How Many Excuses and Ways to Procrastinate are there?
How Many Excuses and Ways to Procrastinate are there?
By Charles L Harmon
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If you put off doing something is that always procrastination? Some think so, but I don’t automatically consider it as procrastination. When I take a huge amount of criticism from my wife about my procrastination I sometimes wonder what exactly does procrastination mean. It certainly means something different to me than to my wife. When I put off doing something because I don’t have enough time to do it or have something else more important to finish, it is labeled as procrastination by her. To me its doing the most important things first. There are other reasons I could mention too, but for arguments sake lets classify them as procrastination to avoid making this article several times as long.
There seems to be some very rational excuses for not taking action that we use to convince ourselves that now is not the right time. This can pertain to starting an exercise program, job hunting, going back to school or even smaller projects such as cleaning out the garage (this may really be a big all day project for some of us).
What is common about making excuses is that there is a part of us that knows on some level that it is an excuse. When is the perfect time to do something? Each situation is different so there is no right or wrong answer. Some people seem to always get a lot accomplished in the same time that others accomplish little or sometimes nothing.
A good example of this is my sister. She is involved in numerous activities, travels all the time and has several other things going on all almost simultaneously it sometimes seems. While during that same time period I barely accomplish anything compared to her. My stuff is all Internet related while hers is a myriad of other activities, but nonetheless she seems to accomplish much more than anyone else I know regardless of the time period.
You can make all the excuses you want about not having enough time, but the fact still remains that we all have the same amount of time as the next person. Its how we make use of the time that really counts. Some of us are so much better at it than others.
Frequently once we start doing something it isn’t as bad as we dreaded and it actually is a relief from the anxiety we feel in putting it off. The things we postpone are still part of our awareness and they eat at us because we know we are in avoidance or distracting ourselves. Inaction actually can be very stressful, especially if we know its something important or something that demands out immediate attention.
Of course, there are times when we truly should not add more tasks when we are already loaded with things to do. Self-honesty is what can help us discriminate if our situation right now is one of those times or not. Also you can start slowly with something. If you genuinely are pressed for time then you may have to take action to reduce your workload until some of the important things get accomplished. But we shouldn’t make it a habit of getting in that kind of situation.
When we procrastinate, we don’t get a taste of the activity we are postponing. Of course that may well be one of the very reasons we procrastinate or put off doing something we don’t want to do. Now I can see that its true that sometimes it is not so bad to do some of the things we put off or procrastinate on.
An excellent example of this is was when my car started leaking near the rear wheel. I looked under it and couldn’t see where it was leaking, So instead of getting it fixed right away I took an easy route and started driving my convertible. I knew it was not good to be leaving it out in the sun so long every day but I made the excuse that it was going to cost too much to fix my other car. I started alternating between my convertible BMW and my son’s hot little BMW so as take my mind off the supposed cost of fixing my leaking older BMW. That lasted almost four months until I finally gave in and decided enough was enough and finally fixed my car. Yes the cost was high, but not nearly so high as if I had taken it to a BMW dealer. Even so, it feels good to be back in a solid big car again.
It seems there is most likely some procrastination in all of us at various times. It is our job to minimize it as much as possible so we can get more accomplished in less time. We cannot control time, but we can control how we make the best use of it. There are innumerable ways to procrastinate. Procrastination can be big time waster that we can avoid if we try hard enough.
Copyright © 2007 Charles Harmon
Charles is a software developer. He creates websites and writes articles. One of his favorite interests is creating websites. Another is online marketing. Charles keeps up with new software developments by downloading free software.
July 8th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
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July 15th, 2007 at 9:02 am
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