Type of Interruptions and Causes of Procrastination

I Type of Interruptions
1. Personal interruptions

• Email alert or personal messenger
• Telephone calls
• Personal cell phones
• Web surfing
• Dealing with information

2. Interruption caused by others

• Fellow employees
• Meet fellow employees at their workplace
• Schedule meetings
• Visitors
• Meetings

II Causes of Procrastination

• Poor time management, often associated with a distorted sense of the time available
• An inability to prioritise
• Overload of tasks at a specific time
• Anxiety about the task, so time is spent worrying rather than doing
• Difficulty concentrating
• Not knowing what is required
• Feeling overwhelmed by the task(s)
• Fear of success and its possible consequences
• Perfectionism, often associated with unrealistic standards
• Negative feelings - e.g. "I'm stupid", "nothing ever goes right for me"
• All-or-nothing thinking, where one setback is seen as a total catastrophe
• Being bored by the task
• Never having learned how to work or sort out problems while at school or living at home
• Avoidance of things which are disliked or difficult.

References

1. MN501 Professional Practice Lecture Notes, Melbourne Institute of Technology, 2014