The price of procrastinating

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

Do you have a personality or character flaw that you don’t think you will be able to change?

One personality/ character flaw I have that I don’t think i can ever change is my penchant for procrastinating.

Over the years, my knack for putting things off until the last minute has evolved. No longer is it just a lack of motivation of an attempt to avoid responsibility. I have procrastinated for so long that there are certain tasks that I cannot complete until or unless I am under a time crunch.

Sometimes it seems like the only time I can give my complete attention to a task is when I am tuning up against a deadline. Maybe I have undiagnosed adult ADD. But it seem like the only way I can compel and motivate myself to avoid any external distractions is knowing that I have no choice, but to complete the task at hand.

I did this as a kid in grade school. I did it when I was a little bit older in college. I can say that it has diminished a bit. But I do still procrastinate – to a lesser extent than I did when I was younger.

Karma catches me

There are times when my knack for procrastinating his bit me in the rear end. I remember one time specifically when I was in college, I had to write a end of term essay for my final project in a class. Naturally, I decided to pull an all nighter to write the paper. Once again, I simply couldn’t get myself into the mindset to write this particular essay until I was under the deadline.

Unfortunately, for me, my computer died that night. Keep in mind, this was in the mid 1990s there was enough to live off campus and were fortunate enough to have home computers or still using big desktops. Laptop computers were still very much a luxury for the rich. Although they tried for better, laptops didn’t have nearly the power or speed of the desktop computer at this point.

It was about five or six in the morning. My paper was due when class started at 9 AM. I was frantic. I had actually written a really good essay, one that I was proud of. One that was even prouder of considering that it was a last-minute all night affair. I called my professor and begged her to allow me to turn on the paper later in the day. She reluctantly agreed, but said I had to have it in her office by 5 PM that day. I competed the assignment and got a decent grade on it. However, this second essay was nowhere near as good as my first and I knew it.

Old dogs and old tricks

One would think that this even would have rattled me; made me change my ways. But I think because I’ve never been in a situation where procrastinating has led to serious consequences, I’ve never felt the need to change.

At this point in my life, I don’t think I will. I’m 51 years old. While change is not impossible, it’s very difficult once one is set in their ways. For me, working under the pressure is how I work best – for better or for worse.

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