Hello Steemians
Have you ever thought or decided to do something recently, something you know is so important? It could be doing your laundry, accomplishing a particular job given to you; sending someone a message; trying to write a professional exam; trying to get that certificate or even to buy that coin/token you’ve always wanted, but you did not do them probably you feel the time is not right or it’s too early or maybe people will mock you for being the first to do it? Well! I think, that feeling is a disease called procrastination, gradually stealing away your time. Lets look at the English meaning for procrastination (opens google.com and typed “definition of Procrastination”). From the Cambridge definition it says
To keep delaying something that must be done, often because it is unpleasant or boring
On all the definition I got, I love the one from Mindtools that says
Procrastination is the habit of delaying an important task, usually by focusing on less urgent, more enjoyable, and easier activities instead.
Procrastination is a bad disease that has crippled most of our minds and has made so many task unaccomplished, it’s a bad habit that needs to be stopped. But how do we cure this infectious disease? Most times we don’t even know we are already swallowed by procrastination. Procrastination slowly steals our time, without you knowing, and before you realize, its already too late and that wil make you want to attempt things at the last minute.
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There is this man I know called Mr. Brown, according to a story I heard about him. He is a really talented man until he had an accident and couldn’t walk. It was so bad that people told him not to stress himself again and go take his condition as is. He needed to meetup with a professional certification at a point and was going for lectures, with struggles and pains asking people here and there to assist him to the lecture hall. It got to a point where the lecturer had a conversation with him and it thus
Lecturer:Mr. Brown, when you were coming in from the gate, which category of people did you see?
Mr. Brown: Gooday Sir, well I saw lot of students, coming in and going out
Lecturer: Ehen! Which other category of people did you see there, who are not students?
Mr. Brown: I saw people too hurrying as they enter through the gate too
Lecturer: Ok! That’s not all, you should notice other people too
Mr. Brown: O yeah! I saw some crippled and blind people too there, begging
Lecturer: Now you hit the nail…those are the categories of people am talking about, those are the people you should be with instead of wasting your time here in school, disturbing other people
Mr. Brown was so speechless and couldn’t say a word, but he never stopped aspiring and going for lectures. Mr. Brown is now a lecturer now in a university, somewhere in Lagos, Nigeria. He never told himself “until I get better and walk properly before I will get my professional certificate”. Most times, excuses come as procrastination
How to Know you are a Procrastinator
- Addiction: Most times you become addictive to some things e.g Play Station (PS)..lol. yeah! You are giving a very important work to do at home, instead of doing it, suddenly get the urge of playing your favourite game a little, and then continue your work.
- Inferiority Complex: You no longer trust yourself to get somethings done. You get shy away from responsibilities because you feel you can’t be trusted, underrating yourself.
- Always Late: You always attend to things late, and do things late. You book an appointment but you feel it’s too early to be there or you just don’t know what delays you.
- Doing the right thing at a wrong time: Most times we don’t get our priorities right, we get to do somethings when we have the main task that needs to be done. It’s not like what we doing is wrong but we do them at a very wrong time.
- Sleepiness: When you always sleepy at all time, you always feeling tired, you definitely a procrastinator
- Laziness: Your work suddenly becomes too hard and stressful, you begin to complain over lots of things, laziness sets in. this is just a sign that says you are a procrastinator
- Always taking, giving advice, but never listens: A procrastinator would always talk and talk, tell you to do this and that but would not always listen to what people say or heed to an advice.
How to Stop Procrastinating
Set your Priorities: Priorities are placing and weighing issues/task that are important than the other. So in other to eliminate procrastination, you should always set your priorities right by placing those important task that needs to be done urgently and very important
Forget past mistakes: Most people let past procrastination that caused a very big mistake stop them. You need to allow those mistakes go and move forward, because if you don’t, you will always be scared to do new task.
Divide you task: It is always most people’s habit to want to carry out a particular task the same time, hmm! You are not a robot, that does multitasking in real life, you are human. We should learn to always break our task into pieces, different segments. With this, you will be able to finish every task within the set time
Self-Motivation: Inferiority complex doesn’t really help when it comes to eradicating procrastination. Always motivate yourself, give yourself a nice pep talk, tell yourself you can make it, instead of discouraging yourself.
Set Reminder: This is also a very good way to stop procrastinating. Always set a reminder for a particular task. You could use a jotter, sticky notes on your computer or phones, or even download apps that would help you remember a particular task or assignment
Get a honest friend: Friends too could come in handy but only when you get those good friends that have your interest at heart, because of the task and work at hand. Sometimes, we skip a task or just do it sluggishly, at this point our friends could help remind us or tell us to our face that the job wasn’t well done.
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These are few points that could help us get rid of procrastination, this disease needs to be stopped. Many times, we procrastinate and miss the big blessing coming our way, we forget that when given a particular task, it’s because we are trusted to deliver, but we allow procrastination steal the trust people have for us, we allow procrastination steal our time pf greatness. At this point now, I just figured am guilty of procrastination...lol! am supposed to wash my clothes I soaked in water and I left it to come write this post…lol! Let me go wash my cloth ladies/gentlemen
Don’t let procrastination thief your time…Be responsible and principled...thanks!
Thanks for reading, I remain your favourite sparklez!