Procrastination

I have a secret.

I am embarrassed to say it, but I feel that I must.

I am a procrastinator.

With 95% of my life, I go after it with focus and speed, getting my task done effectively and efficiently.

But, with the other 5%, tasks may go months before I attend to it.

Let me explain.

Back in December (5 months ago) the window motor on my car went out. Me being the go-getter I am, figured that I could fix it myself. I took my tool kit out to my car and took off the door panel, tore apart my door, and took off the broken motor. I then went and ordered the part I needed. That part has been in my room for 5 months (along with my door panel)... Every single day I walk by it and am reminded of the fact I still need to finish it. Every single day I tell myself, that this weekend I will finish the job. And like clockwork, the weekend passes by, and still no working window.

In my defense, it is not the most urgent thing. I’ve survived almost 6 months with no back window motor, what are a few more weeks going to do?

So why did I procrastinate?

When I am deciding where to spend my time, I tend to think about it in terms of Return on Time (ROT). That return can be in dollars, knowledge, experiences, or happiness. I tend to push off tasks that I don’t see a return in one of those categories. Unfortunately, the window motor fell into that category, so it naturally fell to the bottom of the to-do list. On top of that, it was a pretty tricky task (high time commitment, low return)

So what caused me to finally finish the job?

I wish I had an inspirational story about this. Something about how I listened to a JFK speech and felt invincible, but to be totally honest, this morning my girlfriend looked at me after the door panel fell over in my room again, and she asked “can you fix this today?” In return, I said, “yes I can.” Did I have fun? No. In return for my procrastinating for 5 months, the world decided to show its anger with me by being violently windy with a consistent drizzle.

So what did I learn?

If there is a task you are worried you might procrastinate on putting it on your calendar to do at a specified time. Whether that is laundry, watering your plants, cleaning your fish tank (which I need to do), or fixing your window motor, throwing it on your calendar makes it a lot easier not to procrastinate. Also, it is nice to have people around you that hold you accountable when you need it. Had it not been for Alec asking me to fix it, my window motor would still not be fixed.

Another helpful rule of thumb, is if something takes less than 2 minutes to do, just do it on the spot don’t think about it, just do it. If you see a full trash can, take out the trash. If you see a piece of trash on your bathroom floor, throw it in the trash can. This simple trick can make it so small things don’t turn into big things when they are overlooked.