“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there”…Will Rogers
Procrastination is not a new problem. Writing in 800 B.C., the Greek poet Hesiod declared that “a man who puts off work is always at handgrips with ruin.” In the mid-1800’s, French author Victor Hugo (Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) would tell his valet to hide his clothes so that he’d be unable to go outside when he should stay inside to continue his writing.
However, it appears that procrastination is on the rise. According to Piers Steel, a business professor at the University of Calgary who has made a career out of the study of procrastination, the percentage of people who admit to difficulties with procrastination has quadrupled over the past 20 years. Research by Harvard behavioral economist David Laibson, revealed that American workers have foregone huge amounts of free money in matching 401(k) contributions…simply because they never got around to signing up! (Are your clients maxing out on theirs?)
Many of these insights, and much more, are contained in a very entertaining essay entitled “Later” by James Surowiecki in the 10/11/2010 issue of The New Yorker. In his essay, Mr. Surowiecki reviews recent procrastination research and explores what procrastination tells us about ourselves.
Speaking of procrastination research, one of the most prolific academics in the subject of procrastination is the previously mentioned Piers Steel. Dr. Steel also states, rather dogmatically, that… “People who procrastinate tend to under-perform in almost every other area of their life.” In fact, for those of you who want to get your own procrastination assessment, Dr. Steel invites you to participate on his website, Procrastination Central.
So…after all of this talk about procrastination…what does one actually do about it? According to Timothy Pychyl, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa (Why are all the experts on procrastination from Canada?), there are a number of deliberate strategies that one can undertake to stay one step ahead of procrastination:
Many of the solutions to procrastination amount to the re-framing of the task in front of you. In some ways, procrastination is influenced by the gap between effort (what is required now) and reward (what you harvest in the future, if ever). Narrowing this gap, by whatever means necessary, is the key to limiting procrastination. This is why it helps to focus on short-term projects with definite sections and deadlines, as opposed to open-ended tasks with distant time limits.
By the streets of “by and by” one arrives at the house of “Never.”…Cervantes