‘Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution. Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.’ Quote by Ellen Degeneres.
So this is what happened today… I was lying in bed checking my emails…yes I know I should not be doing this if I want to be productive first thing in the morning. But it is the Christmas holidays and I have been off work for 12 days and I have only worked for two days during this time. Remember I am a workaholic so I have been thinking about the stuff I should be doing…but have been finding different things to do instead. Yes, I had to watch that ‘Game Changer’ film everyone is talking about, yes I needed to reorganise the cutlery as when I lay the table for Christmas lunch it was an appalling mess of a drawer! And of course, as it is Christmas I need to check out all those Groupon deals which flash up on my phone and the Pinterest ideas…
I have also recently been feeling bad about the lack of time I have been putting into my lifecoaching too. I have not written any blogs since July and I am taking ages to complete my latest course on Resilience practice.
Then I remember to be kind to myself and remember it has been an absolutely full on term and I could not have put more energy into my work in school and I am pleased with the outcome so I need to remember that priorities are key and that is what I have been doing. I cannot do everything all of the time!
So, back to this morning, me, in bed, checking my emails and I see one alerting me to ‘Ted Talks I should watch’. Of course I open it and this led to a total revelation which not only made me breathe a sigh of relief about my recent work attitude, but has also inspired me to write my first blog since July! ‘Hara!’ This is an amazing eye opener and I want to share it with everyone, who like me, does spend hours, days, sometimes weeks and months, procrastinating when we know we have an important idea we need to move on, or a project about which we just cannot find the buzz we need to kick start our actions.
Idea for today: While you procrastinate, you are exploring different ideas.
I realise now, that while I am procrastinating, I am in fact developing my thinking and investigating different options. Did I know this already? When I think about one thing I have learned over the years…not to jump ahead with an idea too quickly (yes, I learned from experience...if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, but that is an entirely different blog!)
Maybe, I did kind of know it, but not well enough to embrace it. Over the years, I have had to teach myself to be patient and I now accept that if something is worth doing it will take a hundred times longer than you can ever imagine, but in the long run it will be more effective. I now understand that procrastination is linked to this logic…while the idea is taking so long to formulate and become an action, everyone has time to make developments which will then result in the final outcome being a much improved version of the initial idea. Amazing! A light bulb moment for me and I hope for you too!
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Watch this TED Talk
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