*goes back to work and logs out of Bloglines

I am a heavy avoider and perfectionist, and have some projects sitting around half-finished or never started because either I wanted them to be perfect or just keep waiting for that one opportune moment or idea to get me started on them.

Thanks for the wakeup call.

I myself had (and sometimes still have!) to avoid procrastination. It’s so easy to get side tracked. (Even I have an awfully boring yet important task on my list that sits there for months!) But once you “crack the code” and just get things done it’s such a relief.

After all, they need to be done anyway. Either you do it or you delegate so someone else does it. Especially those tedious, administrative tasks are the ones holding us back most of the time, right?

And Larry, what you describe is something I experience from time to time as well. There is something I really need to do, but it suddenly got somehow magically solved. :-)

And Anthony, I am myself a guy who used to love “all-nighters.” It felt good to be demanded by someone, or to give other people the impression you work really, really hard and through the night.

Nowadays though, I find it actually hurts not only yourself and your family but the client or company you work for/with, too. Your productivity and concentration suffers, and sooner or later you’re burned out.

I am aiming for freedom. (A topic for another post. ;-)

~Marcus

I think I could be sorted as a mix of avoider, perfectionist and optimist, but as usually happens, life is a bit more complex than any case study. I do enjoy working under pressure (i feel it as a challenge) and I can work (and have worked) 24 to 36 hours non-stop.

I always like to say that I’m not a procrastinator but a heavy inertial body, I mean, it takes me a lot of effort to change from one status to another. If I’m relaxing it’s hard to start working, and when I’m working it’s hard to stop and relax, I usually stop when I’m too tired to follow.

I acknowledge that that’s not good, and I have even gone through some auto-hypnosis sessions to improve this aspect of my behaviour, but with not much success. Maybe I should just accept the way I am, I could have done better, but anyway I’ve managed to do quite good on life the way I am.

thanks for sharing.

You just reminded me that I have way too many things on my to-do-list. O_O

Breaking them down into smaller parts, going to try this method. ;)

You are right about time management. It is something I’ve been focusing on more the past few weeks.

I got away from To-do lists the past few years, and it showed. Without the lists it is so easy to burn a couple hours doing nothing. To-do lists really help keep me on track.

Keith

All kidding aside Marcus, sometimes procrastination helps. Let me explain.

There are times when it appears that we need to do something. It’s not urgent, so we put it on our “to-do list”. Then it gets taken care of without our intervention, and we’re glad we didn’t ruch to do it.

So putting something off is not necessarily bad.

What IS bad is when we compulsively delay hurting ourselves and/or the people around us.

In other words, procrastination in moderation may be okay. Procrastination in excess can hold us back and ruin our relationships.

Larry Brauner