The Creeping Enemy Called Procrastination

According to Mason Cooley,“procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder”.

The word procrastination is the needless postponement of completing tasks, especially out of habit. It is a complicated human behaviour that everyone has experienced at some points in our lives and in almost every aspect in our daily lives, be it in academic, financial or even in health management. For some people, it is a minor irritation, for others, it is a way of life that produces a lot of stress and anxiety. Poor time management and fear of failure are other causes.Some individuals thrive on the pressure of deadlines, but procrastination is about more than just time management.  Ryan,M. (2007) stated that “the habit of procrastination can reach such chronic levels that it can have negative effects on their life”.  It is therefore very important to realise how counter-productive procrastination can be in an environment where you must stay motivated in order to accomplish your goals.

Dangers of procrastination 

1. It lowers self-confidence – Procrastination feeds into feelings of low self-confidence and low self-esteem. The stress of not keeping up with assignments and not accomplishing tasks on a daily basis will damage your sense of achievement and well-being.
2. It fuels a sense of powerlessness – You will begin to feel like you have no control over your ability to get things done. This will seriously affect your commitment to stay motivated and accomplish your goals leading to sleep deprivation and rushing to keep up with deadlines lead to both physical and mental exhaustion
3. It undermines your ability to do your best – You are bombarded with distractions, which affects your ability to finish assignments leaving you with loads of backlogs perpetually
4. It can make you poor – Yes, it helps you pass over opportunities repeatedly and keeps you at a spot.
5. Career setbacks – Chronic procrastination can keep an individual fromrealising his/her full professional potential, delaying and possibly derailing– career progress. 6. Damaged Relationships:Missed deadlines and appointments can wear on both personal and professional relationships.

Steps to avoiding Procrastination

1. Identify the problem – The first step to solving any problem is to first identify that there is a problem. First, recognize that you are procrastinating. Putting things off indefinitely, or switching focus because you want to avoid doing something,then you probably are procrastinating.
2. Understand the reason for the problem – You need to understand the reasons why you are procrastinating before you can begin to tackle it. For instance,are you avoiding a particular task because you find it boring or unpleasant? If so, take steps to get it out of the way. quickly, so that you can focus on the aspects of your job that you find more enjoyable. Poor organization can lead to procrastination. Organized people successfully overcome it because they use prioritized to-do lists and create effective and efficient schedules. These tools help you to organize your tasks by priority and deadline.
3. Make conscious efforts to avoid procrastination – Procrastination is a habit. This means that you probably can’t break it overnight. Remember the old saying: habits are cobweb to form but wire to break. You can try strategies like; committing to task, possibly promise yourself a reward if you get a difficult task completed on time. You can also set reminders or ask your friend to check up on you concerning the completion of a task.

Habits only stop being habits when you avoid practicing them.Now I ask: “Do you want to make the most of your life?” Stop procrastinating; a stitch in time saves nine.