Procrastination - "The Real Villain in Time Management"

Are you always short of time? Do you wish you had more than 24 hours in a day? Well, if you make a list of things which leads to your poor time management, you will find a monster in it -Procrastination!

Procrastination has become one of the biggest challenges for professionals and individuals alike in managing time. The word procrastination comes from the Latin word, ‘Pro’ meaning “in favour of” and ‘Cras’ meaning “tomorrow”. It is defined therefore as “The act or the habit of delaying or putting things off’. No doubt it is a one way ticket to stress, guilt and overwhelm.

Let me share a funny story I read which can be linked with procrastination and it's impact. It's the story of a turtle family. The family consists of Dad, Mom and the Baby turtle. The Baby turtle was very lazy and always postpones anything and everything assigned to him.

One day Mom, Dad and Baby turtle go on a picnic. When they arrive at the park, it appears that it’s about to rain. Mom turtle asks Baby turtle to run home and get an umbrella so that they can enjoy the picnic as planned, rain or shine.

Baby turtle as always said, " No I can't go, why don't you go and get it? ". Dad turtle got annoyed and gives the Baby turtle an angry look. With a pale face Baby turtle finally said, “If I go home and get the umbrella, do you promise you won't start lunch without me?” Mom turtle assures Baby turtle that they will wait for him before eating.

With this confirmation, Baby turtle leaves. Ten minutes go by and Baby turtle has not returned. An hour passes. A full day. Neither Mom or Dad turtle have eaten anything and become very hungry. They wonder what is taking Baby turtle so long, and hope he is okay.

Finally, Mom turtle says to Dad turtle, “Well, he hasn't come back yet. We might as well eat something.” At which point Baby turtle pokes his head out from behind a tree and screams, “If you eat, I won't go! I know you will do this, that's why I was hiding and watching what you will do! ”

Now, I know this is a silly story, but there is some important message in this story. The lesson is in the fact that Baby turtle reminds many of us and our habit of procrastination. His mom told him they would wait for him, but he chose to hide behind a tree and take rest. He wasted everyone’s time, and ruined the picnic that was planned, all because he was lazy and did not take the action required of him.

The question is how can we stop procrastination? If procrastination is a problem for us, it is important that we learn tools to handle our procrastination. Procrastination occurs when we are faced with too many decisions and are unable to complete matters of importance. There are many reasons why we avoid doing things, sometimes it seems strange that, we know what we have to do to be successful but we don't do it.

source: google