Fear of Making Decisions: Procrastination

Do any of these comments sound familiar? "

Oh, I can't do it now I'll put it off until tomorrow" "

Yeah! I suck because I can't help procrastinating" "What don't I like about myself? I procrastinate!"

Procrastination is evident when a high school student watches TV before studying, an employee takes an extended lunch break before beating a deadline and when a couple lounges around and lazily watches television before going out to fulfill their immediate tasks.

The dictionary defines procrastination as an action of delay. This is when things are put off until another time, when decisions are deferred until people lose the chance to make them. 

Procrastination is sometimes beneficial for people who want to delay doing things they don't want to do. It is also makes everyone feeling useless.

Now the question is can procrastination be a good thing? When does it start becoming an evil factor?

Procrastination happens when someone is dying to do something but stops himself from doing so first, because he is not yet ready for it. It mirrors the capacity of a person to do a certain thing and it even implies the willingness and intention of a person.

For a person to figure out if procrastination is bad or not, he must ask himself the following: is my heart and mind saying the exact thing?

Intention and will are two things that affect procrastination. Intention means the want to achieve a goal. Will, on the other hand, is the power to make things happen. So one can have the fiercest intention to say, finish homework, but he lacks the will to fulfill it. A will must be at work before the idea finally unfolds to becoming a task.

It is no wonder that procrastination means the delay or fear of making decisions. When one is afraid of making decisions, he procrastinates. When one does not know how to decide, he procrastinates.

Sometimes, procrastinating can slightly affect or tremendously stir the people. The problem is that there are things that must be done to handle procrastination. What are they?

The person must look back and remember a task that was completed without that annoying procrastination.

He must ask himself: why was it easy to complete? Was it enjoyable? Was he confident in doing that? Or were there other people involved in the task's completion? One must try to get something out of this specific experience and apply it to the job at hand.

The person must concentrate and come up with a plan to make things done.

This means: listing the tasks, delegating them and prioritizing everything. One must ask himself: what if I start with the thing that I have been putting off forever? This task can be chunked so it will not be hard to execute. After the completion of task, one must try to draw inspiration from it.

One must look for a support system that will rah-rah for his success.

A friend, colleague or significant other can play this part. Anyone of them can cheer the person up and urge him to dive deep into action.

One must know how to encourage himself.

Sometimes, what one has to do is simply putting "I can do it!" notes all over his desk for the necessary inspiration.

One must get a specific time to get things done.

It is true: getting started is the hardest. But once the tasks have jumped off to a start, momentum will pick up and before the person knows it, the job is done!

One has to lighten up.

There is no need for a grumpy face or a heavy heart. One must perform the task happily and the moment it is done, he must reward himself. A job well done!

If everything else fails, one can get a personal coach.

If self-help books and self-help articles just don't work, then this might do. A personal coach can really train the person to be less of a procrastinator.

One must stop procrastinating, that's the basic thing. This leads to less problems and far more productivity. Relief comes a hundredfold once one says goodbye to procrastination.
Everything else is easier without putting things off and that's a fact!

Get great articles like this planted in your inbox every week. Enter your email address below.

If you like this post make a comment below: