I've rarely procrastinated in the past few years, but in the past few weeks I've been in a major procrastination pattern. I've been thinking about why this is true, and not surprisingly, it's because I have about ten dull, boring jobs that I have to do and don't want to do. I will eventually do those jobs, but for right now, I want to focus on procrastination.
Why and when do we procrastinate? What does that say about us?
My procrastination points to the fact that I hate to do routine, repetitive tasks. This has always been true for me. If it's a creative task, I get to it right away. I love creative tasks, but when it comes to repetitive, routine tasks that require just enough thought so that I can't sing or dance to the task, I procrastinate.
For example, I can sing and dance to cleaning tasks--so generally I don't procrastinate too much with those, but I can't sing and dance to tasks that require me to pay a little attention such as dealing with a billing problem or figuring out how to manage a health insurance quagmire. Those tasks are onerous.
One way to avoid this area of procrastination is to simplify your life as much as possible. By reducing the number of onerous tasks, you also reduce the procrastination. You can also hire people to do those tasks for you. And, by scheduling those tasks during your most energetic, positive time in the day or week, you're likely to get those tasks done.
So, now it's time to stop writing, and start completing the onerous tasks ahead. Onward.