What is cessation and how to deal with it

A huge number of books, articles and posts on the Internet have been written about what procrastination is, how it is dangerous and why you need to tie it up, including on our Lifehacker. But often, trying to raise their productivity and overcome the habit of procrastinating for later, people rush to the other extreme.

The term "termination" was coined by the Pennsylvania State University psychologist David Rosenbaum. According to him, this is the opposite of procrastination.

Termination is a compulsive urge to start immediately and complete your task as soon as possible, even if it takes a lot more effort.

The Crashinators are constantly busy. They are uncomfortable with putting off anything for later, even if the matter is not at all urgent. And if you think that this is a good habit, then you are mistaken.

How did this concept appear?

David Rosenbaum came to the concept of ceasing by accident. He studied the features of the motor skills of the human body, conducting the following Pre-crastination experiment: hastening subgoal completion at the expense of extra physical effort. Researchers David Rosenbaum, Lanyune Gong, and Corey Adam Potts recruited a group of 257 students and asked subjects to walk a certain distance, pick up any of two buckets filled with coins on the way, and bring them to the finish line. In this case, one bucket stood farther from the finish line, and the second was located closer to it.

Contrary to expectations, most of the participants picked up the former, despite the fact that they had to drag it for longer. As David found out, the reason for their behavior is this: the students divided their mission into two tasks: to raise the capacity and bring it to the finish line. And we tried to fulfill the first point faster, ignoring the fact that the second bucket is closer.

This is what is called preexisting - the desire to quickly put all the checkmarks in your checklist (no matter whether on paper or in your thoughts), regardless of objective reality and your own resources.

What are the reasons for termination

Internal anxiety

David Rosenbaum argues in Sooner Rather Than Later: Precrastination Rather Than Procrastination that the human brain is more likely to remember things to be done than completed ones. When we have brought something to the end, we immediately forget it, throw it out of our memory. But the unfulfilled task hangs in our head and annoys us. Therefore, people are trying to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Desire for cheap pleasure

Research by The Mere Urgency Effect shows that people get more satisfaction from small tasks that do not take a long time than more important, but delayed projects. By ticking the checklist, you feel pleasure and enjoy your "productivity". Even if they were doing nonsense.

The instinct of self-preservation

Clinical psychologist Nick Vignall has also suggested in Precrastination: The Dark Side of Getting Things Done that the reason for termination is a survival instinct. For thousands of years, people tried to do everything as soon as possible, until they were eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

Do not put off anything until tomorrow, because you can die - such an idea wedged into the subcortex of the human brain. And it has survived to this day, even when the saber-toothed tigers on the planet ended.

Therefore, most people prefer to get as much as possible right now, without investing in projects with a long-term perspective. This is supported by the classic Attention in Delay of Gratification experiment by Stanford scientists: "Get one marshmallow now or two, but later."

It's funny that pre-crastination in the pigeon is not only manifested in humans, but, for example, in pigeons. It is unlikely that these birds can be called very smart, so do not take an example from them.

Excessive conscientiousness

Kyle Sauerberger, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside, linked certain personality traits to The Opposite of Procrastination with a propensity to stop. He found that diligent, obliging, and responsible people tend to have this habit. This is how they try to live up to their own high internal standards.

Society approves of this, but workaholics themselves suffer from overwork, an exaggerated sense of responsibility and emotional burnout.

What can termination lead to?

Inability to concentrate

You are working on an important project, trying to fully immerse yourself in it. Suddenly, you receive a message from a colleague. It is not particularly important, and it would be better to pay attention to it only at the end of the day.

But the prestinator cannot postpone anything for later. He immediately starts typing the answer, and when he is finished, it takes a long time to switch back to the main task. So a lot of time is wasted simply on the transition from one case to another.

Emotional burnout

It comes from constant distraction. As you know, multitasking is more harmful than useful. Trying to chase several birds with one stone at the same time, prestinators spend too much energy, get tired faster and become disillusioned with their work.

Inability to prioritize

Pre-crustinators start with the simplest and fastest-doing things first. We can say that they naturally have a 5-minute rule of the creator of GTD David Allen: if you can do something immediately, do it.

But among such fast-performing tasks, there are rarely really important ones.

As a rule, higher priority issues cannot be resolved so quickly. Therefore, it often happens that the prestinator was busy all day, redid a bunch of everything, but in the end it turned out that the time was wasted.

Frequent mistakes

The desire to get the task done as soon as possible naturally leads to mistakes and negligence. The pre-crustinator is unable to postpone work halfway through, even if tired, and then recheck everything with a fresh look. Therefore, the number of completed cases, perhaps, is at its best, but the quality suffers.

How to stop stopping

Do fewer tasks

Psychologist Christopher Hsey's study The Mere Urgency Effect found that people who don't keep busy are less likely to stop. Therefore, learn to say no to those tasks that are not particularly important to you. It is better to complete one important task in a day than to waste energy on a bunch of little things.

Track quality, not quantity

Psychologist Adam Grant of the University of Pennsylvania told Precrastination: When the Early Bird Gets the Shaft in The New York Times that precrastinators tend to pay more attention to the quantitative aspect of their work, such as how many files they cross-checked or characters printed. Do not follow this desire and evaluate the quality of your work: less is more.

Plan your tasks

The problem with prestinators is that they are tormented by unfulfilled tasks hovering in their heads. Don't let them overwhelm your brain and write them down on paper. Set deadlines and prioritize things, and start when you plan - no sooner or later.

Break down large tasks into smaller ones

As already mentioned, prestinators zealously take on small matters and give in to large-scale projects. So when you are faced with a daunting task, create a list of sub-items for it and complete them one by one.

Practice emotional resilience

Psychologist Nick Vignall of the Cognitive Behavioral Institute in Albuquerque, in his article Precrastination: The Dark Side of Getting Things Done, recommends that whenever you want to get to work, stop and consider: is it really that urgent or can it wait? You need to prioritize objectively, not emotionally, whether it’s the satisfaction of another tick on a checklist or guilt about being idle.