How Procrastination Robs You Blind
Procrastination steals your future, and I’m going to tell you how.
For the past few days, I’ve started ignoring my Todoist reminders.
I don’t know how it started – either a change in my routine or a crankin’ busy moment when the reminder popped up.
Regardless, I deleted that nagging little reminder and carried on with the tasks at hand. And the rest is history.
Like a snowstorm, procrastinated stuff tends to accumulate. First it’s one little bit that’s barely noticeable, then a little more build-up that starts to make its presence.
Wait long enough, and those flurries turn into drifts that we can’t easily wipe away; now we need a shovel.
The problem with procrastinating on yesterday, is that today doesn’t magically erase its own responsibilities so that yesterday’s can be handled. So now we have double the to-do list we’d have had otherwise.
Think about it. We procrastinated because the load felt too heavy. Now it’s even worse. We still have the same tasks, but less time, more pressure and more to do.
Why Do We Procrastinate?
What’s going on here? Why do we do this?
Often it’s because that thing makes us uncomfortable in some way. We just don’t want to deal with the bad feelings. Maybe we have to confront a coworker about eating those stinky leftovers again, or maybe it’s scheduling that root canal. Either way, we move it aside to deal with “later.”
Another reason we procrastinate is because we literally can’t perform the item on the list. We write “take clothes to thrift store,” as though it’s this one-and-done thing. But in reality, there’s a whole other list of things we need to do first. We need to clean the closet to decide what we’ll donate. We need to ask hubby if he’s willing to finally part with that Def Leppard t-shirt. And then we need to get boxes from the garage loft to pack everything. Oh! And when is the thrift store open, anyway? We need to check the hours that they accept donations. When we see “take clothes to thrift store,” it’s actually a project, not a task. And so our mind freezes up and it doesn’t get done.
Or sometimes the task simply doesn’t seem important. (And maybe it isn’t. Delete it from your list!). We move it to the bottom.
And many times, it’s because we have a skewed sense of time and truly believe that “later” is wide open – a much better time to handle the pesky problem.
Paying for Procrastination
Regardless of the “why,” the fact remains that procrastination is rarely the answer.
On my own to-do list are about ten things kicked forward, until today a couple of them are critical. Now there’s pressure, when there didn’t have to be. Chances are I won’t do those two tasks well. And the rest of my day – which was supposed to be a light, easy pace – will be packed tight and laughably far from “light and easy.”
Just as debt spends our future financial freedom, procrastination spends the hours of tomorrow.
For so many of us, time freedom is the ultimate goal. We then need to consider the serious debt of procrastination.
Do something today and free your tomorrow –
