Eliminating Procrastination From Your Life

I don't know anyone who has never procrastinated. If there IS such a person, we humans might do well to stay as far away from that individual as possible! However, there is procrastination...and then there is procrastination.

First, let's be clear: Justifiable delay is NOT procrastination. For example, let's say you are stopped behind a school bus with the flag out and children getting off after school. Waiting until the kids are clear and the flag goes down is justifiable dealy.

Which is not the problem, obviously. Procrastination is more like:

1. Putting off writing a term paper for three months until the night before it is due. (Been there, done that.)

2. Putting off setting a wedding date with your fiancee for more than ten years (I know a cowboy in Montana--NOT me--who did exactly that.)

3. Putting off telling the contractor who built your yard fence that he did it wrong and needs to fix it. (Been there, done that.)

Okay. We get the point. Now, what to do about it. Here comes the controversial part: When it comes to stopping procrastination, hate and fear are your best friends.

By the time I got a job as a commercial truck driver in 2001, it was clear procrastination could and very likely would be deadly. It simply could not be allowed. Missing a pickup or delivery deadline could get you yelled at by the shipper or receiver and fired by your boss. Oversleeping and speeding to make up time could get you a ticket or dead. So?

So. Generally speaking, I mentally select whatever it is I'm going to hate and/or fear doing the most, and do that FIRST. Doesn't that sort of interfere with having fun? Yes, it does. Certainly. But it also enhances my ability to Git 'R' Done EXPONENTIALLY.

Besides, just because we're entitled to the pursuit of happiness does not necessarily guarantee we're going to CATCH it. On the other hand, let's not be TOO simplistic. Yes, to this day there ARE some things that I just don't seem able to do right away. Like this year's tax paperwork. Thankfully, my accountant in South Dakota has handled the heavy lifting in that department since 1992, but I still have to round up the basics.

It was not a pretty picture this year. Facing it was not easy. Enter technique #2:The artificial deadline with self-entrapment. That means I set the weekend of February 2-3 aside for tax work, then told my wife and several friends that was the deadline. Then encouraged my bad self to fret and worry about THAT self-imposed deadline just like it was the IRS at the front door. Made me so nervous, I suddenly tackled the project on Friday night and had it done by 2 a.m. Saturday.

Which left the rest of the weekend free to write Hubs and such. I'm not saying my system is pretty, but it does work.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32