Quantum Happiness Series- Prune procrastination
“To think too long about doing a thing,
often becomes its undoing.”
—Eva Young
The enemy of prioritizing is procrastination, and it takes many forms.
Knocking C’s off your priority list is a prime example of procrastination, easily justifiable because, “Those things must be done too.”
Believe me, I know all the excuses. But the
truth is, if I choose to spend valuable hours washing and grooming the dog
before filing my taxes on the April 15th deadline, I’ve set myself
up for an evening fueled by toxic stress, caffeine, and sugar.
Perfectionism is an ideal that
doesn’t exist. We can approach perfection, but it is like trying to hit a
moving target. The better something gets, the higher the standard becomes.
I recently heard a story about two coworkers
who both wanted to start their own businesses. One immediately got started
making products and networking while the other began carefully crafting a logo.
Six months later the first entrepreneur had created a product, a website, and
made her first sales while her coworker was still designing the prefect logo.
While some tasks deserve a high degree of
perfection and must be carefully crafted and detailed, others just need to be
done. The first step is not only the hardest, but also the stickiest. Getting
bogged down in those tiny details takes our eyes off the larger goal. Planting
priorities and tending to them carefully keeps us out of the weeds of
procrastination.
For example, I love self-checkout at the
grocery store. I bring my own bags and lovingly separate fruits and veggies,
breads and snacks, and cold items (yes, I have cold storage bags too), etc.
When I have nothing else on my priority list, I can spend a couple of happy
hours buying and bagging my groceries. However, when my day requires more than
a successful trip to the grocery store, I must restrain the urge to get bogged
down in the bagging process and get my A’s in gear.
Apathy, another destructive
form of procrastination, is the attitude,
“If I can’t do
everything, I won’t do anything.”
It’s easy to fall under apathy’s spell,
especially when you’ve been procrastinating and things are piled up around your
ears, both literally and figuratively.
Perhaps the dishes and laundry are piling up,
the car is out of gas, the baby missed her shots, the taxes need to be filed,
three projects are due at work, and there’s nothing for dinner. The easiest way
to handle the situation may be pouring a glass of wine, turning on the
television, and ordering pizza.
However, that just digs the hole deeper. When
you wake up tomorrow with a headache and dry mouth, you still won’t have clean
work clothes, and all those other chores will be right there passively draining
you of valuable energy, roots of that great twining vine ennui.
Indecision, much like apathy,
is a passive yet destructive form of procrastination. Jumping from one task to
another is not productive. If there is so much to choose from that you can’t
decide what to do first, prioritize your tasks to determine where to start and
get started. Work A’s off. Then move on to the B’s.
If you are swamped with tasks, set a time
limit for each one, since many things have a way of expanding to fill the time
we allow them.
Worry is like a rocking
chair. It gives you something to do but serves no real purpose other than
wasting valuable time and energy. Worry feeds indecision and indecision feeds
worry, so ditch them both in favor of action. Determine the steps that need to
be taken and get started. Do something, and if it doesn’t work, do something
else.
Fear is another common
cause of procrastination. But remember
whether we feel fear or excitement is a matter of simple translation. It’s
energy in its purest form, so embrace the feeling of excitement and awareness
and get on with the task at hand.
For instance, some people are terrified of
public speaking while others embrace it. They are all experiencing the same
physical and physiological effects but interpreting them differently.
Regardless of the interpretation, these physical and physiological changes make
us feel awake and alive instead of bored.
The first time I taught a class of my own, I
was terrified. I actually had to make an excuse, leave the classroom, run to
the restroom, and throw up. After a few deep breaths and some cool water on the
back of my neck, I returned and persevered. I eventually came to enjoy that
surge of excitement and adrenaline before speaking to a group, but it is
powerful, scary stuff and requires patience, self-control, and discipline to
master.
Laziness and fear represent
two sides of the same coin. Laziness is not an incurable condition, but instead
a passive reaction to fear.
My friend once told her husband, “Of course I
want to live in a clean house. I just don’t want to clean it.”
I’m pretty sure the problem was not a burning
desire to watch television but instead an unconscious fear that she would not
be successful in keeping the house clean. Therefore, she refused to try.
Fear often unknowingly
traps us on the couch, but we blame it on being lazy. Knowing that we need to
be doing something but refusing to do so, creates passive stress and generates
toxic, negative energy that fuels ennui.
Resignation is a passive reaction to stress, which
leads to lives of quiet desperation and is possibly the most frightening of
all.
When in the grip of resignation, a.k.a. “learned
helplessness syndrome,” we think,
“Life just is what it is,”
as we trudge through our days. But that’s not
what it is at all. That’s what we have been conditioned to believe it is.
The first step to solving any problem is
identifying the problem, so when resignation rears its ugly head, remember, you
are the leader of your life. If changes need to be made, it is your
responsibility to uncover them and lead the situation to a resolution that is
agreeable to you.
Paralyzed by procrastination
So, if you find yourself paralyzed by procrastination, evaluate the task:
·
Does it support your goals or someone else’s?
o
If it does not support your goals, can you delegate it?
o
Can you delete it altogether?
·
What’s the first step, the second, the third…?
·
What timeline can you assign to it?
· What can you do about it today? Tomorrow?
What's the antidote to worry
Engagement exercise:
List your three favorite forms of procrastination, determine their causes and
brainstorm ways to prevent them from slowing you down.
Procrastination 1.
_________________________________________________
Cause:___________________________________________________________
Prevention:
______________________________________________________
Procrastination 2.
_________________________________________________
Cause:
___________________________________________________________
Prevention:_______________________________________________________
Procrastination 3.__________________________________________________
Cause:
___________________________________________________________
Prevention:
_______________________________________________________
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Featured photo by Anthony Wade on Unsplash
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