Procrastinating earlier

Imagine if today is as good as it'll ever get... would you continue to do things the same. What if today was the last day of your life?

As a dedicated procrastinator, even such revelations do little to jumpstart the system. The problem with me is that in my life everything got done by deadline. I should say that I probably procrastinated until the very, very last minute and then get right on it and accomplish the task (but usually only just).

Unfortunately the completed job was always as good as it'll ever be, which is to say that not only could the task NOT been improved upon if I had allowed myself more time but also that the quality of the finished product had always been above the mark.

And that is precisely why it had been so hard to change. Even more so because I could very well account my procrastination as a skillset and boast 'an ability to work under pressure.'


However, some years ago I found to my dismay that as my professional life advanced, it translated to not only more responsibilities but also progressively critical deliverables. Suddenly I was under constant pressure – having to deliver at the same quality that got me advanced in the first place.

[And THAT is not possible to do day in and day out.]

It was time for a change.

I realised that if those depressingly hard days was as good as it'll ever get – it did not bode well for the future. Having always been against stress in life and surrendering completely to the logic 'what will be, will be,' I discovered that without my trying (or perhaps, my trying always so late) my life had been transformed into STRESS itself.

I usually try and live by my own rules so I am not prone to make big changes in my personal life or alter a system that has always worked for my lifestyle – having perfected it through the years – so making a BIG change in how I worked was not really welcome (particularly since I was REALLY REALLY convinced that my work was always par).

When you can't change, the best thing to do is tweak. Since I was always good with deadlines, I simply adjusted the original deadlines to my own deadlines – no matter that often those new personal deadlines were days before the original.

Suddenly I was planning and pro-acting while still content that I hadn't compromised my procrastinating nature. Only just that now I was procrastinating until earlier than usual – something that is confusing enough to convince myself that I really hadn't changed.

Let's call it my way of procrastinating change by changing the way I procrastinate.