The Now Habit
Productivity Engineering
Mental Toughness
Do It Now
Getting Things Done
(Personally tested and recommended by the author of this web. Some links might lead to other websites.)
Just thinking
Tue, 2006-07-11 10:57 — Moira_Inori
S'weird, isn't it? I mean this problem of chronic procrastination. Sometimes it feels like you're the only one infected with the bug, and everyone else around you is being nice and productive and of sound mental health while you're sitting in your chair reduced to a semi-catatonic state by indecision, shame and sheer inertia. It makes me ashamed to be around productive and disciplined people, who are legion. I'm ashamed to even look myself in the eye when faced with a mirror. It's weird, because procrastination is a sort of paralysis, and beating myself up over it results only in more paralysis...so much for that.
Well, er, that's just a bit of an intro. Hello to all of you. I'm Moira, and I've got a problem with procrastination. Still learning stuff from this site. Hope it'll kick me into gear.
Nice to meet you all.
isn't it time to take control?
Comes with a free sample you can hear online right now. By Neil Fiore PhD.
Comments
Procrastination
Well, I do agree with you that procrastination is a kind of paralysis. That is why I logged on today. I feel paralyzed with unfinished, unstarted jobs around my house. For some reason, I thought I might find some answers to motivate me...Nice to meet you Moira...JO
Kinda...
It is a paralysis for me. I'm a split-procastinator, tho. I am extremely fastidious about how I dress, the car I drive and how I look when presenting myself to the public. For heaven's sake, a large part of my job is public speaking. The dark side is my home is like a pigsty and my car (although a nice one) is akin to a rolling trashcan. Sometimes, I feel as though I'm living a lie. I would just freeze if someone came to my door or needed a ride.
What's with THAT????
Are we twins?
I could have written your exact post. I cannot believe how many times I have sabotaged my own happiness in life with procrastination. Even as I type this, it's midnight and my 22-month old will be up early in the a.m. Why am I not in bed? Because I'm reading up on procrastination. Ah, the irony.
the procrastination theory
My little theory is that everyone procrastinates.
Some of as are that badly setup, we are "worriers" instead of "warriors". So we actually do notice that we are procrastinating, later we start worrying about it, that moves our whole attention that way, we give ourselves the "procrastinator" label, and the disaster is done. What you focus on, tends to happen more in your life.
Procrastination is natural, but those who don't worry about it, don't move the attention that way, thus don't tend increase it.
That is why David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done book, says that the procrastinators are usually a very intelligent people. Probably those who tend to think too much.
oh, I see
Heh, it's a bit of a comfort to know that everyone procrastinates. And thanks for the reminder about the dangers of labeling one's self "procrastinator" or anything else. People are more than their habits, which is a relief.
I'm just wondering, though: how is procrastination natural? Is it part of a collection of deep-seated, animalistic instincts to be superseded by civilized behavior, e.g. discipline? It's something interesting to know.
Am checking the book out now. Thanks!!!
Yes, maybe some procrastination is favored by evolution...
I too am one who will just not do certain things when I should.
I have a late registration fix-it ticket that I haven't scheduled time off work to go take care of. I got one last year because the DMV has the wrong address for that car and I never did get around to changing it at the DMV so the registration reminder when to the wrong address again this year. It took the ticket on the windshield to notify me that the registration was overdue.
My wife is also quite a procrastinator. Double-whammy there.
But she was cool enough to go to the DMV for me and pick up my tags since she gets to be a stay at home mom.
But I still have to take the car into the Police Dept to get it signed off.
There are things at work that I've either set out to do or even been assigned to do that I sit on for so long, they eventually go away. Seriously, many things people say they want up front are completely forgotton about over only a few weeks. This is not my conscious effort to weasel out of anything and I typically stress all the while even after a year of not doing something I had intended to do.
Sometimes, my resistance to doing something that sounds unplesant at the moment but is due or overdue puts me into a confused daze, in which my only escape seems to be to decide not to start doing the thing what ever it was.
Just from reading a few posts on boards like this I can see I'm not alone in this apparent disability.
The question of human nature and procrastination is a great one though. On the one hand, I think maybe I can completely justify and accept my frequent tendency to put things off indefinately if I know that humans just aren't supposed to have so much crap to do. Evolution might not favor the ultra-organized caveman if he's not conserving his energy. Maybe my cave ancestors benefitted by not rushing into things, only doing those things that really were critical to survival and propagation. Maybe that will let me scorn the type -A personalities, the perfectionists, the folks that seem to be on top of it all and rarely get overwhelmed.
There may be something to that but then, where does it really get me ?
Maybe it allows me to look at my own resistance to do certain things as "my own resistance to do certain things".
If there are things we don't want to do, we have 3 or 4 choices...
1.Decide not to do them.
2.Do them eventually, if the need stands the test of time.
3.Do them immediately
4.Schedule them (but that requires living by a task schedule which requires some discipline in itself.)
Being this way, I've still managed to develop a 20 year IT Management career making $120k annually.
Maybe it really is all about the worrying. Maybe if I was more slack about it, accepting that I just won't be doing certain things I dislike anytime soon, I will be happier.
That's right. I'm not a procrastinator. I just don't like doing what I don't like doing and I'm not going to rush into those kinds of things. The things I like doing, well that's a different story. I'd rather spend my time doing what I like, what I want, wouldn't you ?
I had a great time writing that and I hope some of you had a good chuckle.
-W
Procrastination/Evolution
AHhhhhhh...........THERE IT IS!!!!!!! I too get dazed and confuddled
when something is PENDING that I have put off. It becoms a blurrrrr.
UGH.........THANK YOU "W".
I am a
~W~ also