Procrastination

I was planning to write today's editorial on the topic of procrastination, but I got busy doing a few other things last night, and then... well... I guess that’s how it happens.

I can’t speak for others, but for me there are basically two reasons for my own procrastination: a reluctance to do what I should be doing (or should have done, depending on how long I had procrastinated), or a mistaken sense of the time available for me to complete the task.

In the case of needing to sort and pack my belongings in preparation for vacating the house, it is first circumstance with which I am dealing now. I know it needs to be done, and I know what my deadline is, and yet I am still somewhat reluctant to get right down to it.

I also have had the ready-made excuse of having been more than a little busy the past week helping run the Vacation Bible School at my church. While that only ran until noon, chasing after 35 or so four- to ten-year olds is somewhat tiring.

As well, I had a few final piano lessons to teach on Monday and Tuesday, plus a final shift to put in at the church where I worked this past year, plus a doctor’s appointment on Thursday; all of which resulted in my not getting home until around 5 or 6 each evening.

And I got invited to go to see Mr Bean’s Vacation on Friday. I suppose I could have turned the invitation down, but… c’mon, it’s Mr Bean! And I deserved a break.

I did get a bit of work done this week. I cleaned out my 10x10 garden shed on Wednesday. All I can say is that it’s a darn good thing I don’t have a garage! I couldn’t believe the junk that had accumulated.

So the cleaning and packing starts in earnest today. Right after breakfast. No, really!

There have been times when I have procrastinated perhaps out of a reluctance to get whatever it was that had to be done done, but more so because I kept telling myself I had plenty of time to do so.

"It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up." (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling)

You knew I’d work in a Harry Potter quote somewhere, didn’t you? But it is so true: time never seems to go by quite so fast as when you are putting-off doing something. Suddenly the deadline looms and you’re thrown into panic mode.

I saw that happen when I was attending Algoma University. It’s easy to think of the end of term as being quite distant, but suddenly there’s only a week left to term and you have papers and assignments due for which you’ve only just roughed-out an outline, or haven’t even begun.

Fortunately, there were only a couple of assignments which I got caught on, but I saw quite a few others who found themselves facing a number of assignments that had to be completed at the last minute.

As I’ve said, those are the reasons that I tend to procrastinate when I do. There are also times when I just simply forget that I had something to do, and end up remembering — or being reminded — at the last minute. Of course, the sense of panic this instill is quite the same, regardless of the reason.

I have a couple of friends who have raised procrastination to an art form, however. I sometimes wonder — and I am reasonably convinced — that their procrastination isn’t more deliberate than incidental.

One friend in particular, as an example, waits the full five years that Revenue Canada allows before filing his income tax returns.

Mostly, though, I think the reason people procrastinate is innocent and inadvertent; we do generally live much busier lifestyles, and very few of us are inherently good at time management.

That’s not to say, however, that with a little effort we couldn’t learn better time management skills.

Some people do take this to an extreme, however. My step-father was a very punctual man. Railways could set their watches by the schedule he kept. When he was working at the Steel Plant he knew to the minute how long it would take him to get to or from work, including the timing of the traffic lights. Years later, when he was teaching music here at home, his routine was exquisitely timed.

The problem with a routine of such precision is, however, that it takes very little to disrupt it.

This happened one Sunday morning in the late 80s. He was the organist at a local Anglican church, and was about to head out the door when he realized he had forgotten some music on his desk. He went down to retrieve it and put it in his briefcase, then headed out to the car and set off to the church.

As he had fallen a few minutes behind schedule he attempted to make up some of the lost time by driving a bit faster along Bennett Boulevard. Unfortunately for him, he was nabbed by the Police and spent the next ten anxious minutes waiting for the officer to write him a speeding ticket.

I’ll admit that I’m nowhere near that rigid in my own routines, and while I don’t tend to the laissez-faire end of the spectrum, I do like to be more flexible. Still, I know I could tighten them up a bit.

Of course, not having a vehicle and relying on the transit system requires a paradoxical approach to time management. One needs to allow sufficient time to reach a destination, as the timing of the buses is such that one often has the choice of being twenty-five minutes early or five minutes late. (Evenings and weekends that could be fifty-five minutes early!)

One also needs to be at the bus stop a few minutes prior to the expected time the bus should arrive, just in case the operator is ahead of schedule (especially at shift-change). Three minutes early is a good thing; thirty seconds late can mean waiting another half-hour (or hour, evenings and weekends), or walking.

One also needs to exercise patience when, for reasons beyond their control, the buses occasionally run late.

Whether out of reluctance, inattentiveness, an overestimation of available time, or some other reason, many of us — likely most of us — tend to procrastinate from time to time.

Whatever our reasons, we’d likely find we have less stress in our lives if we were to try to procrastinate less. I know I would. And I plan on working on that.

Soon.

But… that’s just my opinion.

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Note: with packing and moving my belongings into storage, and heading up to Thunder Bay and starting at Teacher's College, it's quite likely that I will not publish another editorial for the next week or so. When I am settled in Thunder Bay I will return to writing, but I expect I will only post weekly columns. Thanks for your patience.