Watching an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey on DVD last night there was a great quote – Rumpole lays into his head of chambers who is a batchelor and is giving advice about marital affairs: “Then aren’t you in the position of a lifelong vegetarian giving us your recipe for steak and kidney pie?”
That’s essentially what you are dealing with here on AntiProcrastination.com – if you are expecting any great solutions to the problem of procrastination then look elsewhere. It’s a lifelong journey I’m on, with the wish to stop procrastinating, but all I can offer you is a window into that journey, not the “and they all lived hapily ever after” roundup at the end.
This is what Wikipedia says about procrastination:
In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions or tasks with low-priority actions, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. Schraw, Pinard, Wadkins, and Olafson have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.
Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guilt and crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.