Perfectionism, Procrastination & Your Future Self

Photo by Marten Bjork on Unsplash

If you’ve had thoughts like “I’m not in the mood to start yet” or “I’ll feel more like doing this later,” you may be a secret perfectionist. I say secret because most of us associate perfectionism with our finished product. But you can also be a perfectionist around getting started and needing all the conditions right before you work on something. This perfectionism is a common cause of procrastination for people with ADHD. 

Those of us with ADHD frequently put things off because we believe we’ll know when it’s time to begin, e.g., we’ll have some flash of insight that makes working on the task interesting, fun and easy. We may be more prone to this because we tend to prioritize work based on emotions, waiting until we either feel very good about something or we feel the intense anxiety that waiting until the last minute brings. It could also be related to challenges related to time and working memory, and our perceptions of a) the past, as we may be less likely to remember how we felt the last time we worked on something and b) the future, as we’re then more likely to be optimistic about how we’ll feel at another time. 

Challenging your thoughts and doing experiments can help this form of procrastination. Instead of accepting that you can’t start because you don’t feel like it, you can ask yourself what evidence you have that this is true. Or you can plan a small experiment and do even a small amount of work to learn whether you really can work on things only if the conditions are perfect. You could also look at past experiences to see if there’ve been other times you were able to get started despite it not feeling like “time” to start. 

One of my favorite techniques involves thinking about your future self, which can help improve your predictions. This may be because when we make an optimistic estimate, we’re going with a knee-jerk reaction or just over-identifying with our present self. If you ask yourself how you’ll feel at a specific point in time, though, it can be easier to connect with that future self. For example, if you have a project due, instead of thinking “there’s plenty of time,” you can ask yourself “How will I feel tomorrow if I still haven’t started?” or “How will I feel the day before it’s due if I haven’t started?” 

This can also help you act with compassion for your future self. For example, you might ask “What do I need to feel good about this next week?” or “How do I want to feel about this the day before it’s due?”
Coaching can help you practice and develop these techniques. Click here to schedule a free consultation to learn more.