Procrastination Is Limiting Our Potential

I am one of the biggest procrastinators on the planet, and I need to change my approach to work.

How many of you have told yourself that same sentence and continued to be trapped by the temptation of waiting until the last minute.

Procrastination is a concept that many of us have struggled with. As technology advances, we find ourselves being more invested in material possessions instead of living our lives to the best of our ability. It turns into this addiction of the time cushion effect. That addiction breaks down to realizing that you have a lot of time to do something and then waiting until the last moment to begin that task. There’s a weird feeling of satisfaction when it comes to completing an assignment right before it’s due. However, there's a deep dissatisfaction when we use that concept repeatedly.

In our heads, we believe that we're doing something great when we seemingly defy the odds and beat our deadlines by a slight margin. While it does provide temporary satisfaction, it hurts us in the long run.

As a college student, I can make a book about how many papers I've written in the past with an 11:59 PM deadline that I turned in at around 11:53 PM that same night. In the moment, I was only concerned about not receiving a late grade and just turning the thing in. I noticed that many others around me have that same philosophy, just wanting to do the bare minimum at the last minute. That may work for school courses, but it only works up to a point. Sooner or later, it’s not about you just meeting the deadline, it’s the content that you provide that gets analyzed.

There will come a time when the work that you complete is going to be criticized and penalized because of the mistakes you made when you rushed. You’re going to feel disappointed because you know that you could have done better. It’s happened to all of us, whether it be in school or at work.

We all have so much potential, but it gets wasted on things that don’t add anything to our lives except distraction.

Think about all the time you waste on technology in a day or in a week. What would happen if you decided to not pick your devices up and focus on work instead of your status?

We tend to get caught in each moment that passes by, finding ourselves being distracted and not focusing on the bigger picture. We all have goals, we all have something that we want to accomplish or be a part of. Instead of chasing our dreams with everything that we have, we get sidetracked at every turn.

There’s no harm in putting your electronics down for one day.

If you stay away from the distractions in your life for just twenty-four hours and focus solely on your work and studies, you will see how that day will be dramatically more productive than the others.

By no means am I telling you how to live your life. I only want to help you get the most out of your life. You are all filled with immense talent along with diverse and unique abilities to help you become a great influence on the world around you. It would be a shame if all that untapped potential faded away because you were too focused on your followers, memes, and status instead of your intelligence, wit, and creativity.

All procrastination does is add stress to our lives. It may feel like temporary relief when we finish something shortly before the deadline, but we are doing much more harm than good to our mentality when we put it under so much pressure. It is much easier to say than to do, but it is possible if we just believe and have faith that we can pull it off.

Work first, play later. I understand that this doesn’t always appeal to the human mind, but it is truly the way to happiness and increased productivity. You get what you desire when you put in the work for it.

Who would you rather be?:

The man or woman that works hard and accomplishes their goals makes the most of their opportunities and is able to enjoy playing time the most?

Or the man or woman whose body and mind are under constant stress, aching, and struggling because they always try to cram everything into a short period of time?

Procrastination is nothing more than putting off everything until the last moment. It can only work for so long until it gets you to a place where you're scrambling to dig yourself out of a hole.