Friday, December 10, 2010

Procrastination Vs the art of Dynamism

I live in a Country where most of the people tend to be late to anywhere. People always find excuses to be late:

There was a traffic jam.

I had problems with my family.

The breakfast was no ready.

I could not mind my clothes.

I run into a friend

etc

etc


Others may call you 5 or 10 minutes before to tell you a excuse of the reasons why they are being late :


I am around the corner (when they have just left the house )

In two minutes I will be there . ( there is a huge traffic jam )


I wonder why people do that, is not simpler to tell the truth and apologize?

or better never do this again.

I have never had any problems with people behaving like that. After all, they are the ones who are and will always be late to :

Work

School

Church

Meetings

Appointments

Dates

Parties

You name the event.

I am an English teacher and I always have to deal with people (Students) and schedules etc. Most of my students are always late and with no excuses or with weird excuses. They always get late to my classes and they seem not to worry about this issue. Is it a cultural situation? It seems nobody cares or they just do not pay attention.

Recently , I noticed that there is a special and interesting student in my class who always shows up half hour before the class starts, I have never said anything to her. One day I asked her about the reasons she is always before the other students and always punctual and why she always hands in her assignments way before the due date. She said something really interesting to me:

“I do not like to waste other people’s time. I usually put myself in other shoes. I do not want others to do the same thing to me and besides I thing that is a lack of respect to the other person.”

But on the other hand, it is not only my students but people around. People arrive late or put off things for the last minute: Paying the bills, paying the debts, submitting assignments etc.

I am a dynamic person, I try to be punctual and never leave things for the last minute. I consider myself a kind of endanger species. There are some things that I do in order to avoid procrastination. When I follow these tips I feel that I am a better person and I am happy:

Let’s say I have an appointment at 8 am in the morning.

So the day before I plan.

I say to myself : If I have to be there by 8am and I always have to be half hour before just in case something happens ( traffic jam, accidents etc ) then I think about how long the bus takes from my house to the place , let’s say one hour. Therefore, I have to leave home around 6:30 am at the latest.

But in order to leave home at 6:30 I have to think in all the things I have to do before leaving home such as : having breakfast, taking a shower , putting on my clothes etc. I know that I take one hour to do this. SO I set the alarm clock at………………5:30am .

If I wake up later than day. I am screwed, my day is screwed and everything goes wrong that day.

I am already late for my appointment.

I do this every time at every moment and It has worked for me. Being early to my appointments, school time, work time etc relaxes me and makes me feel prepared for the day and of course makes my day HAPPIER.

So folks, stop procrastinating and start “pro-activating” your life.

Planning is the key to success.

1 comment:

  1. Procastination is a really bad habit, and although you may think it is a cultural issue, I consider it a personal characteristic.
    When you get used to telling lies and excusing yourself for everything (without feeling embarrased), you get to think that it is a normal condition and through time this characteristic makes part of your personality.
    Jenny

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