Things That Bump Us Off Our Path

Let’s say you planned to be at your computer, working on a project, at 10 a.m. on
a Monday morning, but you’re not. Why not? The answer could be one or more of the
following:
*Got up late.
*Quarreled with your lover last night, and keep reliving the quarrel in your mind.
*Are too tired – the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
*Are too hyper – drank too much coffee and can’t sit still.
*Are distracted by the weather – it’s beautiful out and you’d love to take a walk
or bike ride.
*Are distracted by the weather – it’s awful and depressing.
*Got a call (or email or instant message) from a friend, who is depressed (though
not in crisis) and needed to talk.
*Got a call from a friend (or email or instant message) who is happy and wanted
to share good news.
*Are reading the newspaper -every last word of it.
*Are Web surfing or Web shopping.
*Are playing Solitaire.
*Just realized that it is highly important to work on some other project.
Or, if you work in a home office:
*Turned on the TV for “a minute” and saw that one of your favorite actors was
being interviewed, so you decide to watch the interview.
*Just realized that the laundry desperately needs to get done!
These are typical of the kinds of things that can bump you off your path. It’s only
a partial list, of course ­ you can probably add many other entries to it. There are probably hundreds of potential “bumps” that can knock you off your path.
One important thing to notice is that, while some of these bumps seem “good” or
“worthwhile” (like commiserating with your unhappy friend or doing the laundry), and
some seem “bad” or “frivolous” (like playing Solitaire), they are all equally unacceptable
from the standpoint of beating your procrastination habit. You will need to learn to resist
the urge to get sucked into activities not on your schedule, no matter how important or
virtuous they seem at the moment. The one exception, of course, is emergencies, by
which I mean activities that can’t be postponed without significant hurt to yourself or
others. But even with an emergency, after you’ve dealt with it, ask yourself whether it
could have been prevented by better planning, or whether someone else could have
handled it. If you’ve got an ambitious goal, it is very important to learn to minimize the
number of preventable emergencies in your life, and to learn to delegate as much as
possible.
If it sounds like I’m taking a hard line, I am. I need to, because procrastinators are
often adept at rationalizing their diversions. Obviously, if someone is sick or otherwise
incapacitated, we should help them, but to what extent? It’s not always clear, and many
procrastinators misjudge, sacrificing too much of their own time to help others, even
when those others aren’t particularly needy or when someone else is available to help.
This problem can be hard to identify, much less solve, because the (deservedly) virtuous
feeling one gets from helping often offsets the guilt that the procrastination normally
engenders.