Pod Insights All In The Mind Task paralysis and procrastination - why it's so hard to get sh*t done About this episode 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.
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
Guests:
EvaHigh school student
Dr Catherine Houlihan https://www.instagram.com/drcathoulihan/Clinical 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 BranthwaiteMore information:
The skills supercommunicators use, which you can learn too https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/skills-supercommunicators-science-you-can-learn/103430306Outwardly impressive, losing it on the inside? The cognitive distortions of a high achiever https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/high-achiever-stress-productivity-anxiety/105199130Why do I procrastinate? And can I do anything about it? https://theconversation.com/why-do-i-procrastinate-and-can-i-do-anything-about-it-255770Fighting for focus in the age of distraction https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/allinthemind/fighting-for-focus-age-of-distraction/105034906
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0:36 Speaker 03 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.
0:49 Speaker 04 Oh my god, soon.
0:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, I haven't started it yet.
0:53 Speaker 04 Oh no, are you freaking out?
0:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
0:56 Speaker 04 Oh my goodness, what are you gonna do?
1:00 Speaker 03 Probably try and speed around it, probably ask the teacher for an extension.
1:07 Speaker 04 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 when are 13-year-old messages to say they are a big fan, you notice?
1:22 Speaker 03 I'm Eva, I am 13 years old and I am a student in high school.
1:27 Speaker 04 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?
1:43 Speaker 03 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 going to 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 do anything.
2:10 Speaker 04 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.
2:23 Speaker 03 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 of mine has probably done something on this. And then I couldn't find anything. So I was like, huh. So then I just wrote in.
2:41 Speaker 04 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.
3:06 Speaker 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.
3:16 Speaker 04 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?
3:48 Speaker 05 Give my professional opinion as a psychologist.
3:51 Speaker 04 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.
4:13 Speaker 04 So what was the science experiment that you did that you have to write up the report for in two days?
4:17 Speaker 03 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.
4:33 Speaker 04 It didn't work out too well?
4:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, because the colours didn't really reflect the teams that well.
4:39 Speaker 04 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?
4:49 Speaker 03 Um, about three weeks.
4:52 Speaker 04 And what do your parents say about your task paralysis?
4:55 Speaker 03 I don't talk to them about it. They think I'm all good with all my schoolwork because I get like As and Bs somehow.
5:03 Speaker 04 Right, so you still managed to get good grades despite this?
5:06 Speaker 03 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 like of my stuff of mental health and stuff.
5:16 Speaker 04 And so will this podcast be the first time your dad's hearing about this science report that you haven't done yet?
5:20 Speaker 03 Uh, yeah.
5:21 Speaker 04 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.
5:52 Speaker 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.
6:02 Speaker 04 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.
6:14 Speaker 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 we 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.
6:58 Speaker 04 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,
7:40 Speaker 04 or clearly us, from talking about it. 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.
8:12 Speaker 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.
8:41 Speaker 05 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.
8:56 Speaker 04 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.
9:17 Speaker 04 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.
9:26 Speaker 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.
9:39 Speaker 04 Sure.
9:40 Speaker 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.
9:45 Speaker 04 Yeah, let's talk about the chronic, damaging end of procrastination for a moment. What characterises that end?
9:54 Speaker 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.
10:09 Speaker 04 Right.
10:10 Speaker 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.
10:49 Speaker 04 I don't know if you heard me there, but I was starting to laugh a bit when you got to bills.
10:51 Speaker 05 Yes.
10:53 Speaker 04 I feel like you're touching a nerve with me. Can I tell you my story of procrastination?
10:57 Speaker 05 Of course, yes, please.
10:58 Speaker 04 Um, oh my gosh, I, I, I think I'm a chronic procrastinator. I have it real bad. Um, 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 gotta start the next script. I gotta 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
11:41 Speaker 04 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.
11:51 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
11:52 Speaker 04 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 behavior 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.
12:23 Speaker 05 Give my professional opinion as a psychologist.
12:25 Speaker 04 How messed up is my procrastination?
12:26 Speaker 05 No, it's, it's a really, really normal behavior. It's really common. And I think what interests me as a psychologist is kind of what's underneath the behavior. And it really does depend on your unique circumstances. There is lots of research into procrastination. So because it's a behavior, 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.
12:58 Speaker 04 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.
13:05 Speaker 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.
13:24 Speaker 04 Wish I could have that brain.
13:25 Speaker 05 Yes, I think the research also shows that as well as perfectionism, that having low self-esteem is quite often associated with procrastination.
13:34 Speaker 04 Oh.
13:34 Speaker 05 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.
13:54 Speaker 04 Gosh, okay. And then with something like taxes, what's, what's the delay there about? Cause I, you know, I don't have any self-esteem issues bound up in my taxes, really.
14:02 Speaker 05 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.
14:13 Speaker 04 Hmm.
14:14 Speaker 05 And also those that we resent doing. So that's kind of research-backed reasons why we procrastinate.
14:20 Speaker 04 That feels like ding ding ding for the taxes box.
14:22 Speaker 05 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. You know, 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? 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.
15:06 Speaker 05 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.
15:41 Speaker 04 This is All in the Mind from ABC Radio National. I'm Sana Qadar.
15:48 Speaker 04 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.
16:01 Speaker 04 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?
16:12 Speaker 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.
16:36 Speaker 03 Generally, I don't consider myself to be a perfection...
16:39 Speaker 04 Perfectionist?
16:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, that.
16:41 Speaker 04 This is 13-year-old high schooler Eva again.
16:44 Speaker 03 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'll just convince myself I probably will. And so then I'm just like, okay, you're not going to do this task at all.
16:59 Speaker 04 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.
17:10 Speaker 03 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.
17:19 Speaker 04 What's the biggest consequence you've had to face because of your task paralysis?
17:23 Speaker 03 I usually get away with handing in tasks late, so it's not that bad. I guess like maybe my grade's gone down to a B instead of an A because I handed in really, really late. But yeah, no, no major consequences.
17:41 Speaker 04 And do teachers ever get annoyed by being asked for extensions, you know, often? Or are they okay?
17:47 Speaker 03 Um, 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 all they already know. And then they kind of just say yes to me.
18:01 Speaker 04 Okay.
18:02 Speaker 03 And I guess it helps that, um, I guess I would call myself a super communicator to some degree.
18:07 Speaker 04 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.
18:18 Speaker 03 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.
18:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, that, I'm sure that would help. You can see why her dad's nickname for her is Clever Eva, right? Um, and you were saying like you haven't had any consequences kind of from teachers or schoolwork, 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?
18:57 Speaker 03 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.
19:24 Speaker 04 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 that, there's that safety net there, you like stay in the task process? Like, do you, do you know what I mean? Do you feel like?
19:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
19:39 Speaker 04 You, you know, you have a little bit of a safety net, so it maybe in some ways doesn't help.
19:43 Speaker 03 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, I wouldn't feel that sense of doom as much.
20:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
20:05 Speaker 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.
20:21 Speaker 04 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.
20:48 Speaker 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.
21:03 Speaker 04 God, I don't know if I enjoy the tight deadline, but I guess it does motivate me.
21:07 Speaker 05 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. And when
21:51 Speaker 05 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.
22:21 Speaker 05 So sometimes we can create like really high demands on ourselves. Again, that can lead into things like perfectionism.
22:26 Speaker 04 What kind of tasks fall into that basket of not needing to get done, but being the subject of procrastination?
22:31 Speaker 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 prioritize, which is one of the kind of remedies for procrastination, which we can come on to.
22:54 Speaker 04 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.
23:03 Speaker 05 So the first step is like recognizing that it's happening. In any behavior change, the first step is always to kind of admit that you're doing it.
23:11 Speaker 04 I feel like I always get stuck on that step. Like I've recognized a lot, I haven't moved past that very much.
23:16 Speaker 05 It's a very hard step, but recognizing 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, organization, planning, self-awareness, that kind of thing.
23:45 Speaker 04 Similarly, if the thing underlying your procrastination is perfectionism, you might need help to work on that before you can properly shift your behavior.
23:54 Speaker 05 So there are really good treatments for things like low self-esteem and perfectionism. The leading evidence-based treatment is called cognitive behavior therapy or CBT.
24:03 Speaker 04 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.
24:32 Speaker 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 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 as arduous.
24:50 Speaker 04 Other strategies are things you might have heard before, like rewarding yourself for completing a task so you get some positive reinforcement.
24:58 Speaker 05 It could be with a self-care activity, it could be connecting with a friend.
25:01 Speaker 04 Or the classic, breaking big tasks into smaller components.
25:06 Speaker 05 Which is really handy if you've got something that feels quite overwhelming, is to just break the tasks down into small steps.
25:12 Speaker 04 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.
25:44 Speaker 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, ACE, 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.
26:15 Speaker 04 I love that as a measure of knowing, as a way to quantify, was this a good week?
26:19 Speaker 05 Yes.
26:20 Speaker 04 How can you figure that out?
26:21 Speaker 05 Yeah, 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.
26:46 Speaker 04 Right, right, right.
26:48 Speaker 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.
27:09 Speaker 04 It's like scrolling instead of doing this task.
27:11 Speaker 05 Yes, exactly. Or I won't do this assignment, I'll do that one.
27:14 Speaker 04 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 gotta do.
27:23 Speaker 05 Exactly. That stress can kind of leak into that kind of positive time.
27:28 Speaker 04 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.
27:36 Speaker 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.
27:46 Speaker 04 What?
27:47 Speaker 05 So this is like the flip side of procrastination. We go back to the Ases, achievement, closeness, enjoyment. If you are putting off some of those achievement tasks in order to prioritize 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.
28:12 Speaker 04 Right. So like, instead of cleaning your car, go hang out with friends, that's okay?
28:15 Speaker 05 Exactly, yes. Just don't let the dust get too thick because then you might develop some health problems or something.
28:23 Speaker 04 That is clinical psychologist Dr Catherine Houlihan from the University of the Sunshine Coast.
28:30 Speaker 04 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.
28:47 Speaker 03 Um, I got an extension on it and then I finished it on the last day of the school holidays.
28:55 Speaker 04 Right. Okay. At the like, last day of your extension?
28:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:58 Speaker 04 And how did you do on it? What did you get? What mark?
29:00 Speaker 03 Uh, I think I could have b.?
29:02 Speaker 04 Okay, that's not bad.
29:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, I was pretty happy with that because I handed it off so late.
29:07 Speaker 04 That is it for All in the Mind this week. The great irony is I'm actually wrapping up the edit for this episode a week early, which never happens. Of course it would on this one. Whatever, I'll take it. 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.
29:40 Speaker 00 Got complicated feelings about pop culture? Stop Everything is a podcast that helps you work it out. I do wonder, when we talk about therapy on TV though, whether it is kind of this exclusively affluent and middle-class space. Hmm. I think therapy can seem like something that's not for everyone, that is like an intellectually expensive endeavor. But we're seeing a mobster do it. We're seeing someone from, you know, a working class background open up. It normalizes therapy. Like Sopranos, it was the biggest show on television for a while there. So the biggest show on television for many years was a show that was a lot about therapy. Compared to how normalized it is now, I think just the sheer fact of him going was already... Was huge. Yeah.
30:24 Speaker 00 Book talk trends, problematic celebrities, or reality TV, whatever it is, join me, Hannah Riesch, and me, Beverly Wang, as we unapologetically overthink pop culture. Find Stop Everything on the ABC Listen app.
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