Procrastination
By Susan D. Rostkoski, Principal Consultant
Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily postponing decisions or actions. For example, if someone has a week to finish an assignment, but they keep postponing it until right before the deadline, despite the fact that they intended to work on it earlier, that person is procrastinating.
And for those of you who are working from home, by choice or by dictate, you may find that procrastinating has become worse. After all, there is always a load of laundry, walking the dog, and helping your kid with fractions to distract you because they will “just take a few minutes.” Next thing you know you have also cleaned out three kitchen shelves, written that long delayed thank you note, and combed the mats out of the cat’s fur.
According to recent brain research, many procrastinators are actually very driven individuals and anything but lazy. Procrastinators often have very high standards for themselves and ambitious goals they want to achieve. They can be perfectionists and highly sensitive to “getting it right.” And it is those very characteristics that cause us to be afraid of failure or of disappointing someone if we don’t complete the task to our own high standards.
Some folks find it difficult to delay gratification. It’s so satisfying to put a check mark on a task, isn’t it? Other people feel overwhelmed or have trouble focusing on the tasks at hand.
Before you begin to feel guilty about recognizing yourself in the above descriptions, realize that you did get something done that needed to be done. The timing just wasn’t the best. Consider blocking out time, just as you would an important meeting, for a small step toward your goal. When it is time to do your work, set a timer so you can be focused for the entire allotted time. That 15 minutes will likely turn into more once you get started.
Dr. Kathleen Allen, author of Leading from the Roots, says “We live in a society where we are often presented with solutions fueled by emotions that don’t resolve the core problem. Conversely, we focus on tactics that give us a sense of action but also don’t really solve the basic problem.”
Reward good behavior. Establish a reward if—and only if—you do what you set out to do. So instead of using tasks and distractions to procrastinate, make them contingent on you actually finishing what you schedule yourself to do.
Consider changing your mindset to put things in perspective: “Sure, this is not my favorite task, but I can get through it. Is there one thing I can do to move this forward each day?”
You can do this—and you can do it NOW!