Better Late Than Never? The Dubious Art of Procrastination

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
— Mark Twain

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
— Pablo Picasso

It would be witty of me to say this is a post I’ve been meaning to write for ages but kept putting off. Witty, but incorrect. The idea to write about procrastination only came to me a few days ago and I’m taking the first opportunity I have to make a start on it. My tendency to procrastinate — to put things off, often until they have become critical — is something I’ve lived with most of my adult life. It doesn’t apply to everything. I deal with many things as they occur.

I work in a live support role, and need to respond to events and issues promptly and effectively. In the workplace I’ve developed strategies and solutions to improve my personal effectiveness and that of the team I’m part of. I take pride in our ability to respond as efficiently and effectively as possible. In my personal life, I stay on top of day-to-day finances. Bills are paid on time. Holiday accommodation, car rental, and trips are planned in advance. I’m well ahead with my blogging. As I write this, I have eight articles scheduled to post over the coming couple of months.

So, what’s the problem? In what areas of my life do I leave things to the last minute? Two recent examples will suffice: the installation of a “smart” electricity meter, and setting up a new savings account.

I never saw much point in requesting a smart meter for the house. The old meter was fine, although I it was a pain to have to clear my way to it to take meter readings each month. Because of this, I tended to submit readings every six months or so, allowing the supply company to estimate usage in between. Some time last year, the supply company began insisting on changing the old meter for a new smart one. There were no down sides to this. I’d no longer have to provide manual meter readings, and would be able to better gauge how much electricity was being used. I say there were no down sides. There was one one. The engineer would need easy access to the cupboard under the stairs. There was so much junk in there that I had to contort myself whenever I read the meter or needed to access anything in there.

This could have been resolved in short order. I could have made an appointment for the new meter to be installed and used that as a deadline for some serious and much needed decluttering. Instead, I chose to focus on the decluttering aspect, spinning that out over a month or more. To be fair, it took more time and effort than I’d anticipated, but the point is I used the decluttering as an excuse to defer the installation of the new meter. Even after the decluttering was done I put off making the appointment until it became critical. On the appointed day, the engineer arrived precisely when he said he would. Within an hour and a half, the new meter was installed and is working well. I can easily monitor how much electricity is being used and how much it will cost, on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

For a number of years I’ve carried a balance of several thousands of pounds in a current account (checking account, for my US friends) which pays negligible interest. I’ve lost out on hundreds of pounds in interest, simply because I procrastinated over moving the money elsewhere. At different times I made a tentative start, reviewing a range of accounts at my current and other banks. The number of options overwhelmed me. Which would be the best, not only in terms of interest rate but also ease of access and other benefits? Each time, I put off making a decision. In the meantime, the money was safe. It just wasn’t working for me in any meaningful way. Finally, I bit the bullet. I opened a new savings account with my current bank and am in the process of moving the majority of the balance across from my current account. Opening the account online took perhaps thirty minutes.

I’m happy to have ticked these two items off my Things I Can Put Off a While But Not Indefinitely list. They’re no longer gnawing away in the back of my mind as things that will need my attention eventually. One might imagine my success would inspire me to review the other items on my list, prioritise them, and take at least a few steps towards their completion. As author Denis Waitley writes in Empires of the Mind: Lessons to Lead and Succeed in a Knowledge-Based World, “One of the best escapes from the prison of procrastination is to take even the smallest step toward your goal.” I’m honest enough with myself to know this isn’t going to happen unless I make real changes.

I'm generally effective once situations become critical, but the satisfaction of eventually accomplishing a task has never outweighed the urge to put difficult or challenging things off as long as possible. I'll go to considerable lengths to achieve this, including keeping myself busy. As I wrote recently in Do You Ever Just Do Nothing? “Filling the spaces [in my life with stuff] allows me to ignore or postpone less interesting or pleasurable tasks. It’s a strategy for self-distraction.” I recognise it's not a healthy strategy, but it's one that's deeply ingrained. Putting things off until tomorrow has served me for many years. It may — finally — be time to address this.

I smile at Mark Twain’s characteristically witty advice to “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” But as Pablo Picasso recognised, there are only so many tomorrows. Picasso’s version — “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone” — resonates because of the end of life planning work I began last year. I made a good start on that, gathering information together and even drafting my own obituary, but there’s a great deal more to be done. Hopefully, I have a good number of tomorrows in which to do so, but I heed Picasso’s warning. There are things I’m not willing to die having left undone. Identifying what those are, and working towards their accomplishment, would be a good place to start addressing my life-long urge towards procrastination.

 

Photo by Pedro Forester Da Silva at Unsplash.