Procrastination is a good thing. We’re taught otherwise.
Humorously, it’s good because you don’t have anything to do in the immediate sense. No deadlines. So, you can mess around, daydream, doodle, take a nap, do something just for fun. And, when you procrastinate, it means you always have something to do tomorrow to keep you busy.
Here are the things I procrastinate about:
1.
Humor aside, we all procrastinate. Maybe you only do it occasionally or on small things, but we all put things off that we don’t want to do, for some reason or another.
I put off minor projects around our house that in my mind I deem not to be of great importance. “Don’t need to get done in the next week. That can wait till next year.”
You probably have a similar version of rationalizing. Fundamentally, you jdon’t want to do something. We think it’s easier to pretend it will go away, or someone else will do it, or something more important will come around to engage us so we then have an excuse on why we didn’t paint the window trim on the house for three consecutive years.
Now, if not painting that window trim caused a leakage in the house from rain, which then wrecked the floor, well, you can bet you’d more than likely jump on that paint job, and also find a way to better seal the windows. Crises have a way of taking over. It’s the human condition.
It’s one reason we can’t wrap our hands around SOLUTIONS and ACTION to changing climate conditions. We haven’t been hammered enough to determine it’s a crisis, so we wait and wait, and la de dah, keep going about our lives as if the climate will just stop reacting to all the carbon emissions we eject into the atmosphere on a daily basis. Maybe the problem will just go away.
One of my best buddies is a classic procrastinator. He would not study in college, then pull a couple of all-nighters in a row to cram for his finals and survive till the next semester. I’m not sure he learned any more or less than I did in college, and the system worked for him, but it sure wasn’t healthy. Maybe “not” procrastinating means developing healthy planning habits in life.
What do I procrastinate about? 1) Filling out forms. Don’t you hate them? 2) Having dicey discussions. Don’t most of us avoid those talks we KNOW we must have with someone that can cause anger or controversy, or force us to bear our emotions?
3) Taking on a new task that you know nothing about. Most of us face fears learning something new. We don’t think we’re good enough. 4) Taking tests. If you have to take training tests in your job, and you hate tests in general, or believe you typically do poorly on them, then you avoid that training for as long as possible.
We procrastinate to avoid cognitive dissonance. We procrastinate because we’re lazy. We procrastinate to avoid conflict and get out of work.
Why do you procrastinate? It’s an interesting question with a lot of answers.
Humorously, it’s good because you don’t have anything to do in the immediate sense. No deadlines. So, you can mess around, daydream, doodle, take a nap, do something just for fun. And, when you procrastinate, it means you always have something to do tomorrow to keep you busy.
Here are the things I procrastinate about:
1.
Humor aside, we all procrastinate. Maybe you only do it occasionally or on small things, but we all put things off that we don’t want to do, for some reason or another.
I put off minor projects around our house that in my mind I deem not to be of great importance. “Don’t need to get done in the next week. That can wait till next year.”
You probably have a similar version of rationalizing. Fundamentally, you jdon’t want to do something. We think it’s easier to pretend it will go away, or someone else will do it, or something more important will come around to engage us so we then have an excuse on why we didn’t paint the window trim on the house for three consecutive years.
Now, if not painting that window trim caused a leakage in the house from rain, which then wrecked the floor, well, you can bet you’d more than likely jump on that paint job, and also find a way to better seal the windows. Crises have a way of taking over. It’s the human condition.
It’s one reason we can’t wrap our hands around SOLUTIONS and ACTION to changing climate conditions. We haven’t been hammered enough to determine it’s a crisis, so we wait and wait, and la de dah, keep going about our lives as if the climate will just stop reacting to all the carbon emissions we eject into the atmosphere on a daily basis. Maybe the problem will just go away.
One of my best buddies is a classic procrastinator. He would not study in college, then pull a couple of all-nighters in a row to cram for his finals and survive till the next semester. I’m not sure he learned any more or less than I did in college, and the system worked for him, but it sure wasn’t healthy. Maybe “not” procrastinating means developing healthy planning habits in life.
What do I procrastinate about? 1) Filling out forms. Don’t you hate them? 2) Having dicey discussions. Don’t most of us avoid those talks we KNOW we must have with someone that can cause anger or controversy, or force us to bear our emotions?
3) Taking on a new task that you know nothing about. Most of us face fears learning something new. We don’t think we’re good enough. 4) Taking tests. If you have to take training tests in your job, and you hate tests in general, or believe you typically do poorly on them, then you avoid that training for as long as possible.
We procrastinate to avoid cognitive dissonance. We procrastinate because we’re lazy. We procrastinate to avoid conflict and get out of work.
Why do you procrastinate? It’s an interesting question with a lot of answers.