Procrastination

I was going to talk this week about procrastination but it’s very important that the washing up gets done, right now. I’ll get around to it later.

Oh, still there? Be with you in a minute, my phone just beeped at me.

Ah, sorry, got a bit carried away with Twitter and Pinterest. I’d love to, but if I start now I’ll only get a little done - how about tomorrow? Could start fresh, get right on it.

My bad, forgot I had that…thing…that I needed to do. Really important. My programme is on now, but after I’m all yours.

Right, I’m here. Just make a cup of tea.

Oh, where did those emails come from? Quick look, nothing more, promise. And clean the spam folder, always have to clean the spam folder. And get rid of those Facebook notifications, you know how distracting they can be.

Ok, I’m here. What was I going to talk about?

Humorous picture caption to follow...

Oh yes, procrastination. We’ve all done it. Some more than others, but we’ve all done it. There’s something that we know we should be doing and we keep putting it off, finding other little things to get in the way. The fish tank has never seemed so interesting as when you’ve got a letter to write or a phone call to make to the bank. But the fish tank needs a clean? Ah, I’ve got a letter to write…

We perform little trivial tasks all the time. No big deal, it needs doing so it gets done, sometimes eventually, but it gets done. Make the task something slightly more involved or significant and suddenly the most menial of activities seems attractive. So where does this urge to do anything but the task in hand come from? Why are we so predisposed to looking for an excuse to not quite getting around to it, at least not just yet?

Perhaps it’s because we ascribe some importance to the task. This actually matters and we don’t yet feel ready to commit ourself to working/concentrating that hard. A great sentiment, we tell ourselves, we’re being conscientious and ensuring we’re going to give it our all when we do get around to it. We must mean business if it means that much to us. No half-hearted attempts here, no siree.

Trouble is, that moment of feeling like putting in the effort, of committing, rarely pops up the next time we think of it. Or the time after that. There’s always something else to do and, well, we’ve set a precedent now. It’ll get done eventually.

I guess one big part of the issue is that we all have an idea of what we want to achieve, but right now we feel a little bit lazy, but we are of the opinion that we’ll be much more inclined, less lazy, at some point in the future. What we don’t take into account is that we drag our laziness with us through the intervening time. That point in the future becomes the right now and hey, guess what, we’re not really in the mood, but if we just put it off for a little while...

We all know what is best for us, in most walks of life, and how best to go about it, but when faced with the actual choice, right there and then, we tend to opt for the easy or ‘quick reward’ route. Ask someone to choose between an apple and a chocolate bar to go with lunch tomorrow or the next day they’ll likely go for the apple as they know it’s what’s best for them, but put an apple and a chocolate bar in front of someone right now and tell them to choose and the majority of people will pick up the sugary goodness. The diet starts tomorrow.

The same goes for smoking. I’ve been there and it’s so very easy to say that you’ll just finish the pack you’ve got and give up after that. There’s not a person that smokes that isn’t aware that it’s an awful thing to be doing to their body. Not a one of them is trying to fool themselves that it’s a good thing, but when you’re in the grip of the habit it is an enjoyable thing. It’s simple to say that you’ll give up next week while puffing away today, but when next week comes and there’s the choice of a cigarette or the known hard work and withdrawal symptoms of going without to face, well it’s a different matter. (Incidentally, I did eventually give up and do not regret a single moment of it, but it was a very tough time. If you are going through, already have, or are contemplating quitting smoking then I take my hat off to you (pretend I have a hat) and wish you every success.)

It’s all about the long term versus short term gain. We could do it now, but then we’re being a martyr because we’re giving up the short term reward. The long term is invariably going to be the greater reward with the most satisfaction, but it’s just so far away (imagine this in a really whiny voice with a pathetic facial expression…yep, that’s the one). If we put off our reward until tomorrow we may miss out on rewards entirely if tomorrow never comes - anything could happen between now and then! We could get hit by a bus! Quick, better take the fun/tasty/easy option now, while we still can!

The problem with procrastinating is when the task at hand has a deadline. It must be done by a certain time or a certain date and that moment is drawing inexorably closer. We may have had lofty ambitions of giving it our all, but now we’re in danger of not actually completing it at all, which means that we’ll either a) miss the deadline or b) rush through it. Missing the deadline can leave us looking and feeling silly, or even mean repercussions that could have easily been avoided, and rushing through it means it has had nowhere near the amount of time or thought dedicated to it that we’d originally intended. 

Sound familiar?

A little tip for you: if you have something important to do, start it as early as you can. Give it the time it deserves; make yourself feel that you’ve achieved it, not just scraped it. If you put it off you’ll find it niggling away in the back of your mind while you’re doing all those other unimportant things or watching that television programme. Don’t put it off until tomorrow as tomorrow never comes. Think of the satisfaction in completing the task and ticking it off your mental (or physical) to-do list. All those little things you get distracted by will be so much more enjoyable if you don’t have that worry in the back of your mind, and you may even find that they’re not actually that attractive after all and suddenly you have more free time to do the things you want to do.

I don’t do that. I’ve procrastinated all around this blog post, highly aware of the irony at every step. Heed my words, not my actions. Become a doer. 

That’s what I’m going to do.

Starting tomorrow.