This is the first in a series I am writing for the Lenten Season, exploring the Spiritual Side of Getting Organized.  If you don’t observe Lent, consider it a 6 week Spring Training challenge!

Procrastination: “To indefinitely postpone or avoid performing a task out of anxiety, rather than time constraints or logic.  Unfocused wandering, killing time.”(Julie Morgenstern, Never Check Your Email in the Morning).  You know procrastinators, maybe you are one, I know I am sometimes.

Procrastination is widespread and can really complicate your life.  Here are reasons why we procrastinate, and how to stop!

Perfectionism:

1. Perfectionism and Procrastination often go together.  Perfectionism is “Refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.”  Just seeing it stated makes me realize how ludicrous it is.
2. Many of my clients are organized but also challenged with perfectionism. They resist starting organizing projects until the situation is perfect.  Since the perfect situation never occurs, neither does organizing.
3. “I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” (Michael J. Fox)
4. Abandon perfectionism.  I challenge you to live better, and try harder.
5. Ignorance isn’t really bliss.  Perhaps we believe that if we don’t try, we won’t fail, so we can go on believing in perfect.  “To prolong doubt is to prolong hope.”  (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte)  Reality, though, friends, is always better than guessing.
6. We are often afraid of doing the wrong thing, so we do nothing.  My dad often said “Do something, even if it is wrong.”  Any action at all is better than complete in-action.  To progress, we have to move, but we also we need to do the right things. Or else we’re guilty of  ….

Confusing busy work for real work:

1. Recently read “Don’t confuse busy work with real work”  By Harold Taylor.  Here is an excerpt: “Mark Forster, in his book Do it tomorrow, points out that real work advances your business or job while busywork it is what you do to avoid real work.” Taylor suggests we look at results, not just movement.  “Real work includes things such as planning, goal setting, creative thinking, problem solving and decision-making. There is little visible activity with this type of work – consequently busywork looks more like real work that real work does. … We should judge others by their actual results, not by their physical activity.”

Un-Realistic Time Estimates:

1. It’s surprising how we distort the actual time tasks take to accomplish.  We over-inflate the time for undesirable tasks, and under-inflate the estimates for things we like to do.  I don’t like balancing my checkbook, so it always feels like a big deal, though it takes 10 minutes once I sit down and do it.  I like to rehearse choir music, so I can spend an hour or 2 singing and playing, if I don’t watch the clock.
2. Open-ended tasks make me nervous.  Something like “Re-do my website and blog” intimidates me because it could take weeks.  And because I can’t see the end, I don’t begin.
3. How to beat the habit:

• Keep a log of your time for two weeks to determine true time estimates.
• Set a timer or your alarm clock and do all you can within your time boundaries.
• Recognize that all projects are made up of a series of steps, and do as many as you can in a certain amount of time.  Using the blog / website idea, I will 1.  start with finding complimentary themes, 2. edit my current content, 3.  decide what is outdated and what I need to add, change one page at a time until it’s done.  Whew!  I feel better with a plan!

Seeing only the Little Picture.

1. I am typically very sympathetic, but not when a person’s choice of procrastination over action causes drama.
2. Procrastinators get mired in, or are oblivious to all but their own Little Picture instead of seeing the Big Picture.  They forget we all co-exist.  A college friend waited until the last minute to complete projects, to create a challenge and some excitement.  He did not see how his drama affected the others in his life.
3. Procrastinators forget that emergencies happen, and that sometimes the answer is “No”.
4. What to do about it?

• Tough love here, but Grow up and see the big picture.  Learn to be more considerate of other people’s time as well as your own.
• Find some other healthy outlet for your adrenaline rush, and ditch the drama.
• Recognize that procrastination is a form of narcissism, and rise above.
• Let experience win out over optimism.  If you often leave things undone until the last minute and occasionally get burned, start sooner next time!

Perhaps you just don’t know where to begin.  I understand.  Here are a couple of suggestions:

1. Pick a spot and begin.  Move left-to-right, or right-to-left around your project area, just choose a path.
2. Also, spend your time in one area today.   Whether you have 20 minutes or 4 hours, focusing on just one project area will bring you better results.
3. If you have more than one project to tackle, and need to choose which one comes first, begin with the one that will bring you the most relief or with the one that is causing the most pain right now.

Start living better today.  If any of these reasons for procrastination feels really familiar, making positive choices this week to work better is a great place to start!