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"These people are normally used to hearing only praise from their parents and teachers when they are young," Zheng said. "They are so afraid to hear any negative comments. So they find excuses for themselves in this way."
Mu Xiaochai, who works in an advertising firm in Beijing, discovered why she continuously put off tasks after consulting psychologists. "Since I was a kid, I was told repeatedly to spend every second on studying and wasting time was just like committing suicide," Mu said. "The excessive pressure sometimes causes psychological inversion, so in the end I don't care that much about time at all. But on the other hand, all these words about cherishing time are rooted deep in my mind. Therefore when I don't want to work and keep putting things off, I feel guilty.
Together with several other members in the group Fighting Against Procrastination, Yu translated the book End Procrastination Now!, written by American psychologist William Knaus, into Chinese in 2011.
"Normally we are always encouraged to put more efforts in the things we are doing or change our attitude, while this book is different," Yu said. "It helps us to dig deep into our heart and find out how we've become what we are. In many cases, procrastination is not about attitude."
According to Yu, there are actually many misunderstandings about procrastination. "Normally people think if we finish everything earlier, we will feel more relaxed in the following days, but actually it's not like that," Yu said. "Even if we finish tasks before the deadline, we just find new things to do and keep procrastinating."
Yu listed a number of books on procrastination and encouraged members in the group Fighting Against Procrastination to read and keep writing reports. Meanwhile, Yu launched some activities to gather members together to help each other overcome their urge to procrastinate.
Yu has tried different ways to fight against procrastination himself. "A person may have different reasons to put off different tasks," Yu said. "We need to use different methods to deal with each type of procrastination. It is relatively easy to solve procrastination on tasks that we are very proficient with, because if you are proficient with the task you just need to concentrate."
For Yu, the most difficult case is putting off tasks that a person doesn't want to do but is persuaded to do by others. "To deal with this, we should be honest to both the other people and ourselves and learn to refuse," Yu said.
Meanwhile, some software has been developed to deal with procrastination. In June 2010, a program called Little Black Room was unveiled. It is designed for people who write essays or articles but cannot concentrate due to the distractions caused by surfing randomly on the Internet. As soon as people start to run the software, the screen will turn black and people cannot do anything but write until they reach the number of words they specified before they started.
"It works sometimes," said Su Wen, an editor in a magazine in Shanghai. "But I need to check some information online when I am writing. It is more useful for writers who don't need the Internet."
Su attributes her procrastination to the fear of failure. "When I write an article, I always want it to be the best article among my coworkers. If I can't start well, I'd rather not to start at all," said Su.
After knowing this problem, Su's supervisor asked her to relax and write "flawed" articles. "After his words, I started writing quickly and finished soon, and actually the articles turned out well," Su said. "We are so demanding and put a lot of pressure on ourselves. But as long as you start doing something you tend to be able to finish it."
"I think fighting is not the proper word to use when dealing with procrastination," said Lan Jing, who studies in Beijing Normal University for her master's degree in psychology. "It sounds more like procrastination is our enemy. It is not true. We should learn to communicate with it and deal with it in a much softer or more astute way."
Email us at: yuanyuan@bjreview.com | 
