This isn’t about what you should do. This is about those tasks that you’ve already decided to do but keep putting off—either because you don’t really want to do them or because they will take more than an hour or so of concentrated effort. You know how it is. You decide before you go to bed that you are definitely going to do this tomorrow. Then, tomorrow comes and you just never get around to it. Maybe you’re:
Too tired—In fact, just the thought of doing this makes you tired!
Too busy—It is amazing how many things keep coming up that are more important than this.
Not ready—You need to get all of the little stuff out of the way so you can concentrate on this better.
Whatever the reason, putting off the task is a bad idea for the simple reason that it gives you more time to agonize over it. You are probably going to blame this agony on the task itself, which is not entirely inappropriate. However, your delay makes it much worse. For one thing, you end up spending way more time thinking about it than you ever would have spent doing it. Plus, you end up feeling guilty or berating yourself for putting it off, which adds to your misery.
Here’s an example of how this can happen:
I needed to re-caulk my bathtub. Caulking a bathtub isn’t the easiest task for most of us, anyway, and the main reason I needed to do it was that I’d made such a mess of it the last time I did it. In my own defense, there were some unusual challenges involved in this project (e.g. big gaps and drifting sand from behind the walls), and I wasn’t looking forward to confronting them again. Still, this was something I really needed to do. I thought about it every time I looked at the tub. I actually put it on my to-do list several times prior to visits from out-of-towners, but I never managed to get to it. Instead, I suffered the embarrassment of having them see messy caulk when they used the shower or bath. This went on for at least three years! When I finally tackled the job, it wasn’t easy. The challenges were every bit as challenging as I expected. It took me about twelve hours, over two days. Happily, it was well worth the effort. My bathtub looked great!
Even though this turned out to be a big job, the twelve hours I spent on it paled in comparison to all of the hours I spent wondering how to do it, feeling guilty about not doing it, agonizing over how to fit it into my schedule, worrying about what people were thinking when they saw it, etc. What a waste!
Being a born procrastinator, I have to remind myself to “Just Do It” fairly often, even for small jobs. Usually, it is a difficult or unpleasant work task. Sometimes, though, it can be something as simple as forcing myself to deal with a household chore today instead of waiting until tomorrow.
If you’ve got one or more tasks or projects that you are putting off, ask yourself if the delay is really worth the anxiety and/or guilt you are experiencing. If not, then just do it—and make more room in your mind for pleasant thoughts and more room in your life for joy.
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