Over the years I have come to suspect that one of the biggest obstacles to effective time management has nothing to do with failure to delegate or and over abundance of interruptions or poor planning habits. These are all important issues to address, but they will ultimately be only marginally effective unless we face and conquer the biggest single enemy of good time management skills – procrastination.
We all procrastinate from time to time. Oh, we may excuse it or conceal it under a host of different smoke screens but, believe me, it all adds up to procrastination. The reason we don’t get as much done as we could or should get done is because we simply avoid it or put it off, often with problematic consequences. Some of us keep doing this over and over and over again, in spite of the consequences. Did you ever wonder why? The answers provide valuable insight into your emotional and psychological perspectives on life. Here are a few common causes of procrastination. Do you see yourself in here anywhere?
1. You really don’t believe in the project in the first place. Sometimes things just get dumped in your lap. Your boss or your spouse or the chairman of a committee you serve on assigns the task to you, perhaps without consulting you for suggestions or feedback of any kind. From your perspective, maybe the project seems poorly conceived, awkwardly organized or it has a superfluous purpose. Your objections could rest on a thousand different perceived problems. Perhaps you just felt disrespected in the first place because it was dumped on you. Whatever the issue is, you quickly come to despise the project, so you avoid it, ignore it and ultimately only give it a half-hearted effort when you do get around to it.
If you find yourself in this situation, what should you do? Well, the best thing to do is be honest with whoever assigned it to you. Politely but firmly explain your concerns and objections and ask for the project to be assigned to someone else or at least reconfigured to take your concerns into consideration. The project is obviously important to someone, even if it isn’t important to you, so maybe someone who really cares should take it over. However, sometimes this approach isn’t an option, so you should at least try to find a reason to care. If it is important to your spouse, for instance, try doing it because you care about that person and you know it will please them, even if it doesn’t mean much to you.
2. Fear. There, I’ve said it. Fear is the major cause of procrastination. I know very few people – probably none, really – who are not inhibited to some degree by insecurities, anxieties or low self-esteem issue. You don’t have to be completely dysfunctional to experience a bout with procrastination when fear is involved. Maybe the project seems beyond your ability or resources, so fear of failure locks you up and keeps you from starting. However – and these are more subtle – fear of success or fear of completing the project will sometimes also product procrastination. After all, if you succeed, people might expect more of you until eventually you become overwhelmed and fail. Or, if you complete this project, what if you then have nothing else important to do? Whatever the reason, fear can get the best of us. The best thing to do is be honest with yourself about what is really going on. You may need to discuss your fear with a trusted friend or counselor. Identify your fear, face it and get the help you need to conquer it. If you let it win here, it will just keep on winning, and you could end up a big loser.
3. It’s important, but not THAT important. We all have priorities which compete with each other. All too often, we make a commitment to do something because we believe it should be done, but the truth is we have other things on our plate that are more urgent or more important. Many times this happens when a friend or coworker asks for your help with a project, and you accept the responsibility out of loyalty or a sense of obligation, but the job gets crowded out by things you care about more. You end up putting it off until the last minute and then throwing something together that is less than your best, and maybe not useful to the project at all. It is always better to say “No,” even to projects that seem important, rather than get overcommitted, wrestle with guilt and resentment, and end up doing a sloppy job at the last minute.
4. You just hate the job. Sometimes the task is necessary, but really difficult or unpleasant. Painting the house, reseating that leaking toilet in the bathroom, cleaning out the cat litter box, reorganizing the storage in the garage, explaining to you parents that you failed out of college this semester – some tasks are just plain hard to handle. Unfortunately, most of them don’t improve with waiting. The only solution is to apply some courage, responsibility and perseverance and, in the immortal words of songwriter Roger Williams, “Knuckle down, buckle down, do-it-do-it-do-it.” (From, “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd.)
Most procrastination issues come down to matters of integrity, courage, honesty and discipline. Quit focusing on the task, and give some thought to who you want to become as a person. The secret to conquering procrastination will be found, not in the nature of the job, but in the level of maturity with which you approach all of your life.
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March Time Management Quick Tip of the Month – One Life = One Planner
In the lore of the Texas Rangers, there is the story of a riot in a small town that became so severe that a call went out to the Texas Ranger for help. A couple of days later, a solitary Ranger rode into town. The flabbergasted local constable couldn’t believe it. “Why did they only send one Ranger?” he demanded to know. The Ranger’s reply: “One riot – one Ranger.”
The goal of time management is to help people make sense of the ongoing riot that is their life. Some people assume that it helps to keep a separate planner for business activities and another planner for personal/family activities. Wrong. You only have one life; you only need one planner. The idea of time management is to balance ALL the activities of your life into one harmonious symphony, and quell the riot of competing priorities for good. If you can’t make it all fit into one planner, you are too busy. It is time to make some serious changes.
