“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
Abraham Lincoln
Procrastination is addiction. It seduces us into thinking that our business is progress. That checking items off a list is equal to getting things done. That any action is the same as doing what we must. It allows us to keep telling people we are too busy, too overwhelmed, to get our tasks done when we are the ones putting things on our plate without clearing the items we are avoiding. We think it gives us more clarity “take care of this little stuff first, so we can tackle the big one” but do we really get there? Or do we find ourselves one more day behind on that project, one more day that we haven’t called that person to hold a hard conversation, and one more day of stress about it all. That stress piles up, and we look for small mercies in small actions. Rinse and repeat.
We have discussed making time for reflection and for systemizing your life. Batching, Planning, Communication. We have discussed the importance of doing the work – Action, Progress, Attitude and Clarity. We know what we need to do, or what progress hangs on our actions, but still we find ourselves overwhelmed to the point of inaction when we look at the items in our inbox, our checklist, our piles of work, and we become weak. This weakness, and a natural instinct to avoid pain, allows this cycle to persist. The harder you try to fill this hole in your soul with the wrong material, the deeper it gets.
If you want to procrastinate on anything, make it this – take a specific amount of time to think of the three biggest stressors in your life and one action you can take to make a step in all of them. This will take you less than 15 minutes. Take the next 15 minutes to get a cup of coffee, take a walk, and clear your head.
Then, do those three things.
This should take you less than an hour. If it goes horribly wrong, you will have wasted an hour and a half and made three significant steps towards solving your biggest challenges. If it goes even slightly well, you will have released a dam of resistance and stress that could return the flow you need to get through these. “I need time to think about this” is a common crutch. “I don’t know what to do” is another, usually fed by a lack of self-esteem or an abundance of self-doubt. But think – you have made it through 100% of your toughest moments until now – do you really think this is the thing that will undo you? You are capable and have reason, or you wouldn’t have been put in a position to have this challenge. Act now – you will figure it out.
As George S. Patton is quoted as saying, “A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later.” You may make a mistake, but that is always a risk (one that sitting on your hands is unlikely to avoid) and is action (even if you have to correct and re-evaluate as you go) really any worse than doing nothing?
Procrastination is also an incredibly arrogant move to make, as if you will somehow have more time to solve this, or as if you will even have more days left. “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” Pablo Picasso states. If you know you need to get it done, get it done.
Thanks for checking in,
DPM