Preparation is the arch nemesis of procrastination.
Hello procrastination, my old friend. A topic very close to my heart. For years and years procrastination held a firm grip on both my personal and professional life.
In my personal life I would be constantly late. Late for lectures, late for buses, late for trains, late for meeting family, late for meeting friends, late for dates. I began to realise that I had a nasty habit of picking the 3-4 hours before I was due to be somewhere or meet someone as the 3-4 hours to sort and fix my entire life as a matter of extreme urgency. I’d put my washing on, clean the apartment, find some receipts somewhere that needed organising, dust my bookshelf, meal prep for the week, clean my makeup brushes, the list goes on and on. I mean seriously ANY job I could think of I would decide it was imperative to complete BEFORE I walked out the door. I had a serious issue with “productivity”, I felt like before I could go somewhere, or meet someone, I had to prove that I had been productive enough to “deserve” it.
In my professional life I would agonize over things I deemed were important (they weren’t actually more important, they were just the things I felt exposed, or out of control, doing). Emails where I would be giving an opinion or leaving an impression, policy documents or papers that my name would be attached to, meeting agendas I would be scheduling etc I would POUR over them for hours and torture myself until I felt there was absolutely no scope for improvement. Meanwhile, the lesser important stuff (in my mind, not actually less important still very much a part of my job descriptions) would be left waiting until I would have to stay late in the office over evenings to ensure I finished them to the standard required. It was chaos, and not exactly a nervous systems best friend.
I’ve developed habits now that have helped me manage this, but I have to continually check in with myself on it, otherwise it creeps back in and starts to take a grip. I’ll share these habits with you:
1.Acceptance
I heard a phrase one day about lateness. That it signifies that you think your time is more important than somebody else’s time. That, let me tell you, really shook me. I realised it didn’t matter if I was late due to well meaning intentions of productivity. I was still late. It was rude and disrespectful to the person I was meeting and I needed to take accountability for it, and fix it.
2.Preparation
Preparation list the arch nemesis of procrastination. It’s the antidote of sorts. I started writing out a To Do list on the Friday afternoon of every week for the following week. Let’s get real, something is always going to pull your attention on a Monday morning and a To Do list is going to be the last thing on your mind. Trust me, do it on Friday. Even Friday evening, post work, if you have to. You won’t regret it. It’s an absolute game changer. I no longer had all my attention going to the one or two things I deemed “important” and cramming everything else in and around that. When everything I had to do for the week was written down on one page in front of me in black and white, something about that kick started my brain into being more aware of ALL of the priorities ahead of me, not just the ones I deemed important. Kobe Byrant explains preparation by saying his insane level of confidence came from “knowing he had done all he could do to prepare”. Any time you are nervous, it means you didn’t prepare enough. Any time you a displaying less then optimum behavior, chances are, you didn’t prepare enough.
3.“Done is better than perfect” - Sheryl Sanderg, Lean In.
I’m not exaggerating when I say the day I heard this phrase was the day my life changed. Most of the time, things do not actually have to be perfect, they just have to be done. The hours I spent pouring over slide decks and emails and papers and agendas that were already pretty much complete was wasted time and effort at best, and serious diminishing returns at worst. It was all effort and time that could have spent on other things (even, dare I say it, RELAXING!?) and would also help avoid the inevitable cramming sessions.
With those 3 pieces of advice my friends, procrastination be gone, and good riddance. Love and light, but we got bits to be doing and nervous systems to regulate over here.