National Procrastination Week

I read this morning that it’s National Procrastiantion Week. I don’t know who declared it so, and I imagine it’s only in the US, but LifeHacker has published an excellent post titled, It’s National Procrastination Week: Let’s Celebrate by Getting Stuff Done. It’s full of resources to help you overcome procrastination. You need to click on the link NOW. Don’t put it off.

Reading about procrastination made me think about an old blog post from about four years ago. Unfortunately it’s still just as fitting as it was back in 2006 when I first posted it. Here’s the post. See if you can identify with it.

Why do I torture myself? Why do I put things off until the last minute? Why do I ignore the looming deadline?

My name is Rodney and I’m a procrastinator. There, I’ve said it.

So often I will leave tasks that I know I must deal with until the last possible moment. I’ll busy myself with everything but the task at hand. I let myself worry about not having completed what I’m meant to complete. It drives me crazy. The later it gets, the more I worry about it but it still doesn’t move me to act. I know that I’m creating more stress than I need but it doesn’t stop me.

99% of the time, when I finally discipline myself to sit down and get the job done it’s a painless affair. I know that if I did that initially I’d safe myself a lot of grief. Why must I always propel myself towards the rapidly approaching deadline instead of just getting things done early?

Are you a procrastinator or have you developed a get in there and get it done work style? Are you the greatest cause of your own stress?

Why do I put tasks off? Maybe I’m afraid of failure. Maybe I’m afraid of success. Maybe I’m just lazy.

I think I’ll have to follow up on some of the suggestions that the LifeHacker post has listed. Maybe I’ll do that … tomorrow.

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