Anxiety related procrastination ruining my life

[SilverHairedCat]

I'm a highly accomplished procrastinator. Never do now what you can put off until tomorrow. It's anxiety and performance related - total fear of failure and imposter syndrome (IYSWIM).

Its biting me on the arse at work, where my depression and anxiety has been steadily affecting my productivity over the last 10 months and is getting to the point where I'm on the cusp of being put on performance plans. Not a shock really.

Has anyone overcome this? How did you do it? Any practical advice?

To do lists make me worse - I re-organise them and re-prioritise them multiple times a week.
Journals look pretty, achieve nothing.
Speadsheets are my absolute love. Great for faffing with for hours.
I can stare at the same screen for hours and make no progress.

Yep! Here too.

Pomodoro technique helps me break out - 15 minute “just do this one thing” approach rather than multi-tasking

Waitbutwhy sums itvallup - watch his ted talk too :)

Hi all, I suffer from anxiety too. My anxiety is more around social aspects of my life, relationships and wanting children and the fear of being an older parent which I think is mainly down to a fear of looking like a failure...

So far I’ve had medication, counselling, CBT, Hypnotherapy and talking therapy. The main one I found worked was medication and I had sertaline. Other medications such as propananol also helped.

I found a quote once. It was from a high ranking officer in the navy that said “Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made, that you made.”

What are your anxieties about?

This is me.

I have a few issues in life currently which are really going to get much worse because I am not dealing with them. I am losing out financially and it's impacting on DC but still I do nothing.

I spent ages some time ago in a waitbutwhy rabbit hole which pretty much sums everything up.

It has caused me huge problems at work for many years and I feel I only get worse with age. However my anxiety levels in a sense are low. I think burnout has had a major impact. I have reached a new peak where even at the point where the stress of not having done something becomes greater than the pain of actually doing it, as PP mentioned, is not actually forcing me into action. It is going to bite me on the arse very hard soon.

You are not alone OP.

I'm suffering too. Up again now as my mind is racing around and it's making me tense up and therefore causes me pain.
I'm currently working my notice and not much is expected of me. I've got all the time in the world but I just can't get up and going.
I sit in my dressing gown (I am cold) and feel rubbish about myself. I see things that need doing. I've made a list even, but I barely do any of it.
My mind is far more powerful than I give it credit for. It's like it's out to destroy me!

Would suggest you all read up on ADHD / ADD / dyspraxia and see if any of it rings any bells.

Following. I am creating huge problems for myself at work through procrastination at the moment. I have a big presentation next week (unwritten) and my anxiety is through the roof. The more anxious I get, the more I procrastinate- it's a viscous circle.

I had this. Procrastination was my middle name. I would meet deadlines by coming in and tackling it first thing in the morning. It always surprised me how easy it actually was. Then I would spend the rest of the day wishing I could be like that all the time, while shuffling papers around my desk and answering emails. Yawn.
Frankly I found the work tedious. That was the core of it. I am leaving soon. Thank goodness.
Best of luck OP.

Haven't rtft but thank you @Destinysdaughter for the link to the PDF, just what I needed this morning!!

Sending love to those of you also struggling.

I'm 39 and it only dawned on me the other day - the reason I procrastinate, haven't gone very far in my career (or anywhere at all, in fact), is because of anxiety and low self-esteem. The fear of not being good enough is so powerful!

I had a year of therapy and I still couldn't put my finger on it. Thank you all for putting your hands up and sharing your experiences and suggestions

Destinys link explains perfectly how to deal with procrastination. Thank you!
www.hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf

Morning all. I'm thinking about why this is happening.

No ADD, ADHD etc here.

I'm used to shift work, that actually helped me - I worked better with fewer distractions, so was more productive between, say, 0700-1100 and 1500-2200 than my flexible office open hours of 0700-1830. I also do site work.

I'm also used to working as part of a close knit team and I'm very lonely in this job which is solo working and requires a lot of self motivation, which I lack. That clearly feeds my anxiety.

Unfortunately a lot of my anxiety is not work related, it's to do with lack of children. My DH is infertile. I'm 37. I'm terrified of IVF and the one go we can have on the NHS failing (I see the pattern there) so we aren't going to go ahead with it, but I'm still grieving the loss of the children I'll never have.

And I'm exhausted by the "just adopt" comments like it's a question of popping to Tesco, plus the well intended stories of natural surprise babies (it's a medical impossibility for us) when everyone 'relaxed on holiday', etc.

trigger warning
I also have a history of depression relating to an abortion when I was 22, which makes things a million times worse in my head, as though its fate dishing out a plate of karma to me, so this tends to take over all rational thought.

to you SilverHairedCat

It sounds very simplistic, but have you tried the Pomodoro technique? The idea is you set a timer and work for 25 minutes. You have to keep going for that long, but then you can have a break/stop. If you want to keep going you can, of course.

I use the Tomato Timer webpage and set myself 25 minutes of work if I'm finding it hard to concentrate or have a job I've been putting off. It's enough to make a good start on a big job, and you feel more inclined to continue.

Silver poor you. That’s very very tough.

Might getting signed off with stress-related fatigue for a week or so be a good idea? Just to reset. Do you have Occupational Health?

I’d pay privately for a counsellor, if you can. That’s a heavy burden.

I had 2 weeks MH leave off in December, but I'm on the cusp of being in trouble for sickness so I'm loathe to take any more time off unless I'm dropping, and I'm holding it together at the moment.

It's weird, I'm fine for months then have a huge flop about it. I've had some counselling but the counsellor and I didn't really click. I think because she had been through her own fertility issues and shared them with me, so I felt bad about moaning. Maybe I would do better talking to a man.

Lists have made my anxiety a hundred times better!

She just sounds like a shit counsellor. You were t paying her for her life story!

It was NHS counselling, I've met better. I've found a private one which is a man who used to work in my previous field (police) so will have some insight into some of my issues. That might be good. Thoughts?

Thank you for posting this OP and to others that have shared their experiences. So much resonates with me. I have never made the connection between the perfection/procrastination/anxiety that I suffer with. Seems so obvious now. It has cost me some fantastic opportunities as well.

I think seeking out better counselling would help OP. As someone said, that is a heavy weight to be carrying aside from any pre existing self esteem issues.

The mind does feel like a dangerous and cruel place sometimes. Do try to look after yourself.

Well I've had a bout of motivation and made the pie that I'd been putting off and actually getting anxious about (I felt like I was letting my husband down as I said I'd make it, felt like a failure for not doing it, didn't want to waste the ingredients).
All that stress over a pie! Crazy! Maybe I'll treat myself to a guilt free nap after such poor sleep lately.

@LifeBeginsNow pie and a nap. Sounds bloody brilliant!

I've found a private one which is a man who used to work in my previous field (police) so will have some insight into some of my issues. That might be good. Thoughts?

With any counselling, you need to trust the counsellor. So I’d make an appointment, go and see how you feel talking to him. You don’t need to commit if you’re not sure. There will be someone who can help you even if you end up seeing several people until you get the right ‘fit’. The best counselling allows you to talk so you can be guided towards insights, and offers you some practical strategies too.

This has been a really significant issue for me for as long as I’ve had to do anything that will judged by others. Not cracked it entirely but it now tends to be relapses triggered by particular combinations of things and I can identify what’s happening and come back from it.

Things that have helped:

Therapy - in my case psychoanalytic/psychodynamic but you just need someone whose approach makes sense to you and who listens. Your counsellor talking about her own fertility problems is such a fundamental failing on her part that it sounds like she hadn’t even grasped the basics of counselling. With regard to picking someone who’s worked in your field, it depends. You need someone who will listen rather than make assumptions because they have some knowledge of what you’re stalking about.

A book called Isn’t it about time by Andrea Perry to understand what was going on.

I found the ‘unschedule’ stuff in the Now Habit a useful idea but also catching myself at the point that I started to procrastinate and figuring out what’s happening and how I can reassure myself enough to get going (e.g. commit to doing 10 mins, decide I’m just going to do a very rough draft etc).

Getting Things Done by Dave Allen. Weird structure to the book and I’ve implemted it gradually but I felt so out of control the whole time that it was helpful.

Website and app blocking apps because the internet is my procrastination hell!

I’ve had a job app to do and last week I did loads on it in just one day as I had to show it to my job coach ( so motivated by fear essentially). This week I’ve had such little motivation to do it and it’s been hanging over me the whole time! I seem to need deadlines, rapidly approaching ones, ( panic monster ) or I don’t get stuff like that done...

Found some more exercises from The Now Habit which are good

hr.williams.edu/files/2014/03/Now-Habit-Participant-Guide.pdf