Why Procrastination/Tech Abuse Is Worse Than You Thought — & The Key To Overcome It

Procrastination is the action of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so. The word has originated from the Latin word procrastinatus, which itself evolved from the prefix pro-, meaning “forward,” and crastinus, meaning “of tomorrow.”

I just had a realization about procrastination. Not only does it delay the satisfaction one gets when they finish a project or task they need to do, but it also delays all the things one can do after having completed the necessities on their to-do list.

One can never do anything guilt-free if there are always important things waiting to be finished. Waiting to be attended to.

Hence, being stuck in a perpetual state of procrastination means being stuck in a perpetual state of not really living. This is a tragic and widespread issue.

For example, I currently have a presentation due tomorrow at 1pm for a job interview. It is about 20% finished as I write this blog post at 9pm, good old irony. Irony isn’t the point, though. I had a thought a few moments ago, it went along the lines of

“I’d really love to be free of any responsibilities right now, so I can pursue my interests, practising piano would be fun, or I would also love to get into bed early, get cosy, and finish the last 100 pages of Crime and Punishment. Then I could fall asleep with the satisfaction of having finished a book, and, even more fruitful, having finished a book that doesn’t exactly provide the most uplifting of vibes (but is important to read because it’s a paragon of literary genius, and all that, yawn)”

The point I’m making is, one can never do the things they really want to do when they have anxiety-inducing tasks awaiting completion. No, in those situations, when we decide doing the tasks doesn’t seem desirable, we need to do an alternative task which distracts us sufficiently to numb the anxiety one feels from not doing the task, so inevitably we are drawn to technology — the great hypnotist — the non-local socially acceptable narcotic which we use to stimulate our reward centres habitually.

If one were to, say, procrastinate on their essay that is due in a week by playing the piano, or reading a book, they would be present enough to realize that they ought to do the essay, or at least an hour of it, before practising or reading.

So, we procrastinate primarily by using social media (Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, or TikTok), and as the days pass, the time ticks, the time adds up. We put off doing the boring essential work, as well as the hobbies and passions we would pursue if we were on top of the essentials, and instead just trade our potential, our time, fragments of our limited life spans, to use these toys, day in, and day out. What an absolute fucking tragedy we are living through.

We have the whole world at our fingers, but we’re too overstimulated and addicted to make use of it. We have become livestock which are farmed for their attention by the one percent of the one percent.

Why do they want our attention? Because that’s data. The way we react and respond to things is data. This feeds algorithms, as well as artificial intelligence, the latter, by the way, has supposedly become sentient accordingly to a recently fired Google employee.

Right, well, you might suppose I have digressed by leaning into the topic of why the apps are designed to be so addictive, and the sentient A.I. might’ve been a tad past relevant I’ll admit. However, as far as I can see, knowledge and education on the situation at large is the key to breaking the curse of procrastination, and habitual use of technology.

There is no master key which will unlock the door. What has helped me is continually educating myself on the topic. The awareness that each time I use social media, or even a search engine, I am feeding and profiting a tiny percentage of humans who abuse their power, who continually tweak these tools/toys to be more addictive despite the clear convincing evidence that they’re damaging society and are directly connected to teen suicides.

Being aware of the fact that memories are not made on social media. Being aware of how good one feels when they experiment and try a dopamine detox. Being aware of how much more life satisfaction one has when they pursue hobbies/passions (instruments, books, education, sports, meditation, gym) instead of meaningless instant gratification (YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat).

Being educated on the benefits of eliminating the issue is essential, of course, but another useful tool is educating oneself on all the cons, at length. There is no quick tutorial I can make for this. It involves studying life in general. Studying life in general makes one feel more connected to the planet, humanity, and the human story. It makes one feel powerful. It gives one a greater depth of potential, which makes one even more averse to remaining a victim to the cyclical behaviour of perpetual tech use. Of procrastination. For procrastination is delaying the vital, the essential things we must do, and it is only after completing what we must do, that we can do what we want to do. Social media and habitual tech use is not what you dreamt you’d be spending much of your life doing as a child. It’s what we do to numb us from the anxiety we feel when faced with a to-do list, but if we instead just transmute that anxiety into excitement for what we might do when the to-do list is finished, then we might break free from stagnation, and instead start propelling ourselves towards a more fulfilling and exciting future.

Thanks for reading…

Bonus tips for decreasing the hold your phone has on you:

• Leave it out of your bedroom when you go to bed.
  Read in bed instead for a better night of sleep.
  (Buy an alarm clock instead of using your phones)
• Turn off notifications for any app you don't NEED notifications for.
• Tell your friends on social media you intend to use the app less, so you don’t start feeling that they think you’re ignoring them.
• Identify apps which provide you zero value and delete them (what do you ever remember after a session on TikTok, there are better forms of recreation, just delete it)
• Set reminders on your phone to do other activities (e.g. reminder at 8pm to put phone away and read)
• Put a time-on-screen widget on your home page, so the first thing you see when you open your phone is how much time you’ve spent on it today (example in image below)