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Excuses Strengthen Procrastination. Busy People Can be the Worst Procrastinators.
Excuses Strengthen Procrastination
Another critical reason why procrastination prevails in most of us is because of the way our mind works. We all have a guilt complex to different degrees. Some call it the conscience. When we procrastinate activities that we are supposed to carry out, we tend to rationalize within ourselves whether we have made the right decision or not. Often, when the conscience prevails, the procrastinator will wind up getting back to work. People are motivated by gains and avoidance of pain. In other words, a student is motivated to study either by the rewards of scoring top in his class or he or she is afraid to fail an exam. Studies show that more people study out of fear of loss than out of rewards. We are more motivated by avoidance of pain than by rewards. Our minds have this logical gate that works well when we are close to the edge of a cliff. However, this procrastinator's mind is crafty. They rationalize their way out of doing something by strengthening the resolve to procrastinate. These 'subtle reasons' are actually called excuses. "I'll get down on my assignment after football season. I still have 4 weeks anyway!" "I'll bring the clothes in later, the sky still looks sunny" "I'll get to the airport in 15 minutes, the traffic isn't that heavy at this time" We are all familiar with these excuses. But the way to conquer your procrastination habit is to fight fire with fire. You have to train yourself into giving reasons why it is better to act than to delay. Busy People Can be the Worst Procrastinators There is one more group of people that I wish to highlight because it is very easy to overlook these people. They are the busy bees. Every time you talk to them, they are always busy, busy, busy! They are always running around doing everything else other than the things that they are supposed to do. One of the reasons why these people are so busy is because they are feel that they are superior by appearing to be busy doing so many things. But in reality, they manage their time so poorly that they become inefficient at using their time. Some people even take twice as long as others to get things done. If you fall into this category, it is very important to take stock of our lives. There is a subtle but big difference between DOING THE RIGHT THINGS and DOING THE THINGS RIGHT. If you always seem to have no time and never seemed to be accomplishing your goals, then you are probably not doing the right things. Take for example, you could be writing an essay or a report, you can focus on the grammar, correcting the sentence structure or even choosing all the best words for your presentation, but all that effort will be worth nothing if you are writing off topic. Do not be solely activity oriented. People who are overly activity oriented tend to neglect the results. They focus on the micro and not the macro. You have got to set your sights on the things that matter the most. Do not get too bogged down by the means that you neglect the ends. Example: Jesse is a very activity oriented man. He fills up his day with every activity he can imagine and he feels proud of his busyness. At the end of his career, he looks back to realize that all his time was spent on answering every crisis and dealing with clutter. Lesson: Doing more doesn't equal accomplishing more. You'll get tired also.
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