#24 Procrastination! Yay or Nay?
You will always find a person in every group who shows up at the last minute for work and still manages to turn around it well. What do you think about such a person?
Mixed emotions for such a person? I am sure we all have had those moments when we meet the group for any submission/ assignment and that one person either didn't show up or just shows up to say: ‘Ho Jayega Bro’ and flee away.
Most people today find this concept of procrastination fancy and workable in real life. It’s more of a way to balance out their personal lives with their professional ones and work just to ensure they adhere to the deadlines or just delay the work until it has to be done and submitted. I don’t see a miss in such a thought provided you ensure a good deliverable and have the confidence to turn around your activities in a short period. And this brings me to the question - that why do people perceive this behavior as contagious and negative? Why procrastination is seen in the bad limelight?
Take a moment and analyze your thoughts about procrastination. Do you think you do it? If Yes, are you comfortable procrastinating your tasks or do sometimes you feel guilty about it?
Firstly, we need to accept that we are from the generation who need quick fixes, are easily distractable, and have a limited attention span. Delaying or thinking about the work comes easy to us and our planning phase is way longer than our execution phase.
So, here’s the hack and a quick guide to understanding if you are also prey to bad procrastination or if that’s working well for you- Just ask yourself these questions:
Let’s analyze:
If the answer to your risk section is ‘NO’ and things are going well for you in terms of managing your time, efforts, and results- then procrastination is working well for you :)
If the answer to your risk section is ‘YES’, then you need to be aware that you are on verge of falling into a procrastination loop and you might need to make conscious efforts to take charge. A few tips will help here:
Develop the awareness and draw attention to understand the reasons for your delay. Accept and motivate yourself to be back on track
If you run under the fear of outcome/ results or you focus on being a perfectionist, then try to be calm and take it easy. Focus on learning and enjoying through the process and positive results will follow
If you think you have too much on your plate, then communicate the same to your team or work out a prioritization matrix with them to ensure last moment stress
Attach rewards to the small goals that you accomplish and ensure you take breaks. After all, slow and steady wins the race
Stop overanalyzing the work steps, simply start and see how far you can go. Sometimes, the actions that look complex on the face are much easier as we go along the journey
Create a handwritten to-do list and keep it in front of your workplace. Ticking off the items gives an ultimate joy that just lightens up your day or gives you the motivation you need to wind up.
Be happy with the fact that you are trying and taking baby steps to avoid the bad loop. You can take a break and have an easy day too :)
Voila! this simple hack will tell you if your procrastination habit is working for you or that habit is turning into a problem for you that you might need to attend to. Hope this
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