'Task paralysis' and overcoming procrastination

Five years of unpaid taxes. Homework handed in on the last day of an extension. Some people are champion procrastinators. Why? And what does task paralysis (sometimes called ADHD paralysis) have to do with it? Today: the personality traits that make you more prone to procrastination, the types of tasks we're most likely to put off, and what to do if your to-do list sends you into fight-or-flight mode. This episode first aired in August 2025. Guests: EvaHigh school student Dr Catherine HoulihanClinical psychologistSenior lecturer in clinical psychologyDirector of the UniSC Psychology ClinicUniversity of the Sunshine Coast Credits: Presenter/producer: Sana QadarProducer: Rose KerrSenior producer: James BullenSound engineer: Simon BranthwaiteTo view the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/task-paralysis-procrastination-hard-to-get-stuff-done/105663484. To explore more great episodes from the award-winning psychology podcast All in the Mind with host Sana Qadar, download the ABC Listen app (Australia) or search 'ABC All in the Mind podcast' wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more episodes on mental health, trauma, attachment theory, wellness hacks, and family relationships. You'll also hear interviews with experts like Esther Perel, Billy Garvey and Ethan Kross. All in the Mind is created for ABC's Radio National by specialist journalists and reporters at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:37Sana Qadar?

  Hey there. A heads up, this episode is one from our archives.

• 0:41Speaker 04

  So I have two tasks. There's a science assignment and there's a maths assignment. The science one is a write-up for like an experiment we did. And that is due at the end of the term, which is in two days.

• 0:55Sana Qadar?

  Oh my god, soon.

• 0:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I haven't started it yet.

• 0:58Sana Qadar?

  Oh no. Are you freaking out?

• 1:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02Sana Qadar?

  Oh my goodness, what are you gonna do?

• 1:05Speaker 04

  Um, probably try and speed around it. Probably also teach you for an extension.

• 1:12Sana Qadar?

  You know, it's not often at the ABC that we hear from 13-year-olds telling us they love a show. Certainly not at Radio National, it's never happened on All in the Mind. So what are 13-year-old messages to say they are a big fan you notice?

• 1:28Speaker 04

  I'm Eva, I am 13 years old and I am a student in high school.

• 1:33Sana Qadar?

  Eva wrote in not just to tell us she loved us, "Thank you, Eva", but also to describe a feeling she's been having more frequently. And so, why have you not done the science report yet? Like, what is your thinking whenever you think about it? Why don't you do it?

• 1:48Speaker 04

  It's either like a sense of overwhelm, because I'm thinking about all the tasks I haven't done, how everyone else is way ahead of me and all that sort of stuff. Or it's like a sense of doom, because it's like, if I do this and I hand it up and I get a bad grade for it, then that's gonna be hard on my mental health. And then if I do it, then that means the task is real. And then it's just like, oh no. So then my brain kind of shuts down and it's like, just don't, don't do anything.

• 2:16Sana Qadar?

  This is a relatively new feeling for Eva. She only started struggling with assignments like this in the past year. And for a while, she didn't know what was going on. And then her school councillor told her about task paralysis.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  She was like, "This is probably what you're experiencing." And then, so I did a bunch of research on it. And I was just like, "Yeah, that's definitely what's going on." And then I went on to podcasts, because I was like, "Oh, All in the Mind has probably done something on this." And then I couldn't find anything, so I was like, huh. So then I just wrote in.

• 2:47Sana Qadar?

  So today, we are rectifying that. Because task paralysis is interesting. It sounds like it could be a pseudo-psychological term, cooked up on social media, but that's not quite right. It's often associated with ADHD, but that's also not the only context it can pop up. And you might be thinking, isn't task paralysis just procrastination? Well, the two are related, but they're not the same.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  If we have task paralysis, then we're likely to then delay the task, which is the definition of procrastination. But procrastination isn't always caused by task paralysis.

• 3:22Sana Qadar?

  And look, if you're someone who finds yourself often battling procrastination, whether it's caused by task paralysis or another reason, you'll know it can start to affect all aspects of your life. Your work, your mental health, your taxes? I, at one point, racked up five years of unsorted-out taxes. And so, as each year clicked by, the panic would just sort of rise, but then I'd shove it further down. Is that like a really abnormal story? Am I completely, you know, off the charts back?

• 3:53Speaker 05

  My professional opinion, as a psychologist.

• 3:57Sana Qadar?

  Yeah, I need this episode as much as Eva does. Today, task paralysis, procrastination, why we struggle with these, and how you can possibly maybe break free. I'm Sana Qadar, from ABC Radio National, this is All in the Mind.

• 4:18Sana Qadar?

  So what was the science experiment that you did that you have to write up the report for in two days?

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Uh, it's really boring. It's called footy colours. It's a weird name. But basically, we have to do all these different, like, put these different chemicals in test tubes. And then they're meant to come out as like the colours of the different footy teams. And I think it worked out too well.

• 4:39Sana Qadar?

  It didn't work out too well?

• 4:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, because the colours didn't really reflect the teams that well.

• 4:45Sana Qadar?

  Eva is a total character, as you're gonna notice. She's got heaps of personality, heaps of gumption. And so, how long has this science report been hanging on your to-do list?

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Um, about three weeks.

• 4:58Sana Qadar?

  And what do your parents say about your task paralysis?

• 5:01Speaker 04

  I don't talk to them about it. They think I'm all good with my schoolwork, because I get like As and Bs somehow.

• 5:09Sana Qadar?

  Right, so you still manage to get good grades despite this?

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, because I get a lot of extensions. I find it easier to, like, teachers always say yes when I ask for an extension, because of my stuff with mental health and stuff.

• 5:21Sana Qadar?

  And so, will this podcast be the first time your dad's hearing about this science report that you haven't done yet?

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 5:29Sana Qadar?

  All right, all right, I like your style. Okay, I feel like I should throw a disclaimer in there. Eva's parents gave us permission to chat to her. In fact, her dad is sitting right outside the studio that Eva is in, in Adelaide. Now, her procrastination might be a bit more extreme than others, but Eva's not exactly unique either. Because students have been procrastinating homework for probably as long as homework has existed. And that includes students at any age.

• 5:57Speaker 05

  I work predominantly at the moment with students, and students who are studying to be registered psychologists. So procrastination is quite often talked about and worked through in terms of, you know, demands on students.

• 6:08Sana Qadar?

  This is clinical psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Catherine Houlihan. She says there are key differences between procrastination and task paralysis.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  Procrastination is a behaviour, and so there is some element of choices. And there's lots of different reasons why we can procrastinate, which I'm sure we'll get into in the conversation. Whereas task paralysis is more kind of reactive and it's involuntary, really. It can make a comparison to that freeze response, if you've heard of the fight-flight-freeze response in terms of managing anxiety. Almost certainly always this kind of overwhelm, or this flooding, or this overload of information that makes it hard to begin. So I would say task paralysis is probably pretty unpleasant, involuntary and reactionary, and it's quite immediate. Procrastination is something that we all do. It's a human behaviour. The reasons why we do it are much probably more broad-ranging than task paralysis.

• 7:04Sana Qadar?

  Basically, there are many emotional pathways that can lead to procrastination, and task paralysis can be one of them. We'll get to some of those other broader reasons or pathways in a moment, but let's just stick with task paralysis for now. Because one thing to note is that it's not a clinical diagnostic term. It's definitely more colloquial than that. And therefore, in terms of the research, there isn't really much on it. It's only mentioned in passing in a handful of papers, and most of those papers were only published in the last couple of years. So in the research literature at least, it's still a very new idea. But that's not stopped outlets like The New York Times, or The Telegraph in the UK, or clearly, us, from talking about it.

• 7:50Sana Qadar?

  And that's because, as Catherine tells me, it can be a useful shorthand for describing what is often essentially an anxiety response. And so, the key, she says, is understanding that task paralysis is probably just a symptom or expression of another issue. And one group that would be very familiar with the feeling are people with ADHD. So much so that another name for task paralysis is ADHD paralysis.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I think task paralysis is really common in ADHD because of the issues with executive functioning that can occur with ADHD. So executive functioning means things like planning, organisation. Just the way that the brain works is just different to a non-ADHD brain. And so, those executive function tasks can be a bit disrupted, particularly with tasks that require like planning, attention, organisation, and also kind of self-monitoring and self-focus with how we're doing with the task and how much time do we have left and things like that. So it's natural for that system to become quite flooded and overwhelmed, and for the person to react in a, kind of with task paralysis.

• 9:02Sana Qadar?

  For 13-year-old Eva, that's not the cause of her task paralysis. She doesn't have ADHD. She's got a few ideas about why she might struggle with it. But before we hear from her again, I just want to flip back to procrastination. Because remember, that's the overarching behaviour. And pick up on something that Catherine said a moment ago.

• 9:23Sana Qadar?

  So procrastination, you were saying we all do it. Is that, is that correct? Because I wondered if there were like certain magical people who don't procrastinate. I'm not one of those people.

• 9:32Speaker 05

  No, I'm not one of those people either. And I've never met one of those people. I think procrastination quite simply is the act of delaying a task. So I don't know anybody in life that would complete all tasks at the time that they planned to do them.

• 9:44Sana Qadar?

  Sure.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  But some people do it more than others. And for some people, it can be chronic and quite damaging to their wellbeing or their quality of life.

• 9:51Sana Qadar?

  Yeah, let's talk about the chronic damaging end of procrastination for a moment. What characterizes that end?

• 10:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, so really with any behaviour, what determines whether it's a problem is the impact it has on your overall mental health, wellbeing or your quality of life. So if the procrastination doesn't have any damaging consequences, then I guess it's not really a problem.

• 10:15Sana Qadar?

  Right.

• 10:16Speaker 05

  But chronic procrastination, you know, delaying things over and over again, or delaying certain things all of the time is likely to have negative effects. So if it's a work task, you know, you might get in trouble with your boss. If it's your kind of life admin, you might just never get around to things and start, you know, missing bills or having an untidy, unclean house. If it's your study, you might notice that your grades start failing. And also how we feel about our procrastination can also then make it a problem. If we tend to feel very negatively, if we have, you know, shame or guilt and worry about procrastination, and we do it a lot, that can also then create a kind of feedback loop of a negative emotional pattern.

• 10:54Sana Qadar?

  I don't know if you heard me there, but I was starting to laugh a bit when you got to bills.

• 10:57Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 10:59Sana Qadar?

  I feel like you're touching a nerve with me. Can I tell you my story of procrastination?

• 11:03Speaker 05

  Yes, please.

• 11:05Sana Qadar?

  Oh, my gosh, I, I think I'm a chronic procrastinator. I have it real bad. I have it, on one hand, work wise, every week when I start the script or when I delay starting the script for the next episode, and then delaying starting the edit for that episode. Like every week I have a pattern of freaking out and thinking, oh, God, I got to start the next script. I got to start the next edit until a point where I'm like, I have to do this. Otherwise I will miss my deadlines. And partly I think that's because I just, I don't get much of a breather between finishing one edit and having to start another. So I think, I think that's partly, you know, the pace of my schedule. Anyways, that's not the, the bills one. The bills one is bad. And that one, I think, is because of task paralysis. I, at one point racked up five years of unsorted out taxes.

• 11:50Sana Qadar?

  And so as each year clicked by, the panic would just sort of rise, but then I'd shove it further down. And then every now and then at night, you know, my rumination spirals would like land on my taxes. Now I haven't done them. Now I'm so overwhelmed. And then it was just, it was this pattern that continued for five years. It was just such ridiculous behaviour until I finally like was about to be hit with a really big consequence, shall we say, of not doing my taxes for five years. And so I did them. Is that like a, a really abnormal story? Am I completely, you know, off the charts bad? Or, yeah, tell me how this fits into what you've heard.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  My professional opinion as a psychologist.

• 12:30Sana Qadar?

  How messed up is my procrastination?

• 12:32Speaker 05

  No, it's, it's a really, really normal behaviour. It's really common. And I think what interests me as a psychologist is kind of what's underneath the behaviour. And it really does depend on your unique circumstances. There is lots of research into procrastination. So because it's a behaviour, it can also be a symptom. So if you have perfectionism, for example, one of the symptoms associated with perfectionism, a fear of getting things wrong, of failing something, is to put it off. That kind of makes logical sense in a way, even though it might be harmful.

• 13:04Sana Qadar?

  Gosh, that's what I feel every week with, with the edits and the scripts. I think, oh, my God, it's going to be terrible. I'm not going to be able to do a good job. And so I delay.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  So why do it? Yeah, exactly. You know, maybe if it's a, an assignment, for example, there might be a thought around, well, I need at least two hours to write a perfect assignment. And I don't have two hours, so I just won't do it at all. Whereas a non perfectionist might say, oh, you know, I've got half an hour now. I might as well make a go, see how I, see how I get on, kind of thing.

• 13:30Sana Qadar?

  Wish I could have that brain.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Yes, I think the research also shows that as well as perfectionism, that having low self-esteem is quite often associated with procrastination. So similarly, and perfectionism and low self-esteem do also go hand in hand. So this kind of fear of failure of getting it wrong with perfectionism, but with low self-esteem, it can be this underlying belief about ourselves that, you know, we're not going to do a good job, so why bother? Or we're not going to get it right. So there's no point because we just kind of rubbish everything.

• 14:00Sana Qadar?

  Gosh, okay. And then with something like taxes, what's, what's the delay there about? Because I, you know, I don't have any self-esteem issues bound up in my taxes, really.

• 14:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's a great question as well. So we tend to procrastinate tasks that we find boring, that we find frustrating, that have no sense of personal meaning or value to us. And also those that we resent doing. So that's kind of research backed reasons why we procrastinate.

• 14:25Sana Qadar?

  That feels like ding ding ding for the taxes box.

• 14:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, tick, tick, tick. It might tick a lot of those boxes. And procrastination, so broadly speaking, with most of those examples, it can simply be like an avoidance of an unpleasant emotion that comes with a task. So money and finances is one of those. It's a real worry for a lot of people, financial stress. And so if that stress surrounding finances and tax returns or whatever it might be, paying bills, if you don't know how you're going to pay the bills, then if you have one land in your letterbox, do you want to open it or do you not want to open it?

• 15:02Speaker 05

  Similarly, if you have emotional tasks, like I was speaking to someone who, you know, their parent had passed away and they had been procrastinating going to the house and clearing it all out. And, you know, that makes sense because that's going to involve a lot of negative emotions. I was also speaking to somebody else the other day who was procrastinating changing their name on a passport. And we talked about how that might be actually something to do with what that signifies for that person. You know, giving up their, their original name and taking on their husband's name and so on and so forth. So depending on what it is, it can be kind of a window into our emotional world. And it can also be simply that we are human beings and we tend to pursue positive emotions and avoid negative emotions.

• 15:47Sana Qadar?

  This is All in the Mind from ABC Radio National. I'm Sana Qadar.

• 15:53Sana Qadar?

  So sometimes procrastination is the result of perfectionism, sometimes boredom. And sometimes, to come back to our original focus, it's the result of task paralysis.

• 16:07Sana Qadar?

  So we talked about how ADHD can lead to task paralysis. Is perfectionism related to task paralysis as well? Like, what are some of the other reasons people might get task paralysis?

• 16:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good point. If we're talking about task paralysis being a reaction to threat, like a fight flight response where the person is kind of frozen, any significant amount of anxiety can create that. So if your perfectionism is really, really strong and you are very, very worried to the point of having extreme anxiety about the task, then you could also have task paralysis.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Generally, I don't consider myself to be a perfection, like.

• 16:45Sana Qadar?

  Perfectionist?

• 16:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, that.

• 16:47Sana Qadar?

  This is 13 year old high schooler Eva again.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  I guess sometimes I can be like, oh, well, if I hand this in, I might get like a C or a D or something, even though I know like, I probably won't. But I would just convince myself I probably will. And so then I'm just like, okay, you're not going to do this task at all.

• 17:05Sana Qadar?

  Eva wonders whether her task paralysis might be tied to depression because she's been struggling with her mental health recently. And obviously depression greatly impacts motivation.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  I have noticed it's a pattern. If I'm like doing really bad with my mental health one day or I've gotten overwhelmed, then I just, I also shut down.

• 17:24Sana Qadar?

  What's the biggest consequence you've had to face because of your task paralysis?

• 17:29Speaker 04

  I, I usually get away with handing in tasks late, so it's not that bad. I guess like maybe my grades gone down to a B instead of an A because I handed in really, really late. But yeah, no, no major consequences.

• 17:47Sana Qadar?

  And do teachers ever get annoyed by being asked for extensions, you know, often? Or are they okay?

• 17:53Speaker 04

  They're okay because I'm just like, they, they know I go to wellbeing a lot and stuff. And I guess I can get away with a lot because of that. I can just be like, yeah, so I'm not doing too great with my mental health, like, or they already know. And then they kind of just say yes to me.

• 18:07Sana Qadar?

  Okay.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  And I guess it helps that, um, I guess I would call myself a super communicator to some degree.

• 18:13Sana Qadar?

  That is Eva referencing one of our episodes from last year, which was titled, "The Skills Super Communicators Use, Which You Can Learn Too." We'll link to it in our show notes if you're curious.

• 18:23Speaker 04

  So like, I'm really good with talking and so most of the teachers like me. Especially since like in class discussions, I can find it really easy to like really build on to what they're saying and stuff, whereas no one else will put up their hands. So most of the teachers like me, which really helps.

• 18:39Sana Qadar?

  Yeah, that, I'm sure that would help. You can see why her dad's nickname for her is Clever Eva, right? And you were saying like you haven't had any consequences kind of from teachers or schoolwork or whatever. But I wonder if, do you feel like the consequence is kind of internal at the moment? In terms of like how your mind dwells on the things you have to do and then gets frustrated or gets anxious about them?

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's definitely very internal because I'm like, why can't I do this? Like last year, started last year in primary school, I could finish tasks really quickly, really easily. And then it kind of just like weighs on me. And sometimes I guess at school, if it's like a, not a great day and I have a lot of tasks, I guess metaphorically, it kind of feels like you can't breathe or like someone's holding you underwater. And it's just like this pressure.

• 19:29Sana Qadar?

  Is there a part of you that thinks like at all that you know you'll be able to potentially get an extension? And so because there's that safety net there, you like stay in the task paralysis? Like, do you know what I mean?

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:44Sana Qadar?

  Do you feel like you know you have a little bit of a safety net? So maybe in some ways it doesn't help.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  I feel like sometimes, yeah, in some ways, I'm just like, yeah, having that safety net. I guess I don't find as much motivation to do it because it's like, it's so far in the future. But at the same time, I feel like it can help because then it's like, I wouldn't feel that sense of doom as much.

• 20:07Sana Qadar?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 05

  It's so amazing that as a 13-year-old, she's kind of aware of her own behaviour patterns, which is not an easy feat for anyone, let alone someone who's in their early teens and still kind of, their brain's still developing. So that's really great because that's the first step if you do want to change anything.

• 20:26Sana Qadar?

  We're going to get to behavioural change strategies, but I just want to clarify something first. We've been talking about task paralysis and procrastination as though they're both always negative things. And while that's true for task paralysis, it's pretty much only negative, it is not a pleasant feeling, procrastination doesn't have to be. It can be a neutral and possibly even a positive, depending on your outlook. Here is one example.

• 20:53Speaker 05

  There's also research showing that some people just enjoy the pressure and work well under the pressure of a tight deadline. And so they create a tight deadline by delaying a task, and that can be quite beneficial for them. So there's always two sides to every coin, I guess.

• 21:09Sana Qadar?

  God, I don't know if I enjoy the tight deadline, but I guess it does motivate me.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we do, we just motivate ourselves knowing. And if we have a belief in ourselves that, you know, this is our pattern and it's always, if there's an underlying belief that, you know, it is always going to get done because this is what I've been doing for however many years, then it doesn't necessarily cause as much overwhelm and stress as if we genuinely believe that there will be big consequences if we engage in this pattern. And I think there's another aspect, I've done a few interviews about this topic, and there's another aspect that seems to come up a lot when I talk to people about their own circumstances, is that we are all just so incredibly busy a lot of the time, and our to-do lists are, you know, massive, and we're often juggling multiple demands, work, life, parenting, study, you know, multiple stresses.

• 21:56Speaker 05

  And when we're in a kind of perpetual state of busyness, our sense of urgency can kind of just naturally increase, and we might apply that sense of urgency to all tasks ahead of us because it's kind of a shortcut when they may not be that urgent. I talk to a lot of people saying, you know, I'm procrastinating this, and I'm procrastinating that, and is that bad? And my first question is, well, does it need to be done? Does it need to be done right now? And the answer, funnily enough, a lot of the time is no. And so sometimes we can create like really high demands on ourselves. Again, that can lead into things like perfectionism.

• 22:32Sana Qadar?

  What kind of tasks fall into that basket of not needing to get done but being the subject of procrastination?

• 22:36Speaker 05

  I think there's things like, you know, it might be like cleaning the car, or doing some life admin, or things that we might think, oh, I haven't done that for ages. But if we really stopped and asked ourselves, okay, does it need to be done today? Can I just take that off my plate for a second so I can kind of engage my sense of calm and then prioritise, which is one of the kind of remedies for procrastination, which we can come on to.

• 22:59Sana Qadar?

  Let's move on to that now. And we'll start with big picture, longer-term things that you can do, and then we'll get down to more immediate strategies.

• 23:09Speaker 05

  So the first step is like recognising that it's happening. In any behaviour change, the first step is always to kind of admit that you're doing it.

• 23:17Sana Qadar?

  I feel like I always get stuck on that step. Like, I've recognised a lot, I haven't moved past that very much.

• 23:22Speaker 05

  It's a very hard step, but recognising that you're doing it, you know, noticing patterns, is it certain tasks, is it all tasks? Then the next step would be understanding the reason why, because the strategies for managing procrastination will differ depending on the reasons why. So if it's task paralysis due to an ADHD diagnosis, then strategies to manage the ADHD, whether it's medication or through talking therapy, that can help with improving that executive control, organisation, planning, self-awareness, that kind of thing.

• 23:50Sana Qadar?

  Similarly, if the thing underlying your procrastination is perfectionism, you might need help to work on that before you can properly shift your behaviour.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  So there are really good treatments for things like low self-esteem and perfectionism. The leading evidence-based treatment is called cognitive behaviour therapy, or CBT.

• 24:08Sana Qadar?

  This is a topic we've covered extensively on All in the Mind, and in fact, we did an episode about CBT for perfectionism not too long ago. It's called "Outwardly impressive, losing it on the inside: the cognitive distortions of a high achiever". We'll link to that in our show notes as well. Then there are some more immediate strategies. If you tend to procrastinate tasks that you find really boring or annoying, then one trick is to schedule them for the start of your day.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  If you tend to leave your most boring tasks to the end of the day, it's much more likely that they're just going to drop off your list altogether for that day. So if you flip kind of your calendar essentially upside down, and then focus the rest of your day on things that you maybe find more enjoyable, or maybe aren't, you know, as arduous.

• 24:55Sana Qadar?

  Other strategies are things you might have heard before, like rewarding yourself for completing a task, so you get some positive reinforcement.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  It could be with like a self-care activity, it could be connecting with a friend.

• 25:07Sana Qadar?

  Or the classic, breaking big tasks into smaller components.

• 25:11Speaker 05

  Which is really handy if you've got something that feels quite overwhelming, is to just break the tasks down into small steps.

• 25:18Sana Qadar?

  The old, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I'll admit, none of these are exactly earth-shattering, but they can be helpful, and that last one at least, has helped me stay on top of my taxes. But here's another way you can look at your behaviour. If you're finding your procrastination is starting to rob you of time for other things that you'd rather be doing, if your weeks are just rolling by in a slog of delayed tasks, getting anxious about those tasks, then cramming to finish those tasks that you should have just done earlier.

• 25:49Speaker 05

  There's a model in psychotherapy called the ACE model, where good wellbeing and positive mental health is promoted as long as we have a balance of activities in the week. And these activities are things that give us a sense of achievement, things that bring us a sense of closeness, and things that give us a sense of enjoyment. So it's really easy to remember, A-C-E, achievement, closeness, enjoyment. And as long as we have a balance of activities that tick those boxes across the week, then we tend to be doing pretty well in ourselves.

• 26:20Sana Qadar?

  I love that as a measure of like knowing, as a way to like quantify, was this a good week?

• 26:25Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:26Sana Qadar?

  How can you figure that out?

• 26:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, did I, how many Cs did I have? How many Es? And literally in therapy, this is what we do. We ask people to write what they do every waking hour of their day, and then rate how much out of 10 achievement did that give you? What about the Cs and what about the Es? So what we find a lot of the time is people with high anxiety, perfectionism, low self-esteem, it's not that they're not doing anything, but most of the time, the page is filled with As.

• 26:52Sana Qadar?

  Right, right, right.

• 26:53Speaker 05

  We're all very good at, you know, we just task focus getting from one thing to the next, and we neglect the closeness and the enjoyment element out of our lives. And I think procrastination has a big part to play in this, because people don't typically procrastinate tasks to do really nice things. They usually just do something else that's like, just not as bad.

• 27:15Sana Qadar?

  It's like scrolling instead of doing the task.

• 27:16Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly. Or I won't do this assignment, I'll do that one.

• 27:19Sana Qadar?

  Or even if you do decide to like, I don't know, go to a spa and get a massage while you're procrastinating, you can't actually enjoy it because in the back of your mind, you're still buzzing with this task you've got to do.

• 27:29Speaker 05

  Exactly. That stress can kind of leak into that kind of positive time.

• 27:33Sana Qadar?

  The visual I have of it is like, the longer you push a task away, the more it starts to leak, you know, it's juices into the rest of your life.

• 27:42Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And the bigger it becomes in your mind. But I will say the one, there are some people that can use procrastination as self-care.

• 27:52Sana Qadar?

  What?

• 27:53Speaker 05

  So this is like the flip side of procrastination. We go back to the As, achievement, closeness, enjoyment. If you are putting off some of those achievement tasks in order to prioritise like closeness and enjoyment activities, and there will be no consequences to your quality of life, your wellbeing, or your like practical life, your work, your study, et cetera, then go for it.

• 28:18Sana Qadar?

  Right. So like, instead of cleaning your car, go hang out with friends, that's okay.

• 28:21Speaker 05

  Exactly, yes. Just don't let the dust get too thick because then you might develop some health problems or something.

• 28:29Sana Qadar?

  That is clinical psychologist Dr Catherine Houlihan from the University of the Sunshine Coast. Massive thank you to Eva for emailing us to pitch the idea for today's show and for sharing her experience of task paralysis. I wanted to get an update on how she went with that science project she had been delaying, so I gave her a ring. Here's what she said.

• 28:52Speaker 04

  I got an extension on it, and then I finished it on the last day of the school holidays.

• 29:00Sana Qadar?

  Right, okay, at the like last day of your extension?

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:04Sana Qadar?

  And how did you do on it? What did you get? What mark?

• 29:07Speaker 04

  I think I got a B.

• 29:08Sana Qadar?

  Okay, that's not bad.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was pretty happy with that because I handed it all so late.

• 29:12Sana Qadar?

  That is it for All in the Mind this week. Thanks to producer Rosalind, senior producer James Bullen, and sound engineer Simon Branthwaite. I'm Sana Qadar. Thanks for listening, I'll catch you next time.