Procrastination not as
relaxing as it may seem

When there's an important task to be done, do you busy yourself with trivia instead?

For $21, you can join the Procrastinators Club of America, headquartered outside of Philadelphia, and receive an official membership card (someday), a "License to Procrastinate" suitable for framing (whenever), last month's newsletter and other surprises.

Every year, the club sponsors National Procrastination Week the first full week in March. Its purpose is to promote the benefits of relaxing through putting off until tomorrow everything that needn't be done today.

While it's acceptable to put off tasks that DON'T need to be done today, most procrastinators put off things that NEED to be done today.

Therein lies the problem.

Putting off important tasks might seem relaxing at the time, but it takes its toll, for it's downright hard to relax with all the undone to-do's on your mind, your desk and around the house.

Doing a task might seem fatiguing, but did you know that procrastination can be more fatiguing?

Psychologist William James states it so well: "There is nothing so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

With all that needs to be done each day, we need all the energy we can get!

Last week, I presented a time-management seminar. One attendee, who is one of the few nonprocrastinators I know, said: "I can't understand procrastination. When you procrastinate, that unfinished task is always in the back of your mind, and you can't enjoy anything in the meantime!"

How true that is.

For two weeks, a former client procrastinated on returning a phone call because she expected the client to be upset, and she dreaded facing him. She finally made that phone call at my urging. To her surprise, the client wasn't that upset, and the call took only about 10 minutes.

It was a relief to her to get that task over and done with. Afterward, she said that she couldn't believe she had let the one incident ruin every day for two weeks!

If something is unpleasant, isn't it better to do it now and get it over with instead of letting it ruin today, tomorrow and maybe next week?

What is it that you've been procrastinating about? I encourage you to take an inventory of things you've been putting off, both large and small. Write a list, and take action each day on a small item or a step of a large item and cross it off your list.

Do this regularly and see if you don't gain more true relaxation time, more energy and enjoyment in your life.

Let's make this "Overcome Procrastination Month"!

See you in two weeks!