Procrastination is not a time management problem
This is post 3 of my series Inside the Mind of a Procrastinator.
I have three, high-end Day-Timer binders on my shelf at home. I own three PDA’s, two Palms and a BlackBerry. I have printed templates from D*I*Y Planner, Hipster PDA Edition, and many others. I can’t begin to count the number of time-management/PIM software titles I own. I even have a patient wife who gently reminds me, and yet, I still procrastinate.
Procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning. Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time, although they are more optimistic than others. “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.” —Psychology Today
I think, in some ways, time-management tools and systems create problems for procrastinators. Tools and systems are classic distractions. (I’ll look at distractions in a later post.) You can spend hours building, filling and tweaking your system without ever getting anything done.
This month it’s GTD. I run a mind sweep. I dump it into my in-box. I clean out my Lotus Notes and set up contexts. I sync it with my PDA. Then the phone rings with a crisis and I forget all about it. Next month it’s Franklin Covey and six weeks after that it’s Day-Timers. The system is not the answer.
That being said, procrastinators need systems more than anyone else. Time-management systems are to a procrastinator what AA is to an alcoholic. You fall off the wagon, back into old habits. One day you realize that you’ve let things get out of control. The program —system— is there to help you get things back on track.
Related Posts:
9 Procrastination Hacks
Procrastination: Ten Things To Know
Inside the mind of a procrastinator
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Indeed. Organization systems, PDAs, etc, are tools, not solutions. The ‘trick’ is not adding new tools, but an internal change making you the kind of person who will make effective use of whatever tools you have available.