Category: Opportunity

Increasing Productivity as a Recovering Master Procrastinator

I got suckered by a Facebook ad yesterday. It was a somewhat intriguing article about someone’s journey freeing themselves from the shackles of chronic debilitating procrastination. At the end of the article was an invitation to take a free quiz to learn what kind of procrastinator you might be, and get a plan to defeat it. Against my better judgement, I clicked the link and took the quiz. 

As I suspected, it was a useless waste of time, because I had to pay for my results, which I refused to do, but it did get me thinking. How on earth will I ever quit my habit of procrastination? It is a vice that has troubled me as long as I can remember, and I can only say I’ve made any significant progress in curbing the habit in the last year or so. The fact that I am writing this right now is proof that I am not as beholden to my habit of procrastinating as I once was, however, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Here are a couple of thoughts that have recently occurred to me in the pursuit of that elusive goal.

I first considered when I am already successful as a non-procrastinator. Are there already times when I refuse to allow myself to say, “I’ll do that later.’? The answer is yes, of course there are. I am a mother. That means any of my child’s immediate needs always take precedence over my preferences, indecision, anxiety, laziness, or whatever the cause of my desire to procrastinate may be. I just have to do, and resolutely ignore any part of me that protests that I would rather do it tomorrow. This is true of any situation wherein I find that I am not tempted, or at least can resist the temptation, to delay the task at hand. I make a conscious decision to prioritize the thing in question, and choose to do it whether I want to or not.

So what does this tell me about the situations where I am not successful in resisting the urge to put things off? It tells me that when I procrastinate, it is either because I have:

A. Not made a conscious decision to prioritize the task

B. Have not consciously considered the consequences if I do not complete the task, and or

C. I have become distracted by my feelings surrounding the task and have irrationally allowed those emotions to dictate my behavior.

There have been times that I have felt powerless to break the hold that procrastination has had on my life thus far, but identifying these causal factors, and noticing places in my day-to-day routine where I already regularly resist the tendency gives me great hope. If I can begin to identify the moments when I think, “I’ll do that later”, I know that I can redirect my thoughts to consider why I want to delay the task, and, if appropriate, choose to instead prioritize and complete it, just as I do with duties related to mothering. 

I know all of this sounds very simple, and it is, but I think the reason that it is a revelation to me now is because procrastination for me has never been a very thoughtful thing. It has always been a sort of knee-jerk reaction, or gag reflex. Something came to my attention that I needed or wanted to do, I thought, “I’ll do that later”, and that was the end of that. The pattern is so familiar that many times I hardly even notice the thought at all. The thing just gets pushed to a later time, and I get annoyed with myself when I realize I still haven’t gotten around to doing whatever the thing is I could have already done. It sounds stupid but “catching myself in the act” so to speak is a new sort of skill, and the opportunity to develop it further is an exciting prospect to me. Here’s to ever increasing timely action and efficiency.

The Story Behind the Second–SQUIRREL!!!

A continuation on the explanation of my blog title.
I consider my college campus basically perfect when it comes to location and overall vibe. It is in the heart of Nashville, but it is not, like some universities, integrated into the city itself. Rather, it is a separate community of its own, with plenty of green grass, gorgeous gardens, and giant trees. Of course, that means the allergy season is a little bit miserable, and it also means our campus is completely overrun by squirrels. That’s right, squirrels LOVE our university, and who can blame them, when the only other comparable population on campus (college students) carry food with them nearly everywhere they go?
Unfortunately for me, I have a guide dog that loves both food and squirrels, and while the combination may seem perfect to her, it is slightly frustrating from my point of view. I can’t seem to convince Oleta that she is not a squirrel wrangler, and that licking the cafeteria floor is flat out gross. Still, she sees food on the floor right under her nose, and squirrels that run feet from her on the sidewalk as opportunities, and usually, she takes them without hesitation. If I let her off the leash, she might actually fulfill those opportunities, I.E. Catch those darned squirrels, and lick the cafeteria floor until it’s shiny clean.
So yes, I’m saying the possibilities in our lives are squirrels, and we are the labradors, always ready and eager to chase after them until we’ve got them trapped between our teeth. (Ooh, that was graphic, sorry.) Ironically, we are also the handler holding ourselves back from chasing every last one of them down for fear that we might not succeed, or that the rodent in question might turn on us and slash us across the nose, or bite us and give us rabies. But here’s the thing: God is the ultimate hunter/veterinarian combo; he wants us to go after them, and even if we do get a little hurt in the process, He’s got the cure for anything those tree rats can throw at us. Besides, we’re labradors–squirrels are tasty.
So take off the leash, because we are in a world full of squirrels, and it’s time to take them on!