Fighting Procrastination
How to stop shadowboxing against yourself & start accomplishing your goals
Anyone who is a procrastinator will know that terrible, sinking feeling of guilty avoidance. Not because you don’t enjoy working on your task list — not because you don’t work really hard every day — and not because you don’t understand how important your priority list is. But because when things need to be done, you don’t actually want to do them.
I’m not really sure where this type of avoidance comes from. It’s definitely not a new concept, as illustrated in this article by the NY Times entitled “Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control).”
Etymologically, “procrastination” is derived from the Latin verb procrastinare — to put off until tomorrow. But it’s more than just voluntarily delaying. Procrastination is also derived from the ancient Greek word akrasia — doing something against our better judgment.
Essentially, we’re doing something we know we shouldn’t do, and we do it anyway.
That sort of sums up the human condition, doesn’t it? Look at global warming, cheating in relationships, or buying new shoes rather than paying the electric bill. We all self-sabotage in our own ways, and while some of it is easily explainable, other times the reasons seem…
