7 Signs that you’re about to procrastinate

Hello, awesome readers!

Several years ago, I read a book by Steven Pressfield titled The War of Art. At the time, I believed that he wrote this book especially for me. The book talks about our own resistance, which gives context to procrastination, and I remember feeling grateful for Pressfield’s attempt to reach out and intervene. You see, back then I was the queen of procrastination.

Before reading The War of Art, I believed that I was the only human ON THE PLANET that suffered from resistance aka procrastination. I remember feeling partly relieved to find out that there were others out there. I also remember feeling a little ticked off. I mean, if I wasn’t the queen of procrastination, then who the hell was I? 

Since then, I’ve learned that the first step to overcome that carefully developed skill of putting off something that needs to get done is to figure out the triggers. 

Before you overcome procrastination, you must become procrastination.

Okay. That sounded a little like a cheesy martial arts movie. What I mean is that you need to see the signs. Kind of like, before you prevent yourself from falling down the rabbit hole, you first need to SEE the rabbit hole. (Or be aware of it.)

So, I put on my analyst’s thinking cap (which looks exactly like a dunce cap only it says “busy analyzing” on it) and started observing. Here’s what I came up with.

7 tell-tale signs that a little procrastination action is about to happen

1. You’re suddenly overcome by the urge to tackle something you normally don’t enjoy doing. This could be anything from cleaning out the garage to removing the hair from the bathtub drain to cooking. (That last one – cooking – applies to me specifically).

2. You’re hijacked by an abrupt interest in learning something new. (If anyone’s interested, I downloaded a tutorial on how to grout kitchen tiles.)

3. An overwhelming sense of urgency to create an elaborate, detailed, and color-coded calendar for your to-do list takes over your entire morning. For some reason you believe that seeing Deadline A in blue and Household Chore B in yellow will inspire you and your entire life will change. 

4. You’re called by an immediate need to organize the medicine cabinet. (As an aside, according to the expiry dates on some of the bottles in mine, I have a science experiment in my bathroom.)

5. You’re struck by a powerful impulse to water your plants. NOW. Because otherwise they will all die. 

Looking at this list you may have noticed a common thread …

Every time you’re about to procrastinate, a sense of urgency washes over you to tackle, learn, create, organize, or care for your plants. 

PS. This blog post was written while I was supposed to be preparing my taxes. (Last year’s taxes. That’s right. I’m late.)

PPS. Yes, I promised SEVEN signs. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. I just haven’t written numbers 6 and 7 yet because I was too busy checking out what y’all are up to on Facebook.

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