Procrastination - The Decision not to make a Decision is still a Decision!

A NEW LEARNING
Mark Twain wrote, "Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow."

Many famous people were procrastinators. Among them was Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci had astonishing talent, exploring numerous fields in science and art. He made noteworthy contributions in engineering, architecture, biology, botany, anatomy, math, and physics. He sculpted and painted portraits and murals. He designed imaginative equipment (e.g., planes, submarines) that were not realized until centuries later. He never finished a project on time. The cause of Leonardo's procrastination appears to be distractibility which we might term Attention Deficit Disorder today. Being unable to focus on one project until completion is highly predictive of procrastination. The Last Supper was only finished after his patron threatened to cut off all funds. Mona Lisa took twenty years to complete. The Adoration of the Magi, an early painting, was never finished. As he aged, his procrastination grieved him because he felt he could have achieved much more. Doubtless more of his aspirations could have become a reality in his own time had he finished things. So much was half-completed that he appealed to God, “Tell me if anything ever was done. Tell me if anything was done.”

Procrastination is a behavior characterized by deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. While it is normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. It is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. For a behavior to be classified as procrastination, it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying. It may result in stress, a sense of guilt and the loss of personal productivity, the creation of crisis and the disapproval of others for not fulfilling one's responsibilities or commitments. These combined feelings can promote further procrastination. Procrastination has been associated with perfectionism, a tendency to negatively evaluate outcomes and one's own performance, intense fear and avoidance of evaluation of one's abilities by others, heightened social self-consciousness and anxiety, recurrent low mood, and workaholism.

> "Procrastination: A hardening of the oughteries." Anonymous
> "The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up." Anonymous
> "Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week." Anonymous

I can’t believe Anonymous made time to even write this much.

Website dedicated to Procrastination