I had just finished reading the estimable Jeremy Dean’s noteworthy PSYBLOG today, titled. “10 Foolproof Tips for Overcoming Procrastination,” when I noticed that my next email was from Trudy Hale, the Editor in Chief of this magazine. And what it was about was that I had not done my blog for this week. We don’t each do a blog every week, but take it in turns, as you may have noticed. I had no excuse. I forgot it was my turn.
I take forgetting to be a form of procrastination and I have good reason to do so. I am a master procrastinator. “Almost everyone procrastinates now and then,” Jeremy writes, which is kind of him. Some of us procrastinate all the time. We have the scars.
The ten tips are very good ones and match other things I have read on this subject. Believe me, I have read a lot on this subject. For one thing, it’s an excellent way of putting off doing anything else.
Well, the tips range from “Start easy” at number one and run up to “Forgive yourself” at number 10. I like that one especially. Someone seems to think procrastinators have a hard time forgiving themselves? Possibly. But the nugget of truth is forgiving yourself apparently really works. There’s a psychological study to prove it. I’ll read about it one of these days. Starting easy – going to the thing that seems doable – is always good advice, of course. Unless you happen to be the kind of person for whom not much looks easy. Starting easy might look like trying to grasp that one thread which will unravel everything. And it would be great if you weren’t wearing gloves…
What really interested me, though, were tips three and five, especially three, “Beware excuses.” I could resonate to every excuse
cited, from “not feeling in the mood to do it” to “waiting for the right moment.” “Blaming sickness or poor health” is always reliable too. And then there’s “thinking you can finish it at the last minute” and “believing you work better under pressure.” Ahem.
Tip number five gets right down to it with “Procrastination personality.” Guilty, guilty, guilty – and the bad news, as he sadly notes, is that there isn’t much you can do about that. “Change your environment,” he suggests, meaning eliminate distractions. Of course a master procrastinator doesn’t need much in the way of distraction. A master procrastinator, in a bare cell, could find that one crack in the wall that takes all day to look at.
For these good tips, I suggest looking at PSYBLOG, which is always worth the attention, whether you are using it for distraction or you really want to learn something. I’ll just close by noticing tip number eight, “Don’t rely on memory.” Oh, yeah.
Susan Shafarzek
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