Tag: motivation

Monetary Motivation: The Price of Procrastination

Do you like money?  I do, I will admit.  I don’t love it, but it certainly makes life easier.  What I don’t like is wasting money.  And I bet you don’t either.  And yet we regularly and purposefully defeat our own plans and end up wasting money.  How? Procrastination.

A few weeks ago, I gave you the definition of 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).

     Motivation for procrastination and also for action differ from person to person.  Just look at your family or co-workers.  Regardless of your motivation for procrastinating, recognize and use monetary motivation this week for action, if that helps, to break through procrastination and save or make some money!

Actual Costs of Procrastination:

  • Penalties charged for late filing or payment of your taxes this week
  • ATM fees when you have to use the closest ATM instead of planning ahead and using your bank ATM
  • Late fees from the library (my 7 year old’s contribution) or the RedBox (!)
  • Credit card interest fees for incomplete or late payment
  • Late fees when you don’t pay your bills on time.  A client said our time working together paid for itself the first month she paid all her bills on time!
  • Paying higher rates for airline tickets, and expedited passport fees
  • Paying for costly repairs instead of maintaining what you own, like your car, or paying for car rental during repair time
  • Expedited shipping, postage or delivery fees when we procrastinate in shopping
  • Paying for overnight shipping or delivery when we are sending items and are now too close to the deadline to use regular shipping methods. 
  • Are you seeing dollar signs in your head yet?  Are you motivated to act?  What about the….

Indirect Costs of Procrastination, or losing out on money-saving opportunities: 

  • Not receiving interest on your money, if you don’t file taxes early
  • Not receiving reimbursement payments until long after your money is spent, or not at all
  • Not cashing or requesting checks:  A client needed to request a duplicate check for an insurance payment (the first one was damaged), and waited too long, the insurance company said No. 
  • Not taking advantage of sales and discounts, or savings like early bird registrations
  • Voiding warranties on big-ticket items like your car by delaying maintenance
  • I own my own business, so if I procrastinate, I can lose clients or money from lost sales.
  • And don’t forget about the….

Intangible Costs of Procrastination:

  • Increased stress
  • Loss of credibility or sympathy:  a friend is a college professor.  Imagine two students come to her in one week asking for an extension on a project.  One always misses classes, turns in late assignments or misses them all together, and one shows up to class and usually turns stuff in on time.  Who is more likely to get the extension?
  • If you have certification or professional papers to submit, what about being lumped all together with the others, or even tagged as a procrastinator?  Ouch.

My goal in blogging is to educate and motivate.  My challenge to you this week is to re-read the above list, and determine if there is a task or two you are avoiding for no good reason – and “I don’t want to” or “I don’t feel like it” are NOT good reasons.  Once you identify the task, be the adult and get the task done. Or at least started, if it is a multi-step task.  A great weight will lift from your shoulders, trust me, and maybe next time you start to procrastinate, the dollar signs will flash in your head and you’ll get the job done instead!

Procrastination: Why? and How to Stop?

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!