Do it now: Understanding procrastination - Part I
Procrastination is a disease that if left untreated, will fester. The longer you wait to do something, the more complacent you become leaving it undone. In some cases, the longer you wait to do it, the bigger the problem itself becomes. An example is fixing a tear in a piece of clothing. If you continue to use the article of clothing without repairing it, the hole will grow larger from wear and tear, and what would have required seven or eight stitches and 5 minutes to fix is now something that requires hauling out a sewing machine, adding some reinforcing fabric to ensure that it doesn’t rip again, and fixing it. Chances are the repair will be more visible than it would have been if you had only had to make a few stitches by hand, and you may find that your efforts just can’t save it, and you have to throw it away after all.
Those of us who procrastinate are well aware we are creating more work for ourselves in the future, so why do it?
We want to do it perfectly
I call this the perfectionist’s curse. Perfectionists want to do everything in the absolute best possible way, everytime. “Almost” is not a word that their vocabulary readily accepts. So, if they have something to do and they fear they will not be able to do it perfectly, due to not having the correct colour of thread in the above example, they will put it off until they are able to go shopping for the right colour of thread. And of course, there will be a reason that they cannot go right away and get the right colour of thread, and that reason may well be the next point…
We are lazy
Sometimes the force that keeps us sitting in front of the computer or television screen, or curled up in bed is simply greater than our desire to do things and so we sit/lie/stay put and are shocked to discover that hours later we have not accomplished one tangible thing! For some, laziness is a lifestyle, but for most, it’s just a temporary thing.
We think it will only be a short term delay
For those of us who laziness is not yet a profession, we truly believe that our full blown procrastination is just a temporary delay. From personal experience what was a case of “I’ll do it next week” ’suddenly’ becomes “11 months later” and nobody is more shocked than I! Where does the time go indeed.
We fear we can’t actually do what we need to do
Somewhat related to the fear that some perfectionists feel, procrastinators put things off because they feel or know that they can’t do it. In the majority of cases, this is an unfounded fear brought on by a new situation, new surroundings or seeing somebody who appears to be doing it better than we believe we can do it. By putting off actually doing it, procrastinators hope to somehow master this skill they fear they do not possess but of course that never happens.
Do any or all of these reasons ring true? If you procrastinate, why do you do it? Tomorrow we’ll look at ways to stop these reasons in their tracks, and turn them into starting points to halting procrastination.
procrastination, procrastinate, getting things done, stop procrastination, stop procrastinating
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[...] Do it now: Understanding procrastination - Part I August 14th, 2007 by Kolz Procrastination is a disease that if left untreated, will fester. The longer you wait to do something, the more complacent you become leaving it undone. In some cases, the longer you wait to do it, the bigger the problem itself becomes. An example is fixing a tear in a piece of clothing. If you continue to use the article of clothing without repairing it, the hole will grow larger from wear and tear, and what would have required seven or eight stitches and 5 minutes to fix is now something that requires hauling out a sewing machine, adding some reinforcing fabric to ensure that it doesn’t rip again, and fixing it. Chances are the repair will be more visible than it would have been if you had only had to make a few stitches by hand, and you may find that your efforts just can’t save it, and you have to throw it away after all. Those of us who procrastinate are well aware we are creating more work for ourselves in the future, so why do it? (more…) [...]