Procrastination

Scott Schwab:

I was reading an article the other day and found that in America, 20% of people are cronic procrastinators. This article came out in response to tax season and that the estimated amount of people who wait until the last moment to get their taxes in are about 25%. Interestingly enough, that does not include the people who actually file for extensions.

The article went on to mention that cronic procrastination is not only a problem for tax season. It is an issue that extends to every area of the 20% population mentioned. Many of us experience procrastination in areas of our life, but the largest difference is attitude. Ask yourself these questions: Do you wait to fill up your gas tank until it is on empty? Do you wait to confirm an appointment or meeting until the day of? Finally, do you eat only when you are starving?

The difficulty for procrastinators, is statistically they live in a more stressful atmosphere. Not only are they causing stressful situations upon themselves, but often times the persons attitude and/or the environment that is created by doing things last minute, cause other people stress. Stress often breeds stressful situations for self and others. It has a compounding effect that others feel.

With health specifically, we also see potential problems. If we are the type of person who procrastinates our schedule to eat healthy or make it to the gym, it likely will not happen. If we choose to only eat when we are starving, two things have happened. #1 when our bodies go into starvation mode, our body instinctively stores fat and burns muscle. #2 usually the body is craving any food, that we usually make wrong decisions in our choices for a meal. 

The bottom line is not to put off the things that can and should be done right now. I have mentioned this many times but we must "Schedule our priorities and not prioritize our schedules." Essentially, if we want to accomplish something, we probably need to steal the time from another area of our life. Life is a constant flow of things that we "need" and "want" to do during the day. Look at our lives primarily from a "need" and a "want" basis. Would we change our decision, if we moved our responsibilities into either the "need" or "want" category? 

Personally, I have to give up sleep that I would like to have because I "need" to get up and read and start my day off correctly. If I "want" to have a great day, I need to do things in the morning that will prepare my mind. This may sound foreign or even hookie, but for me that is what I have found. The needs usually  flow into the wants and a greater heights are obtained through the balancing of both. Make the firm decision to do the things that will make you great. If you think of something that needs to be done, do it right than or write it down with a scheduled time for completion.