The Pitfalls of Procrastination


We all put off making decisions and taking action sometimes (yes, me too). It's okay to do that occasionally but if you are a regular pontificator then it will constantly cause you pain, even if you aren't aware of it. By putting things off on a regular basis you hold yourself back and instead of progressing in your life, you'll regress.

Mary's Story

I've been coaching Mary for over the past 6 months and she is a classic procrastinator. She'll often agree to taking necessary action which results from each coaching session she has and then not do anything. She's always got the excuses. In fact she could write a book with some of the reasons she comes up with. Her behaviour has had a dramatic impact on her business and personal life.

Her business is growing yet she can't keep up with the growth. She's constantly had staff issues because she puts off dealing with them.

Her office systems are in chaos as a result of not taking action.

She's losing money and having sleepless nights. Her personal life is taking a battering and her relationship with her husband is floundering. She know what she needs to do and yet will not take the time to get the foundations in place.

Now I just wanted to say that the coaching hasn't been a failure in fact despite all of this, Mary has made progress ? slowly.

She has finally had a wake up call. And it's such a shame it had to happen this way.

Mary was working on her computer when the task alarm rang reminding her to ring her Grandmother. This was not the first time she had set this reminder up. In fact it had been appearing over the last month and each time the bell rang, she put off ringing and set another date. It would have been easy to pick up the phone and call her grandmother, yet she chose to procrastinate and reset the alarm again.

However this time when it rang, she stopped in her tracks. She read the note which said 'Phone Grandma'. A wave of sadness engulfed her?Mary's Grandmother had died three weeks earlier!

The Final Word

Mary shared this story with me and was happy for me to write about it so that maybe someone reading this will stop procrastinating and ring their grandad, husband, brother, sister, mother or other loved one before it is too late.

Mary is really feeling the pain and that profound incident has turned her around.

Reminds me of the story of the old man and the dog:

Old man sitting on porch on rocking chair, his dog next to him is whining and howling .. another person walks past and asks "what's the matter with your dog?" and the old man replies, "oh, he's just sitting on a nail" ? stranger asks "so, why doesn't he just get off?" .. to which the old man replies "well, it obviously doesn't hurt enough".

About The Author

Lorraine Pirihi, principal of The Office Organiser (http://www.office-organiser.com.au) is Australia's Personal Productivity Coach.

Lorraine specialises in working with businesspeople showing them how to dramatically boost their productivity, reduce the stress and the mess in their lives and have more time for enjoying their life.

We Offer a Broad Range of Services and Products including: Coaching for small business owners and professionals, keynote presentations and workshops, books, CD's, DVD's and on-line learning programs.

Take action today! Contact Lorraine to discuss your specific needs at [email protected]