How to Deal With Procrastination by Asking Questions

Why is asking questions important? How does confusion cause procrastination?

Sometimes, you procrastinate when you aren’t sure what to do—or, more often, you aren’t sure how to do it. Thankfully, the solution is equally straightforward: Usually, a few simple questions will clear up any confusion so that you can proceed confidently. 

Continue reading to learn how to deal with procrastination by being openly curious.

Ask Questions to Defeat Procrastination

When you don’t ask questions to gain clarity on a task, you’re less likely to get it done because you don’t want to fail. That’s why asking questions is important: Not only are you gaining more knowledge, but you’re gaining enough confidence to openly admit you don’t know how to do something. There are some questions you should ask so you can move forward with your work.

The first rule for how to deal with procrastination is to ask some clarifying questions about what you’re supposed to do. What exactly is this task? What, specifically, are you trying to accomplish?

With that said, the more common cause of confusion is how to approach that task. Ali Abdaal’s solution is not to simply ask how a task should be done, but rather to ask why you’re doing it. Knowing the larger goal behind a task will often help you figure out the best way to approach it. In other words, the answer to why will lead to the how. 

For instance, if your task is to get a sales report ready, it would be helpful to know whether you’re preparing it for someone else in the company—someone who already knows the company’s procedures, expectations, and jargon—or for someone external like a potential investor, who will need some background information. The principle is equally applicable to personal tasks. Say your current task is to clean your house; are you doing that just to make your home more pleasant for yourself, or because you’re hosting a party and therefore you need the entire house to be spotless?

(Shortform note: As well as helping you clear up your confusion (and therefore overcome procrastination), Abdaal’s suggestion to ask for background information and then find your own solutions supports the second source of good feelings: empowerment. In fact, it closely resembles a business strategy that former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings describes in No Rules Rules. Hastings credits Netflix’s success to its culture of empowerment, which encouraged everyone from entry-level employees to Hastings himself to make their own decisions. One key part of this culture was providing employees with information so they could make the best decisions possible—as Abdaal would say, Netflix made sure its employees understood the why, and encouraged them to figure out how for themselves.) 

Finally, Abdaal says that if you don’t clarify when to do something, you’ll put it off until the last minute (if there’s a deadline) or won’t do it at all (if there’s no deadline). For example, if you have a report due at the end of the work week and you don’t give yourself a specific time to do it, you’ll find yourself scrambling to finish that report on Friday. To give another example, if you’re planning to call a family member but don’t set aside time to do so, you’ll find that you never get around to making that call.