The Art of Procrastination

“Oh Yeah, I’m Getting To That . . .”

procrastinationIt is never intentional, at least in my case, but it DOES happen! I know, it is irony that the first of my “10 for 10” articles happens to be about procrastination, but in reality, I lost my list of articles that I wrote down in a pile somewhere and haven’t found them yet. That list was written down around 10 days ago! Well, to be honest – I haven’t tried very hard to look for them when I decided to write about this subject. But I will be searching for it as soon as I get done with this one!

How does this become an Art?

Usually, as a child, I can remember doing my homework on Sunday night. That is, if I did the homework! I would usually ace the tests but rarely handed in the homework. This would level out my grade to just passing. Something my parents were so proud of – NOT! But it was partially their fault. Now before you get too excited, let me explain what I mean by that. They were both working and had little time for each other, let alone for us four kids. And we kids would push the envelope as much as we could just like kids have done through the ages! So, they were not able to keep up with the homework as they should which was A-OK with us!

OK, where does the ART come in, you ask. Well, like everything else, it becomes a learned habit. And it is easier when you have A-D-D and it wasn’t called that back then. It was more of a case of “He doesn’t apply himself” “He is smart enough, but he gets so distracted so easily!”

O-O-O-O-H! Shiny object! Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, PROCRASTINATION.

Well, go beyond the High School days where up until my freshman year I was pretty much passed year to year because they liked me instead of earned the promotion. (Probably, secretly, they didn’t want me back in their class again – Class Clown you know.) It makes me think that this is true of a lot of Class Clowns! No scientific data – just a personal observation. My time in school was not easy being the 3rd ranked Class Clown instead of being the 1st ranked one. It made me all the more distracted from the important stuff and thinking harder on what would be funny! BUT, I forced myself to go from a D+ student in the freshman year to the A and B student in the senior year. Of course, this is when the normal students were progressing just fine and I became the bottom 10 graduate of my school! And that’s with A’s and B’s in my senior year! Never made it to college, just the Air Force where it continued being distracted easily.

Sorry, distracted again!

I feel that parents need to set the boundaries for kids so they get beyond the procrastination and get all the things done that are supposed to get done! I know that if I don’t do it right away, it will take months and months to finish something. A lot of times I will spend 20 hours straight on a project until I can’t keep my eyes open because if I walk away, I know it will be a long time getting back to it! And like everything else that you do a lot, it becomes a talent! Maybe not a good talent, but a talent just the same!

For you (us) grown-ups out there, once you are aware of it, you need to do something about it. Create lists, follow them and stick to it. Force yourself to make it a new habit!

That is why I chose this to be the first article – get me into the swing of writing things again and get those other articles going! Now, where did I put them? Where’s my to-do list? Where is my . . .  Oooooooooooh! Balloon Magic Magazine!

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