I did not procrastinate today. At least not on anything important. I spent the day working, and then with my kids, and then some more working. Now I’m tired.

We watched Merlin today, a show I happen to love watching with my kids. We also watched an old episode of Monk, a show we used to watch together a lot but then of course it went off the air. If you don’t know what Monk is, here’s a link: http://www.crimemysterytv.com/monk/. Watch a few episodes and see if you don’t fall in love with it. Don’t let the crime mystery stuff fool you. Monk is a comedy through and through.

I use TV a lot to keep from having to do other things, like, you know, clean and stuff. :) But I have cleaning down pat anyway. Do what you need to do when you need to do it, instead of feeling guilty because you didn’t do a whole bunch of stuff every day. Seriously. If something isn’t dirty, why in the world would you want to bother with it when there are so many other great things to do with your time, like, you know, watching tv or posting on a blog? <g>

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of low-priority, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. Some psychologists cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. Other psychologists indicate that anxiety is just as likely to get people to start working early as late and the focus should be impulsiveness. That is, anxiety will cause people to delay only if they are impulsive.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination

The point from this article about procrastination that most strikes a chord in me is "Some psychologists cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision." Pretty sure this is right on for me, although it doesn’t specify why I feel anxiety about these things, only that I do.

I would suggest that the reasons I personally feel anxiety is that I am often afraid of making the wrong choice or doing the wrong thing so that when it’s all done, I’ll have made a mistake. I seem to have a fear of action, not because of the consequences of being wrong, but because of the knowledge that I will have wasted effort. That kind of makes me feel like laziness might be the key factor here. If I make the wrong choice I’ll have to do it all again, and what if I choose wrongly that time too? It would be a never-ending cycle of doing doing doing, for nothing nothing nothing…

I am rational and practical but with a touch of emotional thrown in just to mess things up for me. :) However, I can feel that 2012 is a year for change and I see some major things on my horizon. I am determined to change my ways this year. It’s my year of doing, being, and enjoying. Forget the theory, forget the worry. Decisions have become a seesaw for me. I go back and forth, up and down, changing my mind at the slightest sign. Choices is a word that still holds connotations of finality. So, it’s a year of choices–and sticking them out.

Here’s one of my 2012 resolutions I’ve been scribbling around, in an attempt to come up with a list that will have the most staying power for me.

1) No self-help books–of any kind. Basically I’m going to read only fiction for the next 12 months. Too much self-help doesn’t really help. Analysis only takes you so far.

That’s not to say I have these issues in all parts of my life. Let’s be real. Most people have spot problems. While they have difficulties with procrastination in some areas of their lives, in other areas they deal just fine. That’s the same for me.

I’m sure there will be more to come.

It’s not unusual that I wait until the last moment to do my Christmas shopping. I bought a few gifts on Amazon.com last night, just in time to make the deadline for the 2 day shipping. I spent today on my feet tromping through the mall looking for the rest. I didn’t find them all. So, I’ll be back out tomorrow.

I suspect I would wait until Christmas Eve to do my shopping if I weren’t terrified that all the stores will close on me, and for the fact that my family has a big Christmas Eve party every year that takes up my entire day: cooking, preparing, and then partying. ;-)

This waiting isn’t such a bad thing. A few days of stress and then it’s all over. I hate trying to remember what I’ve already wrapped, because I’ve done that before. I also hate trying to remember how much I’ve spent so far, because I’ve done that too.

Since I quit worrying about my habit of last minute shopping, embraced it even, there have been just as many benefits as drawbacks. I guess in the end it just comes down to how anxious you’ll get if you don’t shop early.

I don’t get that anxious until the week before Christmas, so why worry about it?

I’m changing direction for this blog. I am going to start posting like on a regular blog and although I’m sure I’ll still reference procrastination, I’m not going to try to write about it so much.

There’s only so much I can write about procrastination anyway. Most of the time I just procrastinate on any ideas I have on the subject and don’t end up writing them! So I’ve decided this is going to become my new blog, where instead I talk about the things I’m doing–or procrastinating doing–and have a little fun with it.

That’s it for now. See you around.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the root causes of procrastination. There are a lot of reasons to procrastinate, plenty of excuses we all give when called out for not doing something in a timely manner or when we’re justifying to ourselves why we’ve put off something important for the umpteenth time.

What I’ve concluded is that a lack of self-discipline is the root cause of procrastination.

The practice of self-discipline stops procrastination simply because self-discipline means you do what you determine you’re going to do whether you feel like doing it or not. Since procrastination is putting off doing something you need to do even though you know there will probably be negative consequences, having self-discipline means not having a procrastination problem. If you choose to put something off, you’ve done so deliberately and with thought. You’re not procrastinating; you’re choosing the consequence of waiting over the benefit of getting it done now.

So, the first step in stopping a procrastination habit is to rebuild self-discipline skills.

I do believe self-discipline is a skill we learn that stays strong the more we practice it. These days, I haven’t had a lot of practice being self-disciplined, which is entirely my own fault for not holding myself accountable and for excusing my behavior without good reason at every turn. This has led to my self-discipline skills becoming atrophied. There really is no other word for it.

I’ve become a slacker without even realizing it until now.

I’m a firstborn child, and lately I’ve done some reading that brought up the issue of birth order. I see a lot of traits that have somehow veered into loser territory and I don’t like it.

I’ve always prided myself on not being lazy. But I’m looking at myself lately and realizing that my perception of myself is skewed. Just because I can work hard and long at something when I want to do it doesn’t automatically mean I’m not lazy. If I don’t want to do something, I get extremely lazy. And isn’t that really where your character gets defined–how you handle the things that you don’t enjoy or want to do but that need doing?

So here starts my journey to become more self-disciplined.

Self-discipline is easier when you don’t have to expend a lot of thought making a lot of little decisions that can eventually wear you down. Studies have shown that making too many decisions can wear out your self-control. Maybe I’m making a leap to say that if that’s so, then creating habits that require little thought can help one be self-disciplined with less chance of failure. So that’s where I’m going to start. :)

Step one: Practice building habits of self-discipline. Coming soon.