if any, on procrastination exists from cultures that do not have these factors present in their worldview. Perhaps procrastination has always existed historically. However, I am curious to know if the standpoint that procrastination is a negative was historically ubiquitous globally?
What is clear from Steel’s analysis is that while procrastination does feature in historical writings, it becomes a specific problem to be tackled when a culture becomes more technologically advanced.
“The first actual historical analysis on procrastination was written by Milgram (1992), who argued that technically advanced societies require numerous commitments and deadlines, which gives rise to procrastination. Consequently, undeveloped agrarian societies are not so afflicted. In their book, Ferrari, Johnson, and McCown (1995) took a similar although softened stand. They contended that procrastination has existed throughout history but that it only acquired truly negative connotations with the advent of the industrial revolution (circa 1750). Before then, procrastination was viewed neutrally and could be interpreted as a wise course of (in)action.”
Steel, P (2007) The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure.
The term ‘technological advancement’ puts me in mind of another quote from Yuval Noah Harari on the subject of the domestication of wheat. Or rather, wheat’s domestication of Homo Sapiens. Harari posits that instead of humans being the instigators of an agricultural evolution, it was our desire for a reliable food source that allowed wheat to domesticate us.
“Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn’t easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them. Wheat didn’t like rocks and pebbles, so Sapiens broke their backs clearing fields. Wheat didn’t like sharing its space, water, and nutrients with other plants, so men and women labored long days weeding under the scorching sun. Wheat got sick, so Sapiens had to keep a watch out for worms and blight. Wheat was defenseless against other organisms that liked to eat it, from rabbits to locust swarms, so the farmers had to guard and protect it. Wheat was thirsty, so humans lugged water from springs and streams to water it. Its hunger even impelled Sapiens to collect animal feces to nourish the ground in which wheat grew.
The body of Homo sapiens had not evolved for such tasks. It was adapted to climbing apple trees and running after gazelles, not to clearing rocks and carrying water buckets. Human spines, knees, necks, and arches paid the price. Studies of ancient skeletons indicate that the transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments, such as slipped disks, arthritis, and hernias. Moreover, the new agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were forced to settle permanently next to their wheat fields. This completely changed their way of life. We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us. The word “domesticate” comes from the Latin domus, which means “house.” Who’s the one living in a house? Not the wheat. It’s the Sapiens.” Yuval Harari
Harari, Y Sapiens
Although this is a long passage, I think it is particularly relevant, especially the sentence I have placed in bold. Prior to being a species that thrived from agriculture, humans were largely hunter-gatherers. However, this changed quite quickly once humans began to cultivate wheat, and advanced technologically in terms of creating tools to help with the process. It is possible that the cementing of the equation of time or timeliness + action = production/productivity in our collective consciousness arose because of the demands of agriculture. The need of early humans to pay closer attention than ever to time and the passing of the seasons to ensure that crops were planted and harvested on time would have been closely linked with survival. Consequently, it could have also caused them to notice, and judge, those who procrastinated. From a standpoint of survival, early farmers who procrastinated in planting their crops may have put the rest of the community in jeopardy, creating a negative assosciation with procrastination which did not previously exist. To continue Harari’s facetous tone: is it possible then that alongside domesticating humans, wheat also planted the seeds for the concept of procrastination?
Psychology behind procrastination
Seen from a historical standpoint then, procrastination is not only behaviour that has the potential to cause unhappiness for the individual, it can potentially have disastrous effects on a group. Understanding the psychology behind procrastination is complex, with multiple factors contributing to the type of person who procrastinates but also the way that they procrastinate. Steel points out that prior to his undertaking of the research, the primary culprit in procrastination psychology was thought to be a combination of neurosis and perfectionism. However, until Steel’s work, the main quantitative analysis of procrastination had been done by behavioural psychologists, who used their clients as test subjects. The qualities of neurosis and perfectionism being what they are, the majority of procrastinating clients had self-referred, the result was a chicken and egg scenario of self-selection. Procrastination was seen as a perfectionist issue because only perfectionists had been studied regarding procrastination.
Steel posits that there are four main components which factor into procrastination behaviours:
Genetics – studies conducted on fraternal and identical twins show that identical twins are more likely to procrastinate in the same ways and to the same degrees than fraternal twins are. This is despite the fraternal twins experiencing the same environmental factors such as growing up in the same household etc. (Arvey et.al, 2003)
Timing – if the procrastinator does not see the task as being in immediate need of attention, they are more likely to put it off until it is. An example of this would be our collective tendency to save inadequately for retirement until it is too late. (O’Donoghue & Rabin 1999)
Task aversion – how enjoyable the task is or is not. This is largely predictable but also comparative. E.g. if given the choice most of us would rather do something that we find easy that we also enjoy over something we found harder but also enjoy. (Steel 2007)
Personality type – there are 5 personality traits that have a direct correlation to people’s tendency to procrastinate: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness (how open the person is to new experiences), intelligence/aptitude, conscientiousness.
Steel expands on these traits further:
Image own sourced from Steel’s analysis.
I have expanded more on my personal reflections on these traits and where I fit in on Steel’s scale in a separate blog.
Procrastination, personality and executive function
From what I have read so far, there appears to be a correlation between the type of procrastination behaviour, personality traits associated with procrastination and specific executive functions or dysfunction. I have tried many times to create a graph that represents these accurately but put simply every time I started I felt like I was missing something. Instead, below are two graphs I have found helpful in demonstrating the associations between executive functions and procrastination behaviours.
Image credit: Learning Success Blog. Copyright 2014 Understood.org USA LCC
Image credit: Thomas E. Brown’s model of Executive Function
Most of these are about the behaviours of children, specifically children who experience ADHD or who have other specific learning difficulties. However, as Paula Moraine notes in her book Everyday Executive Functions: The Attention Fix
“Executive functions develop slowly, reaching maturity only after nearly three decades. This means that our children, teenagers, and young adults are all in a maturing process, and so at any given moment are on a continuum of executive function development and maturity. So, knowing how often our expectations are out-of-sync with the reality, do we have the right understanding or attitude regarding the development and education of behaviours that are central to executive function? Do we explicitly teach children the skills needed to develop their executive functions in a systematic way?” Paula Moraine
Moraine,P. Everyday Executive Functions: The Attention Fix. (2012)
From this we can surmise that procrastination and other executive dysfunction behaviours largely relate to a nature over nurture paradox. Particularly with regards to students who are neurodivergent or have disabilities, it is patently ridiculous to blame them for their procrastination behaviours when, as Moraine states, they are frequently given no tools to build their executive functioning skills as children. Consequently, when they reach HE at young adulthood and beyond, learners are still struggling to navigate the executive function soup with little guidance or support. This is particularly relevant if their disabilities are undiagnosed, or if they are wary of teachers due to negative experiences in the past.
The ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ narrative which is pervasive in conversations around procrastination, does not help with this. We can look to works such as Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for a place to lay some of the blame in this regard. Although the science behind Covey’s work may have been cutting edge at the time, cognitive psychology and neuroscience can now provide a better working understanding of how the brain functions. Put simply, we are hardwired for procrastination. Our limbic system, or ‘lizard brains’ are some of the oldest and deepest rooted parts of the brain. This system is largely responsible for our first or initial response to things and for our pleasure/pain receptors. Largely, humans have evolved to prioritise immediate needs and pleasures (making a sandwich, playing video games) over distant or long-term goals and pleasures (long-form projects, saving for retirement). (Pycyl 2010) & (Steel 2007).
“We have a brain that is selected for preferring immediate reward. Procrastination is the present self saying I would rather feel good now. So we delay engagement even though it’s going to bite us on the butt.” Dr Tim Pychyl
Pychyl, T The Procrastinator’s Digest: A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle. (2010)
With this in mind, Covey’s habits seem counterintuitive. For example, habit number 3 “put first things first” overlooks human hardwiring – we are immediate creatures. Additionally, multiple studies have found that the limbic systems of procrastinators are more active than those who do not procrastinate and that their reward pathways are more developed. This data was also concurrent with incidences of addictive personality traits, suggesting a link between addiction, procrastination and executive dysfunction (Friden, 2020).
“…people tend to favor tasks that are more pleasant in the short term, even if they are detrimental to themselves in the long term. Second, the more intrinsically unpleasant a task is, the more likely people are to avoid doing it.” Piers Steel
Steel,P. The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure (2007)
“When students were asked how much they would procrastinate under various conditions, they indicated that their procrastination would diminish as the task neared completion or as a deadline approached (Schouwenburg & Groenewoud, 2001; Strongman & Burt, 2000).” Piers Steel
(Schouwenburg & Groenewoud, 2001; Strongman & Burt, 2000) in Steel,P. The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure (2007)
Further to this, the “first things first” adage overlooks the fact that priorities are different for different people. Students, in particular, are juggling social lives, new experiences, study, work, families etc. Learners who experience executive dysfunction already have more difficulty with time and task management than students who do not, the additional factors of stress, fatigue and general overwhelm add up to an increased likelihood that those students will procrastinate and deal with the most immediate issue/ priority for them at the time.
Cognition VS Application
The overall difficulty most people who procrastinate have is not necessarily a problem with cognition but with application of principles (Steel 2007). Again, this is something that procrastinators have in common with other people who experience self-regulation failure or executive dysfunction (Friden 2020). In an academic context, students very rarely procrastinate because they do not understand what they have been taught, often they have an excellent grasp of the subject. They may need longer to process that knowledge overall and this is when procrastination behaviours or displacement activity kick in. In this time, procrastination can become positive, allowing the student time to cogitate over what they have learned while they immediately focus on something mundane like the washing up. Although this is usually labelled as a displacement activity, it is actually allowing the student time to process particularly if the task set or the information absorbed feels overwhelming or ‘scary’.
In the case of those who experience executive dysfunction, there is very often a gap between knowledge acquired and the application of that knowledge to a specific task or test (Moraine 2012). For example, a student who procrastinates may read literature that gives them multiple tools and techniques to help their procrastination behaviour and understand it very well. However, the skills that allow them to understand how those techniques can be applied to their lives or work are underdeveloped. What results is a lot of self-awareness, frustration and low self-esteem with very little practical change. Both Steel and Moraine outline that the way students feel about themselves has a direct impact on their ability to do the work in the first place. If this is the case, educators labelling procrastinating students as ‘lazy’ or ‘stupid’ is not only unkind, it compounds the issue.
The Procrastination Equation
In his meta-analysis, Steel develops an equation for understanding procrastination which subsequently formed the basis of his 2012 book The Procrastination Equation.
Image credit: Cedric Chin for Commonplace commoncog.com
Motivation = How motivated you are to do the task. The opposite of procrastination Value = How much you enjoy doing the task/how much you’ll enjoy the reward from completing the task. Expectancy = How much you expect to succeed at doing the task/ how quickly you expect to acquire the reward. Impulsiveness = How likely you are to be distracted and how good you are at staying focused. This could fluctuate depending on environmental factors such as social media or if you have young children. Or it could vary as a result of personality, energy levels, genetics, mental health etc. Delay = The further away you are from the tasks’ reward or completion, the lower the motivation.
Higher value and higher expectancy increase your motivation; higher impulsiveness or more delay lowers it. For example, a student may be more motivated to go to an event rather than start a project with a deadline 6 weeks away because they expect to receive a more imminent reward from socialising.
Steel’s methodology provides a more humane method of combatting procrastination than other, older motivation methodologies. Assuming that you cannot change the delay involved in a task, e.g. deadlines assigned by tutors, Steel outlines three ways of fighting procrastination:
Increase the expectancy of success.
Increase the task’s value.
Decrease your impulsiveness.
Steel then outlines multiple ways procrastinators can increase the above. I will write more about these and how they relate to executive functions in a separate blog. What I think is interesting about all of them though, is that they tap into the reward systems that are so developed in the procrastinating brain, and they do not rely on shaming tactics or other pejorative methods in order to motivate people into completing tasks. Despite these tactics being presented as commonplace solutions to the problem of procrastination, research suggests that negative motivation is not half so successful as positive motivation. Put simply, most beings on this planet are far more motivated by the prospect of the carrot than they are by the prospect of the stick.
Bibliography
Zentall, T.R., Peng, D., House, D. et al. (2020) Animal procrastination: Pigeons choose to defer experiencing an aversive gap or a peck requirement. Learn Behav 48, 246–253 . https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-019-00397-2
Arvey, R. D., Rotundo, M., Johnson, W., & McGue, M. (2003, . The determinants of leadership: The role of genetics and personality. Paper presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Orlando, FL.
Harari, Yuval. (2015). Sapiens. Harper, New York.
O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (1999). Incentives for procrastinators. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114, 769–816.
Moraine,P. (2012) Helping Students Take Control of Everyday Executive Functions: The Attention Fix, ppg 16. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London.
Pychyl, T., 2010. The Procrastinator’s Digest: A Concise Guide to Solving the Procrastination Puzzle. . Canada: Howling Pines Publishers.
Covey, S., 1989. The 7 habits of highly effective people. Simon & Schuster: New York.
Fridén, I. (2020) Procrastination as a form of Self-regulation Failure: A review of the cognitive and neural underpinnings. [online] Available at: <https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1446687/FULLTEXT01.pdf>
Steel, P. (2007). The nature of procrastination: A meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65–94. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
Steel, P. (2012). The Procrastination Equation. Murdoch Books, Sydney.
Steel, P. & Klingsieck, B. K (2016) ‘Academic Procrastination: Psychological Antecedents Revisited’, Australian Psychologist 51,36–46, doi:10.1111/ap.12173
My intention for Bringing Lazy Back was to help my students to rest more, which I hoped would not only assist with their creativity but their procrastination as well. While I still firmly believe that rest is an important component of study in general, and in reframing procrastination behaviours in particular, the reading I have been doing has shown me that procrastination is multi-layered and complex. However, what is more distressing to me is that the current thinking about procrastination in education is still in the proverbial dark ages.
Personal responsibility vs hardwiring
Procrastination is largely seen as a personal or even moral failing rather than as an underdeveloped skill set or a learning difficulty. However, while researching Bringing Lazy Back, I found that procrastination is largely seen by behavioural psychologists as a form of executive (dys)function. Over and above this, that disabled students are more more likely to experience executive dysfunction than non-disabled students. This is largely due to certain pathways in the brain being disrupted because of factors such as poor mental health and trauma, as well as factors such as genetics and even the kinds of teaching you received as a child. Executive functions are a skillset that helps humans with the planning and setting of long-term goals, and they are usually developed over time using a method called Explicit Strategy Instruction. For students, explicit strategy instruction can be as simple as your teacher showing you how to break down a big project into smaller more manageable chunks so that it feels less overwhelming. In reflecting on this, I realised that I was never really given any tools like this at any point in my learning journey. It stands to reason that if I was not given these tools, many of my fellow students who procrastinate were likely not given them either.
Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation writes that “Procrastination is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.” As someone who has struggled with procrastination for my whole life, this quote resonated very deeply with me. I don’t particularly want to be absolved of any blame for my behaviour, I am an adult. Yet time and time again I find myself procrastinating, particularly when it comes to academic work, and my time management in general is dreadful. Like a broken clock, I am at least 10 minutes late constantly. I have tried multiple old school methodologies to combat my procrastination, and none have worked. This has left me feeling disheartened and isolated: why is it so hard for me to do things on time, even when I want to do the thing in question? The answer seems to be a combination of factors, from fatigue (we are back to rest again) to disability and the fact that humans are just hardwired for instant gratification (the pleasure principle). I felt an immense sense of relief reading Steel’s work because it was the first time I read a piece of writing about procrastination that did not tell me to pick myself up by the bootstraps, nor did it use shame as a motivational tactic. It just gave useful methodologies and helped me make sense of my behaviour.
Helping students
I am not under any illusions that my SIP project will magically fix the problem of procrastination at UAL, I am nowhere near that naive. But, if it is possible for me to reframe my own thinking around procrastination and learn some helpful methods to either combat or harness it, I think it could greatly help my students to feel less stressed while completing their projects. As I said, most of the ways that we are taught to think about procrastinators is that they are lazy and that they don’t do the work on time or at all because they just don’t care. This does not late to my experience at all. Usually, if I am procrastinating about something it’s because it feels overwhelming, I have another task I see as more immediate, I feel I need more time to think about it, I have no idea how to start, I feel insecure about my ability to do the task well or as a chronically ill person who is regularly in pain and fatigued I would rather do something that gives me immediate joy like watch TV or see my friends than sit at my desk and write an essay.
Speaking of fatigue, procrastinating is exhausting. The scramble to get 3 months worth of work completed in 3 days has only become more and more wearing as my ability to pull all-nighters has decreased with age and disability.
To a certain degree, I do consider myself to be a person who thrives under pressure, but I am not sure how much that has to do with patterning based on my existing behaviour – making a virtue of necessity since I haven’t found a way to stop procrastinating, “if you can’t beat em, join em” – or if it is simply how I work best. It’s impossible to know for sure since I cannot remember a time when I did not procrastinate. However, I would be curious to test this during the course of my research if I have time.
If the research that I do for this SIP project helps me to improve, or at least understand, my own procrastination behaviours even a little, I will consider it a success. I also think that pivoting my subject to focus on procrastination will make it easier for me from an action research perspective. I anticipate that there is infinitely more written about procrastination in academia than there is about rest. This is likely a result of our hyper-capitalist fixation on productivity, but for once I might benefit from it.
Alternative music video of Bruno Mars’ The Lazy Song featuring Leonard Nimoy.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is
self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”– Audre Lorde
This essay is an attempt to reflect upon
the knowledge acquired over the course of the Inclusive Practice Unit of the
Higher Education in Art and Design PgCert. Drawing heavily on the concepts of
“radical pedagogy” (Friere, 1970), “radical empathy” (Nagar and Shirazi ,
2019), “reflexive practice” (England, 1994), “radical rest” (Carmichael 2020),
“idleness” (Russell, 1932) and “inclusive pedagogies” (Connor, Gabel, Gallagher
& Morton, 2008) as they pertain to disability, racial diversity and the
Capitalist socio-political model of education, I created Bringing Lazy Back
(BLB), an artefact (workshop and reading list[1])
designed to advocate for rest as a necessary component of learning rather than
as an inconvenience.
Positionality
and reflexive thinking
To do this I must reflexively outline my own positionality. Kim England states in Reflexivity, Positionality and Feminist Research that:
“… reflexivity is self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher” (England 1994).
My interest in rest as a pedagogical
practice is deeply personal. When I was 22, at the end of my first year
studying Fine Art at university, I was diagnosed with three chronic illnesses –
Lupus, Hypothyroidism and Anaemia[2]
– after being hospitalized. As a chronically ill person, I am always tired and require more rest than
most non-disabled people. I constantly feel guilty for needing to rest more,
particularly as an artist with a largely collaborative practice. Prior to my
diagnosis, I was attending classes during the day in Hendon, living in
Tottenham and working nights in a bar in Dalston. I am obviously not the first
student to overwork while studying, however, I believe that lack of rest,
paired with the stress of daily 4 hour travel times, contributed to the onset
of my disability[3]
(Equality Act 2010). Post-diagnosis, I overcompensated and overworked in an
attempt to mitigate my physical vulnerability and “pull my weight” in
collective projects, leading to further hospitalisations, and the decline of my
mental health.
As a woman of mixed Jamaican and
Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, my natural propensity to overwork is compounded by
internalised cultural tropes of exceptionalism – those who are “othered”[4](powell
and Menendian, 2020) in our society, must be “exceptional” in all regards to
achieve success. As Gabrielle Smith outlines in Resting In Peace While Living (A Complicated Notion) many Black and
mixed-race people (white passing ones like myself included) have “complicated”
relationships to work and rest (Smith 2019). Smith describes in detail the
indoctrination as a result of survival modes (see also Paperny, 2017) brought
on by intergenerational trauma that Black women and femmes especially are
subject to, the phrase “work twice as
hard to get just as far” ringing in our ears with every tap of the
yardstick.
These tropes have strong roots in racist
stereotypes around “laziness”[5],
and in the Capitalist ideology that to produce is virtuous[6] (Woiceshyn, 2019): rendering
any action which does not lead to production (rest) sinful by comparison. The
desire to be a “model minority” (Barokka 2017) is pervasive[7],
toxic, and cannot be underestimated – it is a hydra with many heads. While
teaching on MA Applied Imagination (MAAI), a course comprised of majority
overseas students[8],
I began to interrogate the interplay between concepts of rest and idless, their
relationship to ableism and Capitalism, and how these are cross-culturally
mirrored. BLB was my attempt to facilitate the consideration of the
interlocution of these themes and the way they all contribute to teaching,
learning, creativity and creative burnout (Graves et al, 2011)in my students.
It is a response to what I see as a significant lack of time off and
opportunities for “reverie” (Graves, 2011 pg 209).
Rest-less
Full time MA programmes last one academic year. Students on MAAI are required to work through the holidays to “make the most” of their learning time. For example, during the month-long Easter break, our students were given an independent study period with a project deadline for the first week of term. The expectation is that students will be able to manage their own time effectively. However, this does not help learners who struggle with executive function[9] skills, such as time management or goal setting (Melzer et al, 2018), due to disability. As outlined by Lynne Meltzer in Executive Function in Education, when educators build “explicit strategy instruction”, rest breaks and time management, into the structure of the curriculum all students benefit. While educators cannot be wholly responsible for how students manage their time, the power imbalance between staff and students creates a duty of care[10]. Extending this further, we can surmise that not actively including the explicit instruction of rest is a side-effect of the murky language around reasonable adjustments which allows institutions to further exclude students of variant needs while posturing as inclusive (Reeve, 2007 cited in Graves, 2011). We need to make sure that learners have the tools, and the time, to “learn to relax into work” (Graves, 2011 pg 211).
Working under the proviso that “no one’s
body functions perfectly, or consistently or eternally” (Shakespeare and Watson
2002, cited in Bhagat and O’Neill, 2011) and that “laziness does not exist, but
unseen circumstances do” (Price, 2016) I built Bringing Lazy Back around 4
pillars:
In giving students express permission to rest, reinforced by a
comfortable environment, I will create an environment where they feel safe to rest.
Distraction is a natural aspect of
learning which should be embraced instead of punished (Bui, 2020).
Distraction is usually an indication
that one needs rest, not that they are “lazy”.
“Idleness” is a useful tool for learning
and creativity. (Russel, 1932) (See also Metz, 2020)
This is of particular relevance now that students are expected to continue their studies during a pandemic. As a collective both staff and students were in the middle of processing the traumatic global effects of Covid-19 and likely needed a break (Barbash, 2020). The shift to digital teaching impacted my ability to test BLB as I would have liked. Designed as an immersive experience intended to disrupt the usual operation of classroom dynamics, it was difficult to replicate the relaxing environment[11] I had planned when coping with poor internet connections[12], dysfunctional webcams[13] and persistent interruptions from relatives[14].
Fig 1
Fig 2
It was clear that I needed to make adaptations . With the twelve-week “intensive independent study period”[15]drawing closer and considering the already packed schedule of MAAI students, a two-hour session engaging with the power of rest and distraction was out of the question. Instead, I began to implement aspects of BLB; frequent comfort breaks, articles on rest and inviting learners to document when they became distracted (Bui, 2020) into my tutorials. The feedback was mixed. One learner from China said that he found the language in an essay I sent him, Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, difficult to navigate. While resting after this session, I considered this feedback. In the moment, I had reassured him that the text was dense, and thanked him for being honest and sharing with me. Upon reflection, I felt that I had missed something crucial. I had included this article within the workshop specifically because it is long-winded and would provoke the reader to become distracted. For the purposes of the lesson, this would have worked well to highlight distraction as a part of learning – especially when reading academic texts. Knowing that it may be a difficult read for some, I still suggested it, perhaps out of a misguided desire not to patronise students who have English as a second language. However, recommending this text out of context had served to further estrange him from the concept of rest, rather than allow him to embrace it. I had not been reasonable enough with my adjustments.
Fig 3
Conversely, feedback from my colleagues on the lesson plan for BLB was positive. They liked that I had built explicit instructions into the fabric of the lesson and that I had also included how long each segment of the session should take. They recommended that I explore the work of The Nap Ministry, a collective of African American artists who “…facilitate immersive workshops and curate performance art that examines rest as a radical tool for community healing.” (Hersey, undated)[16]. As outlined above, I had layered the concepts and rest tools one atop the other in a way that my colleagues said was simple but effective[17].
Fig 4
Fig 5
Fig 6
Takeaways
To conclude, the difference between these two scenarios further illustrates to me the need for feedback from staff and students with variant levels of ability and diverse backgrounds. It also highlights the need for surrender as an act of radical vulnerability and radical pedagogy (Nagar and Shirazi, 2019). Surrender to the academic process of reviewing one’s practices and adapting accordingly. Surrender to feedback even when it confirms or confronts our internal biases. Finally, surrender to the power of rest and self-care as a tool for learning, change and resistance.
Woiceshyn,
J., 2019. The Virtue Of Production |
Capitalism Magazine. [online] Capitalism Magazine. Available at:
https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2019/10/business-virtue-production/
Bhagat,
D. and O’Neill, P. (eds.), 2011. Inclusive
Practices, Inclusive Pedagogies Learning From Widening Participation Research
In Art And Design Higher Education. Croydon: CPI Group.
Bui, K., 2020. How Keeping A “Distraction Journal” Completely Revitalized My Workflow & Productivity. [online] The Financial Diet. Available at: https://thefinancialdiet.com/how-keeping-a-distraction-journaling-completely-revitalized-my-workflow-productivity/
Powell, J. and Menendian, S., 2020. The Problem Of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness And Belonging – Othering And Belonging. Available at: http://www.otheringandbelonging.org/the-problem-of-othering/
Meltzer,
L., 2018. Executive Function In
Education: From Theory To Practice. 2nd ed. New York, London: The Guilford
Press.
Jazeel, T., Kent, A., et al (eds) 2019. Nagar, R , The World Through Radical Vulnerability, in Keywords In Radical Geography: Antipode At 50. 2nd ed. Hoboken, Oxford: Wiley Press.
David
J. Connor , Susan L. Gabel , Deborah J. Gallagher & Missy Morton (2008):
Disability studies and inclusive education — implications for theory, research,
and practice, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 12:5-6, 441-457
Khairani Barokka (Okka) (2017) Deaf-accessibility for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve.and.Mary.Are.Having.Coffee while chronically ill, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 22:3, 387-392, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2017.1324778
Footnotes
[1][ Lesson plan for the workshop and reading list are contained in Appendix A.
[2] Autoimmune diseases such as Lupus frequently
“travel in packs” with secondary conditions such as hypothyroidism, migraine,
diabetes etc.
[3] Disability is defined under the Equality Act
2010 as: “…a
physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative
effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.”
[4] Powel and Menendian define the practice of
“Othering” as a “set of dynamics, processes, and structures that
engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of
human differences based on group identities.” [Original italics]
[5] Black people have frequently been portrayed
in popular culture as lazy criminals in a racist attempt to dehumanise us.
[6] Worth noting is that our modern concept of
“virtue” is heavily influenced by Plato’s dialogues in which he outlines
happiness/goodness (eudaimonia) as
the ultimate aim of all moral thought and posits that the virtues/excellence (arete) are the only means of attaining goodness
via their disciplines.
[7] Khairani Barokka refers to her desire to be a
“model minority” in her essay Deaf-accessibility
for spoonies: lessons from touring Eve and Mary Are Having Coffee while
chronically ill as being one of the reasons she overworked and experienced
burnout while touring the performance across the country.
[9] For example those who are neurodiverse, chronically ill or experience
poor mental health. Although there are various definitions for executive
function across academia, Melzer classifies executive function as “…a broad
term describing the range of skills required for purposeful, goal-directed
activity, socially appropriate conduct, and independent regulation of action
and affect (Denckla, 1994).”
[10] As defined in the legal sense as “a requirement that a person act
toward others and the public with watchfulness, attention, caution and prudence
that a reasonable person in the circumstances would. If a person’s actions do
not meet this standard of care, then the acts are considered negligent, and any
damages resulting may be claimed in a lawsuit for negligence.”
[12] Many of my Chinese students have been
self-isolating in hotels after travelling home from London. The Wi-Fi was
frequently unreliable and they often missed large portions of their lessons as
a result of poor connectivity and bandwidth.
[13] It is very difficult to gauge how engaged a
learner is in the session being taught when their webcam is off and their
microphone muted.
[14] During one tutorial a student’s guardian
interrupted twice to ask if they wanted anything to drink.
[15] Summer break. During this time students conduct research for
projects they have designed themselves in the units leading up to this point.
They do this with a “light-touch” facilitation approach from staff.
What follows is a powerpoint presentation and lesson plan which I presented to my colleagues on the PgCert course for feedback, outlining my proposed intervention/artefact: an action research workshop and reading list centring rest and laziness. As I am a person with several chronic illnesses for which I am classified disabled, I am very interested in the idea of rest as teaching tool and a method of boosting creativity . I am also interested in rest as a political act of protest in a world which expects constant productivity and monetization of joy/hobbies.
Teaching on the MA Applied Imagination course, I noticed that our students are required to work through the holidays. Whilst I completely understand that school of thought that it is necessary for the course to function this way in order for students to get the most out of their time on the course, it does mean that they are constantly engaged with the course material and projects – resulting in there being no curriculum mandated breaks. Obviously the expectation is that students will be able to manage their own time effectively. However, the evidence points towards the majority of students procrastinating, then over working to compensate and burning out because they have not been given express, structural, permission to take time for themselves. Whilst educators cannot be wholly responsible for this, the power imbalance between staff and students creates a need for increased duty of care. For example, during the month-long Easter break our students were given an “independent study” period with a project deadline for the first week of term. This effectively ensures that even if they do take a break they will have the draining anxiety of having a project to complete hanging over their heads, which means that they are not actually receiving the benefits of resting.
MAAI students are already encouraged to wander (flaneurs) and embrace process-based learning , but I wanted to create an intervention that took this message and extended it. I began to consider the impact having no structured deliberate break could have on students, and how I could encourage them to embrace the concept of laziness and rest as an important part of learning rather than as an inconvenience. The use of Bertrand Russell’s text In Praise of Idleness is deliberate. Although it is an easy read compared to the texts of Russell’s contemporaries, it is still quite a dense piece of writing. As a result of this it is harder to absorb and focus on than other, easier, reads which leads to distraction. Functioning as a demonstration of my point that when the brain is expected to process large complex sections of text, it needs more breaks in order to allow time to properly “digest” the information. The current expectation of reading and instantly having an opinion or thought can lead to lack of clarity, critical thinking (which takes time) and engagement with the text in question. (It also privileges extroverted personalities who are able to read quickly at the expense of students with dyslexia or who are introverted for example.) My aim is that allowing students space and time to filter through the text will in fact lead to better understanding and allow them to “give themselves permission” to go at their own pace, rather than overwork themselves and become burnt out as a result.
The feedback from my colleagues was overall positive, they did suggest some further reading and resources such as The Nap Ministry which I have subsequently explored. The original presentation did not include the time allotted for each rest break which upon reflection I thought needed to be addressed, so they were added in later.
