It happens more often than not. That sinking feeling, you’re afraid to look at your to-do list, your Microsoft Outlook inbox or boss’ boss standing over with a disappointed look on his face. Its happening again. The one thing you have been working so hard to banish is back with a vengeance. Some how after riding a wave of productivity, you’ve ended up back at square one. Procrastinating.
After a bit of head scratching and soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that a procrastinator’s relapse occurs for because of two reasons:
1. Complacency
The confidence that ticking things off your long list of tasks can be a serial procrastinator’s worst enemy. You believe you’re always in control of the situation and start letting one or two items spill over into the next day’s page of your organizer. The 2 items you had at the end of Monday turn into 5 on Wednesday morning and because you’ve let them hang around this long getting them closed makes you anxious because you have to walk into an offices to admit you dropped the ball…..or you’re back at it.
Solution = nip the carry over task in the bud. Simple. When you have someone to call to close out a pending item, do it!
2. No Support Structure/Robust Control
When you’ve struggled long with taking your time to do things tearing down the habits and mentality that complimented that behavior means building up new ones fast enough for old habits not to creep up. You’ll be wise to remember that your mind likes what is easy and what easy is what you’ve always been used to.
Solution = if you like opening emails that require a response and moving to the next in line, stop that… either you act on it, delegate it to someone else or delete it. A month of this and you’re on the road to recovery….AGAIN.
In my view, other reasons are offshoots of these core causes and number 1 would not exist if number 2 is firmly in place. It takes the form of vicious circle/cycle that seems easy to break in theory but difficult in practice.
My name is Nigel and I’m a recovering procrastinator….who relapsed.
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