What Your Room Can Teach You About Procrastination
Well intentioned to complete your duties, but taking action seems so exhausting that you stay frozen on your current situation?
Living a stressful devastating life because of tasks delaying?
Having life goals or projects to accomplish, but following through seems unthinkable?
You are not alone!
It could be writing a book, starting your own business, completing your homework, or any other aspiration.
However, because of a lack of motivation, unusual territory, or the blank page syndrome, you continuously fail taking action.
Procrastination And The Horrifying Dark
I was a Five-Star award winning chronicle procrastinator for years!
As well as nominated in the best excuse finder and important task delayer category.
Furthermore, I was the best at finding an even better rationalization for another setback.
As I was delaying tasks, additional duties would add up, leaving me with a consequential amount of things to complete.
Accomplishing the tasks individually was considered as a complete torture, Imagine when came time to complete them all!
I admit, I was a total loser, lying to myself to dispose of my responsibilities.
I was procrastinating by listening to YouTube videos, going around social media, and having worthless conversations and daydreams.
I was a first-rate symbol at finding self-fraud tricks as a temporary responsibilities covering up mask.
However, when sleeping time arrived, that “mask” was really hard to find in the horrifying dark.
Using my smartphone light to procrastinate even more was the only way to find it.
As a result, insomnia followed.
Procrastination was a vicious circle preventing me from fully enjoying life.
The Parallel Between Your Brain And Your Room
Picture your room all cleaned up where everything is orderly placed. Now imagine how good being in that room would feel.
As you go through your journey, you can’t wait to complete your day to get back in your hygienic little wonderland.
The next morning, you wake up in a hurry; you quickly get dressed, leaving your bed undone and your Mickey Mouse pyjama on it.
As your day ends, you get back in your room.
You put your wallet, your keys and all your stuff on your desk instead of their presumed place. You throw your socks behind the door and your work bag on the chair.
By the way, with many years of experience behind me, I was the best at it! I could aim and get my socks behind that tiny door spot like a real champion!
As hunger takes over, you pick up a tasty little plate, some sweet fruits in a bowl, a creamy yogurt, and a little glass of juice to complete the puzzle.
Next, you leave everything in your room and fall asleep. The following morning, you wake up in a hurry and dealing with the mess you created is the last thing on your mind!
Who cares? You’re going out of there, for the rest of the day anyways, right?
True!
Without any surprise, the night made surface! You get back to your room and reality hits you in the face.
As the week goes by, you slowly create a big mess and the cleaning task seems furthermore exhausting. Your everyday little debris developed into a humongous room chaos!
This is exactly how responsibilities accumulate in your brain and making you feel stuck up!
Parallel aside, who wants to work in a nuclear war remainder lookalike room anyway?
Considering the analogy between your brain and your room, you now understand how the build-up of delayed responsibilities holds your life by throwing you straight in a vicious circle.
How To Overcome Procrastination FOREVER
If you want to organize your life properly, start in your room. As a parallel, in your mind!
Put everything to their respective place as they come, instead of letting the mess compiling in your room!
As analogy, fix your responsibilities as they materialize, instead of delaying them and letting them becoming exhausting.
For my part, I started reading books, articles and watching tons of videos to get as much information as possible on the subject.
Then, I finally looked in the mirror and asked myself a crucial question; why am I procrastinating so much?
The question was constantly in my mind as I was trying to find the source.
After weeks passed by, and as new responsibilities started popping up, I got a few answers.
The first thing holding me back was Perfectionism. I wanted every little detail to be perfect right away!
If I wasn’t certain about how to get through the responsibility, I’d put a delay on it until I had no choice of resolving it.
As a solution, I read the book “When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism” by Martin Anthony.
The book taught me to celebrate my mistakes instead fearing them. After all, learning from our mistakes is a crucial step into perfecting ourselves.
Another issue was holding me back.
I looked at the big picture instead of one pixel at a time. Whenever a project made surface, I’d look at all the work it requires and set myself unrealistic goals.
Then, I delay the burden until the due date overnight.
Let’s take a college project as an example.
Instead picturing all the work it demands, and setting myself up to finishing the whole paperwork successfully, I look at all the steps it requires, set small goals for each step, and prepare all the documents in a visible and ready to work place. Thus, making the paperwork appear 10 times easier.
“Close your eyes and dream, then open your eyes and see’’
I was great at closing my eyes and dream, but opening my eyes was a difficult task.
Occasionally, it is constructive to close your eyes and dream about the way you portray yourself in the future, but sometimes you have to be myopic and only see what’s in front of you.
What Now?
How about you, what is the source of your procrastination?
What is your biggest goal this year?
Describe it and explain what aspect of procrastination you need to eliminate to fulfill your ambitions.
And most importantly, take action!
As the great Gandhi said; your future depends on what you do… TODAY!
Karen Lamb followed; a year from now, you’ll wish you had started… TODAY!
