Procrastination’s naked truth holding us back
Don’t put off until tomorrow what can be done today,
Victor Hugo wrote naked – and in doing so he had a good way to avoid procrastination and get himself working. Apparently, when the 19th Century French writer had a piece of writing to do, he would have his valet hide his clothes and not give them back until he had finished. That way, Hugo had to knuckle down and complete what he had to do and could not dodge his work by going out on the town.
The story may be apocryphal, but that doesn’t matter – as a story and an idea it has some instruction for us all.
We all procrastinate. As a writer, I freely admit there have been times when I have used every trick and excuse to avoid the keyboard. Deadlines motivate me, but even then, there have been times when not even the vision of a grumpy editor was enough to get me going. At such times maybe the removal of my clothes, with the promise of a return when an article is finished, just might have worked.
Not only do we all procrastinate but we can be fairly good at talking ourselves into setting other priorities, so that we can avoid the things that we find painful. For example: ‘‘I really have to pop to the shops for bread and milk – I will call that insurance agent when I get back.’’ Chances are the insurance agent will have a long wait as our self-talk has yet again allowed us to escape what we should do, probably indefinitely.
Procrastination is the cause of a lot of poor financial behaviour. Generally in finance we know the things that we have to do - but just won’t do them.
We value instant gratification more than we value a better future.
The solution is to take a leaf out of Victor Hugo’s book and set things up so that they are easy - or, even better still, so that you have no choice. Hugo could not abandon his writing and go to town because he had no clothes. No choice meant the writing got done.
Victor Hugo had self-knowledge and knew what worked for him. It is often hard to start work when other things beckon, and a removal of choice may be the only option. Writing naked might be a bit extreme for most of us but there are other ways of making it easy.
One option is to set something up so that it happens by default. Saving through KiwiSaver works like this. You do not have to do anything to make your savings grow as they are deducted at source.
Getting small and precise is another option. A resolution to save $50 now is better than a vague promise to start a savings programme sometime next week. Small, short, specific tasks are much easier than big long term ones.
So, I am finished this column for another week and it’s a beautiful day – I wonder where Joan buried my climbing boots?
Martin Hawes is the Chair of the Summer KiwiSaver Investment Committee.
He is an Authorised Financial Adviser and a disclosure statement is available on request and free of charge, or can be found at www.martinhawes.com. This article is of a general nature and is not personalised financial advice.