I’ve been reading a lot lately about goal setting, planning, management and while most of the advice is all pretty similar, pretty much the same thing said in different words, one topic does not find agreement by all the experts. One expert says get the small stuff done, another says the opposite. A third says to finish a big job in as much of a single sitting as possible, another says do it in bites as much as you can spreading it out as long as you must.

Why do they disagree? Psychology. And the fact that no two individuals react in exactly the same way all the time. We don’t procrastinate the same way or for the same reasons so why should anti-procrastination techniques be the same. Clearly, then, they should not. Moreover, even as individuals our procrastination habits vary. Sometimes we are afraid to tackle something and sometimes we just don’t want to do it. Procrastination as avoidance. Procrastination as after-effect.

A tree fell on my Mother’s house. Normally the idea of having to call up the insurance company would have me procrastinating in terror. But because I had earlier approached a lead without putting it off I was riding a high of self-confidence and I was able to call them right away. Of course I’ve still had to make a dozen other calls (to tree removers, back to the insurance company, going over to the neighbor’s whose tree it is – was, now, since the poor thing snapped itself in two, back to the insurance company…) and it’s not over yet. But the thing is, I didn’t put it off and things are actually moving along more smoothly than I anticipated.

It was an important and huge task. The do it first and get it done people were wrong about this one though. I had to have breakfast and get a few small things done before I could tackle it. On the other hand, they are right in that it makes no sense to only do the small things. For me, the best solution is to start off by completing a small task then I can assign myself one of the larger ones.

Do you procrastinate? If so, what do you do to fight that inclination?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 9:41 PM and is filed under Artist at Work, Contemplation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.