I distinctly remember setting my eyes on this word for the very first time in my life. It was a part of a title of an article in Reader’s Digest way back in the year 1991.
Firstly, the word aroused my curiosity to such an extent as to make me read the whole article. Secondly the whole article was an entire description of me and my characteristics , only the name seems to be missing. And believe me when I say that I was stumped. For the first time , I became aware that I had a serious flaw and I need to pull up my socks.
The Oxford Dictionary defines Procrastination as delay to do something , which is abundantly prevalent in a special breed of people like me who like to take things easy .
I often find myself postponing work mainly because I find the task too boring or too tough to handle. I love to enjoy the work I do and because of this I tend to push sometimes really urgent ones right uptil the last minute.
As a student I did it unknowingly, learning the subjects which were easy and enjoyable first and postponing the tougher ones to later. As a result the really important ones would be left behind half learnt, and this affected my scoring to a large extent.
In my adult life, it happened everytime a trip was planned. The planning was done well in advance the booking and stuff except the packing kept getting postponed, as a result I found myself even ironing clothes at the last minute. This led to a lot of stress , leading to a lot of tempers being lost , things going awry at the last minute, and finally instead of cheerful happy faces , a grumpy family sets out on a long awaited vacation. This just didnt feel right at a certain point of time and I began to mend my ways.
Sometimes the task is so tiresome like cleaning the whole house before a festival arrives that it requires mammoth efforts in addition to the routine household work and which also requires additional help in the form of domestic help which might not be readily available and as a result the date keeps advancing and the burden of the work getting done seems to be looming larger and larger on my head.
Sometimes I have been in serious trouble because of my habit of procrastinating, like payment of bills and had to shell out extra amount in the form of fine especially electricity bills which left me feeling guilty and promising never to repeat the offense again.
But sometimes procrastinating just happens due to laziness , and the time just flies by and I often find myself in a soup, trying to use my creativity to account for myself.
As the years passed by, I have by and large reformed myself to a large extent and mainly because I had to set an example for my daughters and I couldnt indulge myself in the luxury of Procrastinating anymore.
The word Procrastination popped up once again recently at a conference during a discussion on life skills , and I was really surprised to see Procrastination in the list. This really made me reflect on myself and realise how important it is to inculcate the awareness about Procrastination. The article which I had read once upon a time made me realise the seriousness of my flaw and that is what led to my self reformation over a period of time.
Procrastination needs to be addressed among young adults and is the need of the hour for a better living. That can be done by inculcating self discipline, and sticking to dead lines and creating a sense of responsbility and accountability.
Otherwise Life seems to be over by the time one realises that the time is up!!!!
Random Ramblings 