Hello 🙂
If this were an exam, I’d fail miserably…I would have a big, red “out of point” on my essay…😜 Luckily, this is my blog and I have the licence to do so…;) What am I on about, you may be (probably) asking. Well, this is a fashion blog, and it appears I will be blogging about a non-fashion related topic. Yeah…but I will somehow fit in a fashion related streak to this blog…;) So read on, and find out.
I came across a number of articles around procrastination, and I found them interesting so I delved a little deeper and also watched some TED talks about it. I am no expert on the topic, but I do find myself occasionally doing it, and it is interesting to understand what drives this.
Very very simplistically, we can have two headings for tasks/matters we procrastinate: those with deadlines and those without.
Tasks/matters with deadlines
Think about work deadlines, where a project needs to be completed by a set date or a thesis you need to submit. The list goes on. A number of people start such tasks closer to the deadline. This happens because we give priority to other matters as the deadline appears distant, and some are masochists and state that they work better under pressure;) I personally, always start off with good intentions and plan to prepare my presentation, which I know about three months in advance…but alas I always find other tasks taking over as they require my immediate attention. Well, the truth is that once the deadline is looming…I just get down to focusing on the presentation and complete it. The close deadline “makes me” do it…so probably that pressure does have some impact.
Matters with no deadline…
Other matters, such as putting an email to one side or a certain project on the back burner, could be the result of the said project not being exciting, or the fear of failing in it, or anxiety around expectations. There could be various reasons, but putting it aside won’t make it go away…and the feeling of satisfaction one feels when such a project, even a simple e-mail is out of the way is great (at least to me:)
Well to me these are the real issues, these are matters I believe we procrastinate because we do not want to face the potential consequences, the thought of it may feel overwhelming…and so we postpone making a choice, taking a decision. Fear, anxiety and overthinking prevails. If I can make it more tangible, these would relate to matters such as career changes, relationships, moving to another country…you get the gist 🙂 My experience…I had instances where I found myself in a situation in which I wanted to make a choice…and sometimes it took over a year for me to take the plunge. What I can say is that if something is irking us deep inside…it’s irking us for a reason. When I took the decision to make a change (which to me was important) I was scared…the fear of the unknown but I was also excited. The result…amidst the effort, thought and strength to make that change…the results sometimes, most times are worthwhile. If things don’t turn out as well as hoped for…we rise up and move on.
I feel that sometimes we look at these decisions, especially the life changing ones as mammoth tasks…so the solution is let’s not think about it and stay in the comfort zone. If we look at it as a process with stages, we may find it easier to do something about it.
And finally…
I promised you a fashion element to this…;) if you open the wardrobe, and you know you need to go through it and organize it, to recycle old items and see what you want to keep and what not…one tends to close the wardrobe and postpone this task for another time…
Plan the day you will be doing this, picture the end result of an accessible colour coded wardrobe and get motivated. On the day, put on some music and start. Once it gets done, an organized clutter free wardrobe will make you feel good 🙂
I believe if we push ourselves to do the little, less important matters, we train ourselves to postpone less of the more important ones. This takes me to the famous clip of the naval officer on making your bed everyday..it gives us a sense of accomplishment of a task completed first thing in the morning.
I hope I didn’t bore you too much 😉 I’ve been wanting to write this blog for a while… but I procrastinated out of fear that it will not be well received. One has to try…if I fail, I try again 🙂
Enjoy your public holiday (to all Maltese readers)
Take care
Yan
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