“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” according to Don Marquis, an American journalist and author, who is gifted with a good and well-appreciated sense of humor. Marquis was also known for being a novelist, newspaper columnist, playwright and poet. He is also known for his quotes, and the above stated is just one of the many. Anyway, back to our topic “procrastination”

Procrastination has been a long battle for mankind — an endless one. For some reason, procrastination has been a part in every single procrastinator soul in us. Procrastination or otherwise knows as the ‘I’ll do it later’ syndrome — a time waster disease. Though many of us believe that there’s no way we can avoid it, there actually effective ways or workarounds…

- Identify what you are procrastinating.
- Identify why you have not done these things. Seek out your deepest reason.
- Is there a fear underlying your reason? There is for most people.

We usually procrastinate due to unclear targets, lack of knowledge and the skills required to do a certain task. Sometimes we procrastinate simply because we fear moving into or exploring new horizons. Another reason is fear of failure and even fear of facing success, and dealing with becoming too overwhelmed. Or sometimes, we lack of time due to having too many commitments — and failure to manage our time and schedules effectively.

David Allen once said, “Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” True enough, we often start something and then just suddenly take a halt and do otehr things and we often get distracted, and when we want to pursue what we’ve started, we don’t know what to do next — or you simply don’t feel like doing it anymore. Your interests in certain things have diminished or completely faded.

So the lesson here is that, do things when you can do them. Avoid the “i’ll do it later” attitude or thinking “I still have ample time.” Procrastination will not bring us anywhere near to reaching our goals. Aim, focus on the target, and hit that mark!