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Thoughts on Procrastination
One of the things that inhibit progress is procrastination. And what is
procrastination? Putting off those things you know you’d be better of
doing now. Simple. Yet so often we fall prey to its alluring subtleties.
This temptress beguiles us into believing that it is not finished until it
is perfect. What an illusion. The quest for perfection is really an excuse
and a guise for our insecurity or low self esteem that what we produce
will be harshly judged and by extension so will we. If you doubt this look
no further than any playground or kindergarten, there you will see
children attempt almost anything, take it to completion in a matter of
minutes and then gleefully present to you the finished result. Examples
contrary to this are rife in the adult world. Ask for report and you’d
think you’ve asked for a draft of the Australian Taxation Reform. I guess
it is also appropriate for me to own up else I’d be guilty of what my mum
used to call “the kettle calling the pot black”. Studying at university,
I’d always leave the essay to the last minute, this was so even with my
Honours thesis; I still recall feeding the nine-dot matrix printer for
three hours the night before the deadline! They say you teach what you
need to learn most. I’m now much better, because I had an epiphany. It
occurred to me that I could get the vast majority of what needed to be
done very quickly, whether it be writing a report, some renovations or
even this article. What took the greatest time and effort was preparing it
for the final presentation. I recently put a 160 square metre extension on
my home, not an insignificant project. As part of the development we were
having a new front door and the frame we put in was larger than the
standard size. Until, Heather, my wife could pick the front door she
wanted we had to have a temporary door that was 40mm smaller, consequently
we needed a ‘spacer’ to allow for the gap and so a lump of timber was
placed there. What amazed me was how few (read - nobody) commented on or
even noticed this yet the job was only 80% done. I started to think about
this in terms of other areas of my life and came to this conclusion after
the first four fifths of anything the effort required become
disproportionately large with the return on investment because mostly
nobody will notice anyway. This can be represented graphically like this:
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