How I’m Dealing With My Anxious Need To Finish Work Right Away
Mindfulness is key to unprogramming precrastination anxiety
This month I increased my freelance workload to levels it hadn’t hit since my third son was born last year. I’m working with new editors and new publications. I’m learning new systems. I’m unlearning something too.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve used the discomfort of a job unfinished as a cue to work. That’s why when I scrolled past a social media post referring to precrastination — the also dysfunctional twin of procrastination — the term clicked on a gut level. I tend to do assigned work as fast and as thoroughly as possible in a fit of anxious achievement. The rest of my life be damned when there’s work to be done.
This has functioned well for the bosses and teachers who’ve assigned me tasks. After all, they have a productive worker they can count on. In some ways, it’s functioned well for me, too, since I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.
But there are ways in which precrastination has been less functional. Anxiety is a painful guide, and obedience to it has hurt my mental health. What’s more, focus on work has sometimes come at the expense of being present in my life. Personal time can be sucked into the vortex of work without my intending it. This cost…
