Why Do We Procrastinate - with Clinical Psychologist Dr Nicola Griffiths
🧠Procrastination is not a character flaw. It is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do.
The brain is wired for efficiency. And when it encounters a task that feels uncomfortable or effortful, it does what it has always done. It looks for the quickest route to relief.
Dr Nicola Griffiths explains how that instinct, while completely natural, can quietly take over.
Putting a task off feels good in the moment. That immediate relief is registered as a success by the brain, which makes it far more likely to repeat the same response next time. And so the cycle builds. The task grows more overwhelming, the avoidance grows stronger, and willpower alone becomes increasingly ineffective as a solution.
The way out is not to fight the brain. It is to work with it.
Breaking a large task into smaller, more manageable pieces lowers the perceived threat. It makes starting feel bearable rather than monumental. And that is often all the brain needs to stop treating the task as something to escape.
What is the one task you have been putting off that you could break down into a
smaller first step today?
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