N
o time management technique will do you any good if
you still allow yourself to postpone the difficult or the
unpleasant. The job doesn’t get any less unpleasant while
you wait. Quite the contrary, your sense of dread will build, mak-
ing it increasingly difficult to bring yourself to the task.
And it won’t get any easier, either. Rather, your delay will
merely complicate matters. You’ll have to deal with the complica-
tions, often before you can even get at the original job.
Thus, procrastination costs time while creating unnecessary stress.
Procrastination is the thief of time.
—Edward Young (1683–1765)So, if it’s so awful, why do so many of us procrastinate? Why
are there some jobs we just never seem to “get around to,” despite
the consequences of our evasion?
Six reaSOnS WhY We prOCraST inaTe anD Six STraTegieS
TO pUT O FF pUTTing OFF
reason 1. You haven’t really Committed to Doing the Job
If you were to attend a workshop for would-be and beginning
novelists and ask them why they want to write a novel, a project
that demands a huge commitment of time, energy, and emotion,
most of the answers would fall into one of three categories.