Pastoring, Productivity, and Procrastination

Much good will be done to your life and ministry if you start getting serious about acknowledging your procrastination struggles and developing strategies for change.

I struggle with it. You struggle with it. We all struggle with it. What is it? Procrastination. It’s one of the biggest productivity thieves known to man. 

I recently went to a conference out of town with a staff member, and I didn’t start packing until he texted “On my way.” Why did I wait until the last second to start packing? 

Although some people have more natural willpower and self-control than others, procrastination is a universal issue. Everyone struggles with it to varying degrees. Much good will be done to your life and ministry if you start getting serious about acknowledging your procrastination struggles and developing strategies for change. 

Solving the Procrastination Puzzle

Wanting to alleviate the hazardous influence of procrastination in my own life, I came across Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, who has been researching and writing about procrastination since 1995. You would expect helpful insights from an academic with such a focused devotion to one topic, and that’s exactly what you get from Pychyl’s book, Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Concise Guide to Strategies for Change. 

I learned from Pychyl, for example, that the word procrastination comes from the Latin root meaning “to put forward to tomorrow.” Here’s his definition of procrastination:

“Procrastination is the voluntary delay of an intended action despite the knowledge that this delay may harm the individual in terms of the task performance or even just how the individual feels about the task or him- or herself. Procrastination is a needless voluntary delay.” 

I see this definition broken down into four parts. 

Procrastination is: 

1. Voluntary.
2. Usually harmful. 
3. Unnecessary. 
4. Makes you feel worse about work and yourself. 

Among others, I gleaned the following strategies from Pychyl: 

• Just get started. 

• When you get started on a task that is perceived as dreaded and unpleasant, you’ll often discover that the task is not as bad as you thought. Crucially, once you get started, not only does your perception of the task change but your self-perception changes as well. Your self-confidence grows as you begin working.

• Procrastination is a deeply emotional issue. The inability to properly self-regulate will hijack your productivity. 

Pychyl’s book is helpful and worth the read. 

A Broad Look at Procrastination from the Bible  

From a biblical perspective, procrastination is a failure to love your neighbor: “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys” (Proverbs 18:9). It’s selfish, and hurts the people in your family and those you lead. 

Procrastination also hurts yourself and future provision: “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing” (Proverbs 20:4). 

Procrastination is also a failure to work heartily as for the Lord (Colossians 3:23). Sure, there’s that one time you procrastinated, pulled an all-nighter, and got an A on the exam. But relying on one example overlooks the obvious: most of the time, procrastination leads to less effective work. 

Scripturally, we are warned against giving an oath toward the Lord and not following through (Ecclesiastes 5:4-6). It’s a sign of deficient character to talk a big game and have no actions to show for it. Saying the right thing, but not doing what you said you’d do, is failure. Unfortunately, procrastinators often have a hard time following through: “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23). 

You are not a robotic machine, of course. There is grace offered to those in seasons of lament and grief, and there are seasons in which you might be more productive than others. You cannot expect to complete every task immediately since sometimes wisdom says to wait until you have more information, or after you have spent a season wrestling with God in prayer. What the Bible pushes back against is not those unable to get things done because of personal grief, but a perpetual spirit of laziness, a lack of diligence, and not doing the right thing when you know what the right thing is to do (James 4:17). 

Where a Pastor is Prone to Procrastinate 

The more stress you experience, the more tempted you’ll be to procrastinate. The inability to steward your emotions properly will undoubtedly lead to procrastination. Since pastoral ministry lends itself to multiple variations of stressors, it’s not surprising that pastors might struggle with it more than other vocations. 

Here are some areas where you might be tempted to procrastinate: 

• Sermon preparation. On multiple occasions, I’ve stayed up late on Saturday evening finishing my sermon. It’s a miserable feeling. I procrastinated throughout the week and didn’t finish on time. Pastoral ministry is much more enjoyable when I finish most of my sermon by the end of the day on Thursday. 

• Having a difficult conversation. I sometimes joke to myself that my real title should be “Professional Conversation Haver.” Pastors are constantly having conversations where every word is monitored, where church discipline might be required, where you must respond to criticism and opposition, or where help is needed and you don’t have the words to give. Who wants to pursue those kinds of conversations? And yet, difficult conversations are a crucial part of faithful shepherding, and prolonging these conversations only makes your angst worse. 

• Encouraging people in your church. Instead of rightly sending a quick text message of encouragement, we put off doing so because we wrongly spend too much mental energy wondering if we should send the text or not. We fear not getting a response and feel rejected. Or we’re forgetful. Or we wonder if our text really will be that helpful. 

• Undesired administrative work. I have the gift of administration. From my experience, most pastors don’t like doing admin. You got into ministry because you want to preach and shepherd God’s flock. You don’t have to be the guy who always does administration, but somebody has to get it done. Failing to complete administrative tasks or properly delegating them at first doesn’t seem harmful, but eventually creates big cracks in the ministry that are hard to seal. Negligence in administrative tasks will make your successor’s job more difficult than it should be. 

4 Tips to Overcome Procrastination 

I assume you’re spending time with the Lord regularly, asking him to guide and direct your day. While I offer no simple methods to overcome procrastination, consider the following tips: 

1. Understand that procrastination is self-harm. There’s so much talk in the Christian life about loving God and loving neighbor, and rightfully so. I’ve already mentioned how procrastination is a failure of neighbor love. But don’t forget about self-care or self-harm. If you don’t practice self-care or willingly plunge yourself into self-harm ― which is what procrastination is ― then your ability to love God and others will be compromised. 

Pushing past negative feelings and getting your work done on time and with excellence is a satisfying feeling. If we’re supposed to find joy in our toil, then procrastination hurts one of the God-approved ways we find joy in a fallen world (Ecclesiastes 2:24).

2. Just get started. I had a friend in college who would say the word “Nike” when I was fearful to do something. Of course, the famous slogan of the shoe company Nike is “Just do it.” He was encouraging me not to overthink. However, as Pychyl outlines in the book noted above, “Just do it,” signifies the completion of a project (which can be overwhelming) whereas “just get started” means taking the next step (which is doable). 

I try to avoid cheesy cliches, but “just get started” is helpful. Sure, there are times when you need more information before taking the first step. But sometimes the motivation to complete a project comes after you take your first step, not before. 

Also, recognize that just getting started can mean doing something ridiculously simple. If you are procrastinating in writing your sermon, for example, just open up a Word Document and type your name in the upper left-hand corner. You took the first step. 

Take initiative. Have a bias toward action. Do the next step ― even if it’s extremely mundane. Often, when you simply take one action in the direction of completing a project, it can powerfully create a feeling of momentum to continue finishing the entire project. 

3. Don’t believe everything you think and feel. 

When working on a project, various thoughts may come to mind: 

“This sermon isn’t going to land well.” 

“Am I wasting my time?” 

“What if it fails?” 

Not everything you think and feel is true. Defeating procrastination will be difficult if you don’t develop a healthy ability to push past negative thoughts and feelings and continue to work.

The opposite is also true. Merely thinking about accomplishing goals and dreams can create a positive mood. But that mood can be deceiving. It gives you the impression that you are doing something when you are not. Don’t self-deceive yourself into thinking you have been productive just because you wrote down a plan. You have to execute.

4. Ask God to help you in prayer. If we are supposed to be reliant on the Holy Spirit to kill sin in our lives, then we should also rely on God’s help for productivity. If a good earthly father won’t give his kid a snake when asking for a fish, certainly your Heavenly Father knows just the right thing to give you to fight against procrastination in your life (Luke 11:11). 

Everyone struggles with procrastination. But you don’t need to live as a chronic procrastinator. If you acknowledge your procrastination struggles and develop healthy patterns for change, your life and ministry just might feel more manageable.