How Procrastination Produces More Anxiety.

I’ve been working from home most of the time since COVID-19 came to America. Working from has it’s benefits like knowing I’ll get off work on time because it only requires logging off my work computer, but it also allows more opportunity for procrastination because there are many things we can do and rather do at home than office work.

Sometimes I procrastinate opening my work email and I wonder to myself why do I feel anxious to open my work email? Its because of the fearful thoughts I imagine in my head. I procrastinate opening my work email because I’m afraid that I’m going to see an action request that I don’t know how to do, which will cause more energy to be exert because now I have to do research to understand how to process the action. And possibly ask others questions about the action to ensure I have the correction information, and that’s a drag because Americans love to pretend that we know it all and view asking for help as some inferior work ethic.

Another reason is that maybe there is an email of someone asking for a status update on an action that was previously submitted. What if I can’t find the current status of the action because it was never processed because it got overlooked? Now, me and the rest of the office employees look bad because it looks like we’re slacking on our responsibilities of taking care of our customers.

Both of these scenarios can happen and has happened, but that doesn’t mean that will be the case when I open my email. And if there is an email that reflects one of these scenarios or possibly both, then procrastinating to open my email isn’t going to make the email disappear. That email will be there at 9:00am and still be there at 5:00pm if I ignore it.

And the longer I ignore the email the worse the problem will get because then the sender will wonder why they haven’t received a response to their email all day because nobody likes to be ignored. From the day we are born we are craving attention as crying babies. As we grow up we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us, but the desire for attention is still prevalent for better or worse.

Therefore, there is no benefit to my anxiety by procrastinating on opening my work email. And the longer I delay the more anxious I will get because I’m still imaging negative emails that may not even be there. By being proactive and opening up my email at the appropriate time, then I may be surprised to see that there are no emails that will cause stress and now the rest of my day will be joyful because I’m no longer anxious about work.