In today’s world most of us are guilty of procrastination.  First let’s understand what is procrastination?Procrastination is a behaviour in which an individual delays or postpones any task.  This behaviour is not new.  In early 19^th century, a term ‘Akrasia’ was used, which is a Greek word, it is the state of mind in which someone acts against their better judgement through weakness of will.  So akrasia is basically a behaviour when you do one thing even though you know you should be doing something else.So we may say that akrasia is procrastination.  But what causes this behaviour?According to a research in behavioural psychology, a phenomenon called “time inconsistency” is revealed, which helps to understand why people procrastinate.  Time inconsistency refers to the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.To understand better, let’s consider two sides of an individual – Present Self and Future Self.  When we think about future we wish to make choices that lead to long term benefits, but when we think about present, we make choices that lead to short term benefits.  So your future self knows you should do things that lead to the highest benefits in the long term, but your present self tends to overvalue things that lead to immediate benefits.Let’s see a practical example.  Most of the people know how crucial it is to start saving for their retirement from their 20s and 30s but the benefit of it is in long term, after 3-4 decades.  But when it comes to buying a new phone or new clothes, it is very easy for your present self to see the value in it as the benefit is immediate.  So in this case, what happens is most of the people buy instead of doing saving and what comes to mind about saving is “baad mein karenge na (will do it later)”.  This is how your present self is dominating your future self, which actually leads to procrastination.So how do we kick out the procrastination from our lives?Visualization & dream picture – Daily visualize the benefits your future self will enjoy if you start saving right now or start doing the things that helps you achieve your goals.  You may also make a dream picture of the things you will achieve.  Both the things will motivate you to act right now.Change your environment – The best way to change your behaviour is to change your environment.  It is always very easy to make right choices if we are surrounded by better choices. Hence remove the distractions from your environment and create the space with better choices.Commitment – Make a daily task list and commit yourself to complete the same, and become like ‘Radhe’ of the movie ‘Wanted’, who says, “Ek baar jo maine commitment kardi, to phir main khud ki bhi nahin sunta” (If I make commitment, then I don’t listen to myself as well).If we are consistent in doing these, then it will become a habit and procrastination will definitely be kicked out of our lives.@ankitittan