Thursday 22 October 2009

The Queen of Procrastination

I’m normally pretty good at finding ways to keep procrastination at bay. I made a promise to myself when I first started coaching that I would practise what I preach, and procrastination comes up a lot when I'm working with clients. However, recently I’ve had a bit of a lapse!

If there was a queen of procrastination, I would be giving her a run for her money recently and trying to knock her off her throne.

So, the reason for me writing this blog is to ask you as my reader to help me by:

a) Allowing me to bring it out in the open, to come clean and confess my sins, and
b) To give me a well needed kick up the bum and put me back on the straight and narrow!

I can feel the relief rushing through me as we speak... I’ve said it, I’ve confessed! That's the first part complete. On to the kick up the bum....

I thought I would list down the things that have happened due to my professional procrastinating (or pro-procrastinating as I like to call it!) so it is in black and white as to why it never pays! So here we go:

1) Starting with a small one, I had a stack of plastic wine glasses on the worktop. I have looked at them countless times and thought ”I’ll put them away in a minute”. This week, and several weeks after I put them there (yes weeks, not days, weeks!), my 2 year old knocked a cup of milk over which pretty much got every glass in the stack covered. So, instead of just having to put them away, I then had to wash them all up again..... ****at this point I realise that they are still on the worktop having washed them and so I get up to put them away*** Hoorah, my strategy must be working!

2) My eldest son got a ‘paint your own mug’ set for his birthday and therefore created his own masterpiece (am I biased?!). Since then (and I can’t even bring myself to confess how long ago he did that) he has asked numerous times ‘mummy can I use my cup yet?’ to which I have replied “I need to do something to make sure the paint stays on first”. Now this one is in a different league of the pro-procrastination stakes because it is not only about the mug cluttering up my worktop (in a different corner to the plastic glasses I might add!), but it has also been creating a huge amount of mummy guilt at the same time; you know the kind "I'm such a bad mummy, he's so proud of his mug and all he wants to do is use it and... blah blah blah."
****at this point I get up to go and read the instructions so I know what to do with the mug, only to find they are no longer in the box! I think I can roughly remember what they are, so I have just done what I think I need to do, chucked the box out and put the cup in the cupboard!****
OK – not a perfect solution, but action of some form at least.

3) A slightly more serious one this time. In the milk incident in number 1 above, I didn’t mention that the milk went ALL over the laptop as well as the glasses. Now, I know full well the impacts of not backing-up my work. In my IT consultant days I saw many a company pay the price for not having a good back-up strategy. Despite that, I have still successfully managed to convince myself that doing my back-ups “tomorrow” was fine, at which point of course something much more urgent came up and I didn’t.... until the milk incident that is! When that happened I felt sick at the prospect that my laptop might just die and all the hard work I’ve done this year on the business would potentially be lost (and no not just sick at the prospect of not being able to feed my twitter and facebook habits!). So, not surprisingly, having dried the laptop off a bit I did my back-ups there and then... and guess what, it didn’t take very long at all! Looking back on this one it’s scores very highly in the pro-procrastination championships. It could have cost me dearly, but also without really realising it, it was also niggling away at me, taking up my energy in worrying about it. The weight that lifted off my shoulders once I had done it was more substantial than I had given it credit for. All that energy could have been much better spent.

4) Blogging..... look at my last blog date.... say no more! But at least I am here now :-)

If I’m not careful this blog could be in danger of turning in to the longest blog on record, so I am going to finish up now and retire to the privacy of my sofa to continue in private by writing a list of all the other things I am putting off and continue my good work so far.

Thank you for reading this and helping me find my way again! You never know, by reading this I might just have inspired you to go and tick something off your list that has been there for a while? :-) and if you need any help with unblocking your procrastinating, then follow the link on the right and you'll be in good company with someone who is back to walking the talk!