I've been thinking of a new paradigm, or way of thinking about the world in relation to procrastination... This method has helped me cope with the repurcussions of procrastination, sort of. And this method is a familiar mantra in the form of, "Now or never." It's an ultimatum basically. As John Perry eluded to, procrastinators are rarely unproductive. What matters is what kind of production in which they choose to engage. Anyway, the whole point of this is that with the ultimatum, the procrastinator, i.e. myself, must choose between the lesser of two evils. I know deep down in my soul that if something isn't done now, in all practical senses, it isn't getting done at all. I'd very much like to make the choice of later, but later isn't one of them. It's "now or never", and now is the closest approximation.
The difficult part, as with all things, is the actual execution. The procrastinator must promise to manifest this choice into real action, done now. I mean, right now. Drop everything and do it now now.
I've already thought of situations where it'd be in appropriate to drop everything that you're doing and attend to something of lesser importance by simply choosing now. But I think of it this way. For every thought that you have, ask yourself this question. What happens? Each thought will be fighting for the top of the heap. Quite volatile so far. But some concepts have greater mindshare than others. So, if I choose to do something frivolous now, but then think of something more important at the same time, the more important thought will just over-power the lesser thought by frequency. What matters most, either way, is the fact that I've decided to do something now and not later.
Posted by Mark Canlas at March 30, 2004 10:53 AM