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Amber’s Home and Office Organizing Blog index

Procrastinate or Push Through?

No one really wants to procrastinate but we can all admit it happens to the best of us. Sometimes procrastination is an underlying theme or reason of why we’re not maintaining home organization. I often hear over the phone from clients “I’ll just wait for you to come Amber. Otherwise I won’t get to it or do it. “ Although I’m flattered that they seek my help and want my help, I don’t want to become a crutch for my clients. I want to enable them to maintain organization long after I’m gone.

Common examples of organization procrastination are: waiting till there are no clean clothes left to force yourself to do the laundry, waiting to go through the mail/paper on your desk until a bill collector calls or the second late bill notice arrives, and waiting to put the seasonal decorations away even though Christmas was three months ago, etc.  We all procrastinate to different degrees and I’m sure you can think of many other ways we procrastinate.

This topic of procrastination surfaced for me because this morning I read this definition of procrastination: A procrastinator is someone who, because of laziness or fear, has a habit of putting things off until later.  Wow, that’s a strong, somewhat offensive definitition. After mulling it over awhile, I realized for me, it’s true. I normally put things off that I really want to get done because of fear. That’s my number one reason- fearing failure, fearing how hard the task will be, or fearing the outcome. But do you know that 90% of the time after I push through the challenge or task, it turns out just fine. It was a lie in my head. 

Here are some practical suggestions to help overcome procrastination: 

1. List the things you need to do each day or week.

2. Review the list and prioritize it according to the tasks that must be accomplished first. You may be thinking- how do I prioritze what has to be done first?  That’s a good question. I would suggest asking yourself this question- what will be the consequence if I don’t do this now? So not paying a bill will cost you a late fee and wasted money. Not doing the dishes, will cause them to get a little crustier. I suggest paying the bill. See what I mean? 

3.  Finish the task on your list before starting the second. Often that first task is the most difficult or the one you fear the most. 

 

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