8

Procrastination and Your Brain

In this chapter we examine several biologically based conditions that often go hand in hand with procrastination: executive dysfunction, attention deficit disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, stress, and sleep problems. If you have or think you might have any of these conditions, they could be making a significant contribution to your procrastination. Don't despair, and don't ignore them. Consider getting a medical evaluation; medication may be helpful in treating the condition and may help reduce your procrastination.

EXECUTIVE FUNCTION

When we talk about executive function, we're not talking about the performance of CEOs in large corporations. We are talking about the performance of the CEO of your brain.  Just as the CEO of a business is responsible for the performance of the overall company, the executive part of your brain coordinates, regulates, and integrates the different structures and systems of your brain to give you a smooth, ongoing sense of yourself with your personality, goals, values, and skills. Your inner executive takes in information from your senses, your history, your thoughts, and uses this information in a goal-directed way to enable you to accomplish what is important to you.

Just as it is possible for a company to have well-functioning departments led by an incompetent CEO, it is possible for a person to have a brain that functions well in many ways, yet lacks overall leadership.   A person with poor executive function may struggle with important life skills in spite of possessing many mental strengths. Perhaps you know someone (maybe even yourself?) who is smart and has good ideas, but who is "terminally disorganized" and never seems to have the right papers or materials, can't remember what was planned or decided, and loses track of the steps necessary for the completion of a task. Sound familiar? This kind of disorganization easily leads to procrastination, because you lose track of timelines and deadlines, and because it can become so frustrating to locate what is needed to complete the project that you just give up.

A person who has difficulties with executive function often has problems with procrastination; however, not all procrastinators have executive dysfunction, so this is an issue that you must consider in figuring out what your own procrastination is all about. Almost all people who have attention deficit disorder (which we discuss in the next section) have executive function difficulties, but executive dysfunction does not necessarily imply ADD.

There are different opinions about which capacities are involved in executive function, but there is general agreement that there are several basic factors: attentional control, cognitive flexibility, goal setting, and information processing.  These can be further divided into the following specific functions:

1. Initiate tasks (get started, generate ideas for action)

2. Sustain attention (follow through, stick with an activity)

3. Inhibit impulses (think before acting, not respond immediately)

4. Shift attention (change focus, move from task to task, respond flexibly)

5. Working memory (remember plans, instructions, and past learning for use with new learning and situations)

6. Emotional control (regulate and manage feelings)

7. Organize material (obtain needed materials and create order)

8. Self-monitor (verbal capacity to review one's performance, to talk oneself through difficult tasks or experiences as needed)

9. Time management (be aware of and realistic about time)

10. Planning (prioritize, identify steps toward a goal, anticipate future needs and events)