I’ll do it later...

I'll do it later...

I’ll do it later...

“I love deadlines – I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by,” British writer Douglas Adams once said.

Adams, noted mainly for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” had spent 10 years working on his novel “The Salmon of Doubt” before he died in 2001, after not producing a complete first draft. Once, in desperation, Adams’s book editors had to trap him in a hotel suite for three weeks to get him to write a manuscript. When asked to write radio scripts, Adams recalled spending “six months taking baths and eating peanut butter sandwiches”.

Bruce Tuckman, noted for his study of groups, and an educational psychologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, tracked 116 students over 216 activities and compared those who scored low on the procrastination scale to those with high scores. Tuckman discovered that those who scored low on the procrastination scales tended to do better academically than those who were higher on the scale. Although procrastinators often claim that they produce their best work under pressure, how do they know? “They really don’t know how well they would actually do if they didn’t procrastinate” says Tuckman.

According to Procrastination Central, those of us who procrastinate “tend to underperform in every aspect of their lives, from heath to finance” (www.procrastinus.com).

Perfectionism is a common contributing factor to procrastination. Psychotherapist, Dr Timothy Quek argues that most procrastinators do not believe they are perfectionists. He goes on to say “perfectionism can lead to "starts and spurts" performance, meaning that an individual goes on a cleaning spree, or attacks a task with great energy and then slumps back in exhaustion after having exasperated, irritated, or alienated everyone around.”

Quek defines perfectionism as having the following three major characteristics:

The intense desire to jump in and do things yourself because others just can't do it right.
The insistent attitude that you wouldn't even start on something if you can't do it well.
The profound need for closure, indicated by agitation or discomfort should something be left "hanging".

These characteristics compel the perfectionist to procrastinate. Quek suggests that perfectionistic procrastinators acknowledge and dislike these three tendencies, after which they can begin to apply systematic, practical solutions.

Immediate actions you can take to reduce procrastination:

Goal setting

Take any project that you are putting off and break it down into manageable chunks. If you still can’t get started, take each chunk and break it down further. Ideally, you should end up with small tasks that can be achieved fairly soon. Make them specific, write them down and visualise yourself completing them.

Stimulus Control

Clear your desk or office of any distractions. This extends to your computer, where email, web-surfing and solitaire games are major distractions. Recreational web-surfing costs the United States as much as US$54 billion annually. Retrieve your email every few hours, reply to pressing issues and then close the window. Make a rule not to read jokes or forward them until your lunch or tea-break. Better still, ask friends not to send you jokes at work.

Routines

Start your routine slowly, and schedule them. Write them down, send yourself email reminders, set an alarm – whatever it takes to remember your new routine. Make sure that it is a manageable and easy task that you are scheduling and only change one thing at a time. Once you have established your routine and it has become a natural part of your day, move on and make another small change.

By Joanne Grey

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