Procrastination is Not All Bad

Dictionary.com defines procrastination as 'to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.' At least it is a verb so there is some action involved. It's very easy to allow procrastination to become a way of life. For many years I have put off things until the last possible minute and stressing out because the clock suddenly seems to move faster as a deadline approaches.

Even in school, anytime there was a report or paper due, I would be up until all hours finishing and typing it out. Luckily my grades never reflected my last minute efforts and I actually seemed to do well with the added pressure of time ticking away.

There are downsides to being a procrastinator. One is when a deadline is moved up and your mental clock has to adjust to the new deadline. There's a definite rise is stress levels and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Procrastinators also run into a problem with outside influences keeping them from making their deadline. Traffic, weather, power outages, and many other things can create serious issues for the procrastinator.

Another downside is that non-procrastinators don't understand the beauty of putting things off. Whether it's family, friends or coworkers; there are times that procrastinating can create conflict and raise stress levels for all involved. If your boss asks for a progress report, well, there hasn't been any progress and this increases the stress level of your boss and shakes his/her confidence in your ability to come through with results. Procrastination is really just a matter of completing tasks from a different direction and a different pace. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked 'did you do this or call there yet?' I would be financially set.

The biggest problem I have run across as a procrastinator is that what I put off yesterday to do today may or may not get done and there are things from today aren't getting done either, not to mention the things from last week. It creates a snowball effect that continues to grow and gets overwhelming very quickly. Like a hamster on a wheel, you run and run but feel like you are going nowhere and nothing gets done. The whole process comes to a screeching halt,

The internet has certainly become my partner in crime when it comes to procrastinating, even if I to just check emails before starting my day, Once online I can think of several things I intended to search or find a game to play for a few minutes before i get started and several hours later realize that the majority of the day is gone with nothing productive accomplished. Television used to be my biggest ally in procrastinating. Over the years I have watched many movies, shows, documentaries and even infomercials that seemed very interesting at the time but basically just gave me an excuse to put off something else that needed to be done.

Procrastinators have been portrayed, at times, as just being lazy. I don't think that's a fair statement. We just use a different process to get things done. If you give us a clear deadline, you will get a good result. You just don't want to look at an accounting of when things were completed along the way to get that result and don't ask how much sleep we had the night before the deadline

I have tried to break the cycle of procrastination over the years by setting up fake deadlines for things I need to do in order to trick myself into making progress on different projects every day. Apparently I am too smart for myself and can't be tricked into abiding be false deadlines.

Procrastinators eventually learn to work with their nature and not against it so we find that we are productive in what we do, just not traditional in our methods. Our grass may grow a little taller before cut, our pantry a little emptier before shopping but at the end of the day, it will be done. If not today, then maybe tomorrow.

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