Procrastination... The Real Villain of Time

Procrastination, often called the thief of time can be defined in many ways. It is the act of postponing , delaying or putting off, especially habitually or intentionally. A famous saying goes ‘’never leave until tomorrow what you can do today’’ but the mind of a procrastinator goes ‘’why do it today when you can do it tomorrow? ‘’

Procrastination is a common habit repeated by many of us. For teenagers, it starts from little things like postponing cleaning of rooms, doing chores and for adults, postponing car repairs, writing documents and many other things.

What exactly could be attributed to the reason we procrastinate? A common one is laziness. Many times, we are not in the ‘mood’ to do certain things or we claim we don’t have the energy to; but the time needed to do the task, we spend doing less important and rather irrelevant things.

Also, another reason is because we find the task boring hence we lose interest in doing it. For example, students from time to time lack interest in a course which results in them not studying or doing assignments. Other reasons why we procrastinate are because we place more importance on other things, we believe that we lack the abilities, too many distractions, fear of success and many more we are unaware of.

Having seen a few causes, let’s look at a way forward, how to overcome procrastination and get work done. A simple yet challenging one is the Nike slogan, “just do it”. If you never start the task, you’ll never have a chance to fail, but you’ll never have a chance to succeed either. Don’t give excuses, instead make sacrifices and just do it.

Also, it is important to motivate yourself into action. Be your own cheer leader, focus on the task and be determined to complete it. My friend once told me how she motivated herself in reading a subject she found boring. She would put sweets in between some pages like bookmarks and won’t lick them until she finished reading the previous pages. Surprisingly, it worked for her. This was her own form of motivation and this helped her in studying. It may or may not work for some people but the message here is create your own motivation.

Other ways to overcome procrastination include preparing thoroughly before you begin the task, believing you can do it and not giving up.

According to Charles Dickens, “procrastination is the thief of time, collar him”. Abraham Lincoln said “you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today”

Let us all take to their advice and conquer the real villain of time.