I will do it tomorrow

"Eat the frog" poster reminds me to tackle the difficult task first for the day.A concept learned from Brian Tracy shared by my exBoss Mr. Patrick Cheing who is now retired and enjoying his golf.

I usually find myself filing in my tax return on the last day. By then the queue will be long and I start to complain about the department's inefficiency. Looking at it now, many people like myself procrastinate. Yes... I am not alone. If I would have filed in earlier, I would have save myself the unnecessarily stress, the frustration but most importantly time to do something worthwhile. We all know our friend or foe Mr Procrastination.

"Every behaviour is useful in some context"

Procrastination is derived from the Latin word Procrastinatus:- Pro (forward) and crastinatus (tomorrow). I am not a psychologist and I would not go into the detail of explaining it. However I do know the practical approach to it.

I do know that putting off a non urgent but important matter until the last minute is stressful and causes a lot of anxiety. However most of the time , I would defend my behaviour ,that the stress would put me into a more productive mode. The urgency will drive me to complete the task. I observe that some jobs are living on the edge and procrastination can lead to disastrous outcome, such as emergency ward, news media, restaurants, customer service and so forth. I don't think I can fit it well, my stress tolerance is not too great.

By procrastinating, it somehow makes me feel important because I am needed to get the job done. I got datelines to meet but I guess this are all wrong perceptions. In the past I associate urgency with feeling important.

Procrastination is not at all bad. It is useful at times. Especially when I want to make a purchase. Nowadays with the persuasive marketing campaign, we may get sucked into the moment and make the purchase regardless we need it or not. Marketing is about convincing the customer to act NOW. Last November I was considering to purchase a notebook and so I have my own specification. After making trips to few computer shops and checking out the many attractive offers, I did not make any purchase. Something within me hesitate. So I began to probe within what could be possibly be the obstacles. I already have my company notebook which i use to carry around. My inner self was telling me that why waste the money, the money can be used for other things. So I did some more information seeking from the Internet and found the notebook with the specs that I wanted (Lenovo S10 series).So I made a firm decision of buying it in December, Which I did. The little voice was still bugging me but I overcame it by telling myself if I regret later it is a wrong decision made and that is all. I can learn from it. So far I am quite happy with the notebook. The little voice or a.k.a conscience wants to protect me from making mistakes. I think it is important that it should not paralyse you from taking action.

When face with procrastination, there is always and underlying reasons that urge you to hold it off till tomorrow. Probe it until you find the answer. It could be a clash in personal values and beliefs.