Procrastination. The bane of all humankind. It is the tendency to put off important tasks until just before they’re due, but why do we do it? I mean it doesn’t actually make any 
sense if you think about it. Why would we put something off we know is important? What do we get out of it? Luckily, ASAPscience has heard our question and released on a video on the science behind procrastination, which can be seen here. Essentially, what they talk about is this idea called temporal discounting which affects pretty much everyone. This is the natural human tendency to put higher value on things that will give faster results and rewards and lower value on long-term jobs and goals. For example, playing your favorite video game will give you quick satisfaction, while finishing your homework really doesn’t pay its dividen
ds for a long time. But this theory, like they mention in the video, also helps to explain the cramming phenomenon every high school student experiences the night before a test. The reason you cram is because your brain has realized that the test is almost there, getting a good grade will cause a positive response, and due to its proximity you will want to study in order to get that good response.
As many of you know, our brains release dopamine when something positive occurs; it’s the hormone that gives you a happy feeling. Our brains pretty much use the release of dopamine related to different activities to determine priority. Makes sense right? The brain is also always working towards a reward. Going back to our previous example of gaming vs. homework, the reason why playing games takes priority is because it gives us the fastest route to a release of dopamine. Meanwhile, doing homework may not encourage the release of dopamine until much later down the line. Unfortunately for us, our brain tends not to weigh productivity in the equation, which means whatever gives the brain its dopamine the fastest is what it’ll want to do.
So I guess there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that our brains are naturally wired to procrastinate, which means it isn’t completely our fault we love to do it. The bad news is that our brains are naturally wired to procrastinate, and there’s not really any way around it. Luckily for us, our brains can actually be pretty easily tricked. There’s a multitude of ways to counter procrastination, one of the most prominent being the Pomodoro technique mentioned by ASAPscience in their video. I would actually really suggest checking the website out, and if you’re at all interested giving the book a read. 
The technique is really simple, just a unique take on work breaks. But the way it works helps a lot more with our brain’s concept of temporal discounting. Because you’re aware of how much time you’re going to take, rewards can be spaced out effectively to encourage your brain to continue working. The trick to overcoming procrastination is convincing your brain that tedious tasks yield quick rewards, this way your brain naturally drifts towards these tasks in order to get at those rewards. The brain just really wants to get releases of dopamine; it doesn’t really care what it has to do to get them. Take advantage of this mentality and make the only avenue to the release of dopamine be through the work you need to get done.
However, when it really comes down to it, it’s still on you. ASAPscience puts it really well: “You need to acknowledge your procrastination. Don’t tell yourself that you won’t procrastinate later, because now you know you most definitely will, it’s just how your brain works. For all the tricks and hints on how to deal with procrastination it’s still on you to implement them and stick to the plan. The one that decides to stop procrastinating has to be you. So now that you know all the science behind procrastination, you really have no excuse to keep doing it. Stop procrastinating on fixing your procrastination, if you do, it’ll never get done.”
