Manana …

Posted in Uncategorized by admin on July 8th, 2010

Procrastination gets a bad name.

We often feel terribly guilty about putting things off, about not taking action on things that are hanging over our heads. This creates a viscious circle of guilt, procrastination, a feeling of being overwhelmed, more guilt, more procrastination, etc. as we feel less and less capable of getting up and sorting through the rising tide of obligation.

Whew! But guilt is no use in dealing with procrastination. The first thing to bear in mind is how utterly normal it is to want to put difficult issues on the long finger. We all do it, far more than we’d care to admit. It’s only human. (I mean that in more ways than one. Have you ever seen an animal put things off? They want what they want when they want it and they take action NOW to get what they want. We could learn a lot from a terrier!)

However, although there is nothing to be gained by feeling guilty about putting things off, there is also precious little to be gained by doing so. Procrastination is, in many cases, a feeling of wanting to be doing something else, a fervent wish that the thing looming in front of you would just go away.

But it doesn’t, does it?

Delaying the inevitable inevitably makes it worse. And your imagination is your own worst enemy. The vast majority of the time, the thing we dread doing is no where near as awful as we imagined it to be. This is because of our enormous capacity to imagine the worst, and scare the bejeesus out of ourselves. And think about this: imagining the worst takes time. In fact, it usually takes up more time than you’d spend just doing the thing in the first place.

I hate getting into cold water. But I love to swim, and I know how quickly my body adjusts to cold once I get moving. But often when I find myself at the edge of a lake or the ocean, about to go for what I know will be an exhilarating swim, I freeze. I tell myself that the sun will warm me more if I wait a couple of minutes. Or I feel a breeze and want to just wait for it to pass … anything to avoid that plunge, which I know from experience will not be nearly as traumatic as I am building it up to be. But I wait. And wait. And wait.

What am I waiting for? For circumstances to change? For the temperature of the water to miraculously rise? Silly, isn’t it? So I came up with this little trick. I take a deep breath and count to five. I won’t allow myself to stay out of the water past the count of five. It’s an arbitrary but absolute rule. One. Two. Three. Deep breath. Four. One last deep breath … OMG I can’t believe I’m doing this … Five! In I plunge.

And I never regret it! This allows me my silly few seconds of procrastination (I’m human, after all), but then breaks that pattern and sets me free of the cycle.

Try it yourself.

The next time you face something odious that you must do – whether it’s making a difficult apology, cold-calling a prospect or just doing the washing up – take a deep breath, count to five, and then (Nike got it right) JUST DO IT!

You may be surprised at how exhilarating it can be.