The Cost of Later: How to Conquer Procrastination Before It Costs You Everything

“Procrastination is not laziness—it’s fear dressed up as distraction.” ~Carlos Patterson

Introduction:

What Procrastination Really Is (and Isn’t)

People often mistake procrastination for laziness. But in reality, it’s often:

• Overwhelm

• Perfectionism

• Fear of failure

• Lack of clarity

• Distraction from discomfort

Sometimes, it's even caused by wanting something to be perfect, so you wait… and wait… until you’ve missed your shot.

“Procrastination thrives in indecision. Clarity is its enemy.

Laziness is the common denominator tied to procrastination. This may not be the case as there are many causes of procrastination.

Did you know that perfection can cause procrastination? Yes or no, put it this way, you have a project which you want to be perfect.

Thinking around gives you a number of ways to perfect it, but the moment you decide to implement, new ideas which seems more perfect comes into mind which make you give it time to think it around all again.

Realizing later, you may have taken a lot of time to think it out. While many may be lazy, procrastination is a disease by itself.

Number or complexity of tasks at hand can cause procrastination.

Though its human nature to put things off, too many tasks may call for postponement of the most complex ones which all at the end is procrastination.

You can be better working on projects bit by bit than waiting to test the adrenaline when you have deadlines to beat. Late work execution can cause fatigue and you will not proofread and revise the work.

Knowing the procrastination problem earlier is better for it may cause problems later in life.

1. Believe that you can fight it

You can assess situations and the consequences caused by procrastination to know when change is needed.

Don’t test waters with the current situation for it can cause you a lot. Look at previous situations and what you’ve undergone.

Go through previous projects done in haste and assess what you never captured. Work it earlier next time and confirm whether it the time management or the adrenaline rush that works for you.

When you feel overburdened and discouraged due to procrastination, it’s a high profile call that you need to put your house in order.

Negative effects of procrastination can demine you to the extent of being hopeless. Just take heart and know that you are not beyond repair.

Procrastination doesn’t mean that you are inefficient. It is a behavior with an origin which you can overcome, but not an untamable beast.

Know what causes the disease in you and develop strategies to uproot it. Keep in mind that like any other disease, procrastination may take time to heal, can have medication withdrawal effects, and may even try to reoccur.

Organize yourself, wake up and do part of the project, remember not to overwhelm yourself. Day by day, you will finish it earlier and have plenty of time to perfect it.

Take time to learn and stop swearing that it will not happen next time. Swearing may make you be in cycles and before realizing you are more affected.

2. Procrastination perils

Postponing with no reason costs you and others. Our actions affects those of others in the sense that they wait our output as their input.

This means that wasting our time wastes theirs to. There is a ripple effects to things around us due to procrastination.

In students, studying late or missing assignments deadlines leads to bad grades and failure. Failure means an exam retake or repeat the whole year.

This accumulates the list of tasks at hand. Time, money and resources are all wasted. If not failure, last minute rush can result to low quality work and poor grades which are not good for the testimonials.

The grades can negatively affect your future, and even affect your close family members.

For an employee, procrastination can cause sloppy and missed deadlines. Procrastination will cause stress and pressure making you underperform.

According to Steve McClatchy, New York Times bestseller ‘Decide’, Procrastination is not a good choice when quality matters.

When you are new to a task, have to produce exemplary work or working on a high priority task, last minutes execution strips you off the ability to control the quality.

The substandard work will cost your organization profits and business deals. Such an unforgivable act will jeopardize your career. Last minute rash causes a lot of stress.

Stress affects your ability to think straight, remember, and be creative and process new information. When stress combines with anxiety, you become exhausted mentally and can be easily distracted and make harmful and costly mistakes.

Stress to the extreme will cause sleep disorders, headaches, vision problems, affect your muscles and many other problems.

Even when you manage to submit work before deadline, you know what you’ve done. You will continue to worry for the less quality work submitted.

The fear of failure will haunt you until when the work will be approved. Such fear can cause depression and breakdowns.

Nobody want to go to these extremes.

3. Procrastination can break relationships

Delayed jobs can cause soar relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, superiors and subordinates and friends.

When you are stressed due to an incomplete task, frustrations and temper kicks in. You are forced to work more as deadline draws.

This may make you ignore any other responsibilities causing a lift between you and the affected. Avoiding procrastination avoids such situations.

Procrastination and time wastage

In life, time is very essential. Procrastination wastes a lot of time. Any lost time is lost forever, you can never regain it. With time, comes opportunities.

Once lost the opportunities will never repeat themselves. The more we postpone, the more we lose out. With time and opportunities, comes money.

Rescheduling for tomorrow means that we’ve lost what we could have made today. Procrastination robs you time and treasures associated with it.

The guts to test your adrenaline for the last minute doesn’t work for everybody. If it works for you, it’s good to know that what you do affects others to.

So last minute adrenaline rush may be a selfish and egocentric attitude.

Reasons behind procrastination

Some of the many reasons behind procrastination include:-

1. You a working on a long, boring, or complicated task. Such tasks are allocated much time which may make you believe that you have a lot of it.

2. You prefer to work on your personal pleasurable tasks. Students are the most victims here. They prefer to entertain and spoil themselves instead on working on school

assignments.

3. Overconfidence that makes you believe that you have enough time and competency for the task at hand.

4. A don’t care attitude and behaving like nothing can happen.

5. Peer pressure. Your friends may convince you to go hiking rather than working on your tasks.

6. Laziness. This is the major cause of procrastination.

Pro activeness advantages

Early tasks execution allow better time plan. You research well, modify and improve your work. Above errors elimination, it improves the quality of work.

Current times appreciates quality rather than quantity. Quality is not by chance but vigorous work over a managed period of time.

Punctuality and on time delivery boosts self-esteem and you are respected for being a professional. Hard work without procrastination rewards you through career, relationship, studies and life success.

Although a natural fault shared by all humanity, when out of hand, procrastination can cause troubles. In excess, it will disrupt your normal life and make you lose control over deadlines and schedules. When you suspect that you are losing control, compose yourself and manage time well.

Breaking down a task to little steps can help fight procrastination. When a task in overwhelming, procrastination can easily kick in.

With simple not overwhelming steps, a complex task can be easily tackled. A detailed timeline or timetable can work wonders in fighting procrastination.

Environment plays a key role in executing your tasks. Change when you note that it is causing you to waste time. Keep somebody, maybe a friend or a parent, on track of your progress.

This will encourage you to keep working on the task and finish on time without pleasure. Don’t blame or over focus on self.

At one given time, we are all victims of procrastination. Procrastination is an ailment that can cost you success.

It’s always good to be on the cautious side than regretting later. Early execution of tasks costs you nothing and helps you do a better work efficiently.

Early submissions gives chance to modify work per the feedback. Bad work benefits no one and can harm anyone. If you have a task, even if deadline is far away, it’s always good to act quickly.

This reduces your worries and reduce the number of tasks at hand. Piled up worry can cause emotional and mental issues.

For your own good and the good of everyone around you, it is always good to be proactive.

Keep off TV, social media and act for everyone’s good. This doesn’t mean that you be a work donkey, organize your time and in the end you’ll have time for everything.

Remember that that your teacher, lecturer, employer and everybody else you are working with can punish mercilessly when they note that you are wasting their time.

To avoid all the shame and hatred that comes with punishments, schedule your work, work professionally upturning all the stones to perfect it.

Remember that procrastination can cost you dearly and cause lots of regrets.