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Pre-crastination: The Other Side of Procrastination

'Procrastination' is a really common term and all of you must have surely heard of it. Each of us, may have also procrastinated at some point in our lives.
 For those who are unaware of what procrastination means, it is an act of delaying something that needs to be done, because it is either difficult, boring, or unpleasant. Examples of procrastination include putting off writing an assignment, delaying replying to an email, postponing the payment of bills, etc.

But precrastination? Majority of the public doesn't know that such a term even exists. Even as I type this blog, the said word gets underlined in red, telling me that it doesn't exist in the dictionary. That is because 'Precrastination' is a relatively new term. It was coined by three Pennsylvania State psychologists: David Rosenbaum, Lanyun Gong and Cory Adam Potts.

So what does precrastination actually mean? It could be said that precrastination is the opposite of procrastination. And like procrastination, precrastination could also be a serious behavioral problem. It is a tendency or inclination to complete tasks quickly just for the sake of getting things done sooner rather than later, even if it costs them more efforts. For example, completing off an assignment hurriedly even if it means compromising on the quality, replying to emails hastily instead of carefully contemplating their replies, etc.
In other words, it could be said that precrastination is the desire to check off the items on the to-do-list as soon as possible, in an attempt to relieve the anxiety of keeping things undone.

The trio of psychologists came to this finding after conducting an interesting experiment. The researchers led a few college students to an alley where there were two yellow plastic buckets filled with pennies; one closer to the participants and one closer the end of the alley. The students were then instructed to carry one of the two buckets to the end of the alley. They were asked to carry whichever bucket they thought would be easier to carry till the end of walkway. The researchers expected the students to carry the bucket which was towards the end of the alley since it was closer to the end of the walkway and hence would have to be carried shorter distance.
Surprisingly, the students preferred the bucket closer to them, actually carrying it farther. Upon interviewing the students, they got replies such as "I wanted to complete the task as soon as I could", when in fact, this choice did not help them in finishing the task sooner.

The researchers still haven't found the exact reason behind this, even after nine experiments involving more than 250 participants. However, they have hypothesized, that having a goal in our mind taxes our working memory. Working memory refers to that function of our brain that allows us to hold information in our memory for a short amount of time, readying us for immediate action.
According to Rosenbaum, our urge to relieve working memory may be so strong that we may be willing to expend more physical efforts to achieve it. However, he adds that this could be inefficient or dangerous. For example, Rosenbaum says that hurriedly completing an assignment may results in numerous errors that you then have to spend extra time correcting.

Interesting, eh?

Check this out, just for fun! https://gothinkbig.co.uk/features/quiz-are-you-a-pre-or-procrastinator

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