Procrastination is putting off tasks that you can do today.
Confucius says: Do not do today what you can do tomorrow.
In running a business, this is a very sad state of affairs! The results:
- Missing opportunities to get new clients and build relationships
- Customer dissatisfaction
- Missing deadlines
- Missing out chances to take your business to the next level
- Less profit (if you’re lucky enough to even make a profit while procrastinating!)
A blog post on how not to lose employment states: “Making up lame excuses, even when there may be the slightest reality in it, will never justify the work undone.”
Do you procrastinate?
- Do you often wait until the last minute to start a project?
- Do you often put off making a decision about something?
- Are you waiting for “the right time” to make that dreaded phone call, confront a lazy employee, or to prepare for your sales presentation?
Procrastination leaves us with an uneasy feeling of doom somewhere in the future. Our productivity levels are impacted, because we cannot focus on the tasks at hand, knowing there is something we should do but we are avoiding. Yet at some time or other, we are all guilty of procrastinating.
We know that procrastination is something to avoid, so why do we procrastinate?
Some reasons we procrastinate:
- We feel overwhelmed (often because of an overload of information/details)
- We get distracted
- We think the task is more difficult than it is
- We think the task will take more time than it does
- Fear of success. If you complete it successfully, will you be able to keep up the momentum?
- Fear of failure. What if it is not good enough?
- We’d rather be doing something else.
- We hope if we wait long enough, the problem will go away. The project will be cancelled, the employee will suddenly become productive, etc.
- We want to do it perfectly.
- We don’t want to assume responsibility. After all, if I don’t do something, I cannot be criticised for it, can I?
- We claim to enjoy the last-minute adrenaline rush. We claim to thrive under pressure.
Can you identify with any of the above reasons? Are there additional reasons you procrastinate? Please share them with us below!