what is procrastination?

**nickel** · 11-14-2002, 07:36 AM

an art?
a disease?
a fault?
a condtioned response?

m'be it is just taking your time and checking out all options?

**gear02** · 11-14-2002, 07:43 AM

that's what I'm doing now.

i have plenty of experience with procrastination. i'll tell you later though...

**Burzhui** · 11-14-2002, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by gear02
that's what I'm doing now.

i have plenty of experience with procrastination. i'll tell you later though...

damn it man as soon as i saw that topic i wanted to answer in the same exact way

**faither** · 11-14-2002, 08:54 AM

Me too. I guess I just waited too long.

**hang10wannabe** · 11-14-2002, 08:57 AM

Originally posted by faither
Me too. I guess I just waited too long.

procrastinations a bitch aint it?

oh damn, i have hw due in 1 hour, why didnt i do it earlier!!!?

oh yea.........

**caribiner23** · 11-14-2002, 09:21 AM

Of course, my first response was "I'll get back to you on that."

Seriously, though, I would define it as a fault looks like a conditioned response and an art form.

I once heard a good motivational speaker talk about how when we procrastinate we're actually using it as a mechanism to abdicate responsibility.

Example: your boss wants you to work on a report that's kind of a pain to put together.

"I wanted to get that report done this afternoon, but I didn't have enough time-- it would have taken 4 hours to do it, but I had a meeting in 2 hours, so it made no sense to start it."

So the two hours are spent talking to the guy next to you about the weekend (or posting to the G|A? forums

) and the report is not done. The fact that you got to avoid the task is a reward, and the responsibility for your actions belongs to the clock or your boss, not you.

When the report is due, you wind up working until 4:00 am the night before, and you defend yourself by saying your boss is unreasonable, this job is too big for one person, etc. Again it's someone else's fault, which is another reward.

Now the task is done, which is a good thing, and you got to blame your long hours-- the bad stuff-- on an external force. Put together, all of this means the next time you're faced with this situation you will be inclined to handle it the same way.

I learned back in college (sorry, but I am about to sound like a grown-up) that the only way to get something done is to do it. Pleasant or not, if a task is put to us, we choose whether or not we do it and how we do it.

All that being said...

I know a few people who seem to have raised procrastination to an art form, but they're really just lucky. They will put something off, and then something will happen to their benefit. For example, a guy might put off cutting his lawn for a weekend, and on Monday his neighbor hires a lawn service who offers to do the first guy's lawn for 10 bucks.

It seems as though the same people have this sort of thing happen to them a lot; I would call it luck more than anything else.

And on top of all this...

Carefully weighing all your options and taking a while to do it is not procrastination. IMHO, the key element of procrastination is avoidance; taking an extra week to determine which is the best car to buy isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Okay, I've put off my real work a little too long.