Stop being a procrastinator

by Lionel Wijesiri

The most rewarding New Year's resolution that I ever managed to keep was one I made 26 years ago: to stop being a person who habitually postpones work. In those days, you might have called me a procrastinator.

Those were the days I hated to make decisions. I avoided difficult or unpleasant tasks. The more demanding a pressure or obligation became, the more I tended to delay facing it. I was in real danger of becoming completely swamped.

It took a few words from my CEO to make me see the problem clearly. "Lionel," he said, "You seem to think that this procrastination of yours is a built-in part of your personality or perhaps an incurable disease. Well, it's neither. It's a bad habit, and like all habits it can be broken. You had better break this one - before it breaks you!"

Triumph

That warning got through to me. The same afternoon I asked some help from my CEO, and we sat and drafted some guidelines that really help me get out of the habit.

If you, too, are a procrastinator, it's worth reading.

Stop regarding procrastination as a harmless little hang-up. Businesses fail because bosses put off making key decisions. Marriages disintegrate because a wife can't seem to get around to washing the dishes.

People die because they put off going to the doctor. Procrastination isn't just a worthless bad habit; it's a villain that can spoil your ambitions, destroy your happiness, and even kill you.

To start with, pick one specific area where procrastination plagues you - and conquer it. Long ago, I often got requests for writing engagements that I knew I cannot accept. But I hated to turn people down, and I used to put off such decisions - until it was too late to back out. It's no more now.

If you can thus break the hold that procrastination has in one segment of your life, the sense of relief and triumph will help you eliminate it from others.

Learn to set priorities, and then focus on one problem at a time.

Clutter and procrastination go hand in hand because each reinforces the other. A man with ten unfinished pieces of assignments on his desk wastes a significant part of his decision-making capacity.

A housewife with ten chores left undone is likely to feel so overwhelmed that she may give up in despair and watch TV instead of tackling any of them. Quite often, in my procrastinating days, I found myself doing optional or marginal things and neglecting essential ones. But no more; I've learned to set priorities.

I do it by writing notes in my smartphone all through the day about things I should attend to the next day. Then at night I list all the items in descending order of importance. That way I can tackle them in sequence the next day, joyfully crossing off each one as I dispose of it. This may seem elementary, but it's astonishing how much time and energy you save by finishing one job before you move on to another.

Sometimes I have to talk harshly to myself: "Hi, buddy! You are going to sit in this chair until you have finished the job in front of you." Once the mind accepts the discipline, the needed mental power will flow and it'll help you to concentrate.

Give yourself deadlines.

I don't mean secret deadlines that are easy to ignore, but deadlines that other people (your wife, for instance) know about and expect you to meet. Invite a couple over in the weekend to admire that room you have been meaning to paint; your pride will make you finish it before they come. It's much harder to be a public procrastinator than a private one!

Difficult

Don't duck the most difficult problems.

We do it often - avoiding the most difficult issue. Yet, in the end it just leads to greater difficulties. Years ago, I would often sit down with a stack of letters. If the first one involved a particularly thorny problem, I would put it aside and look for an easy one to answer. Result: I would soon have two or three bundles of unanswered letters. I would have to make a frantic effort, working far into the night, in an exhausting attempt to catch up.

One Monday morning, day I questioned myself: "Why am I ducking the difficult letters? Why cannot I tackle them head-on and finish them?" I just did that. Then I understood that it was not a big deal. The confidence I got carried me right through the remainder of the task. When completed, I was so happy and proud of myself.

Families sometimes slip into serious debt because they put off paying bills until the amount owed seems insurmountable - and then they stop trying to pay at all.

Yet, when with experienced help they adopt a long range, systematic plan to pay their debts, they find they can shake off the inertia that plagued them and start moving forward again.

Don't let perfectionism paralyze you.

Lots of people fail to act because they're afraid they may not perform perfectly. Just the other day a woman said to me, "I've been meaning to write a note to a friend whose husband has died, but I don't know how to write a letter of condolence. I don't know how to express what I feel."

Scribbled

"How do you feel?" I asked. "Deeply sorry," she said. "I've been thinking about her sharing her agony and loving and praying for her." I scribbled her exact words on a piece of paper and handed them to her. "That's all you need to say," I told her.

These then, are some of the devices I used to rid myself of the procrastination. Just like me, you can also do it. What you need is just a basic change in attitude with a committed determination.That's about all.