Chapter One

Another sufferer said, “I have a large stack of newspapers sitting in a corner of my kitchen. Every morning I do the same thing: I go in there to make coffee and then, I see it. I tell myself, ‘This weekend, I’m going to tackle that.’ But then, when the weekend comes, I say to myself, ‘I’ll be dammed if I’m going to deal with that mess on my day off. I’ve got better things to do. I can’t be bothered with that right now.’ Of course, Monday morning rolls around again and then I walk into the kitchen to make coffee. The moment I see that pile still sitting there, well—I could cry. Then, I think to myself, ‘Not again! Why didn’t I take care of that mess over the weekend? What on earth’s wrong with me?'”

Another common home-based scenario happens when a procrastinator worries there isn’t enough time to finish everything he wants to accomplish. This in turn can lead to frustration, which can result in the avoidance of all productive activity and essentially, in shutting down. This all-or-nothing reaction is a coping mechanism that can quickly become habitual in nature, occurring whenever the procrastinator finds himself with spare time that otherwise could be put to use. One reason behind this automatic reaction is that many procrastinators have a poor sense of time, most especially, with personal or free time. What the procrastinator is really dealing with is the feeling of panic that results from having some time, because he has never learned how to effectively manage his free time. Not knowing how to cope in a situation that he’s been in many times before, he does the only thing he know, he panics, and then attempts to flee from these terrible feelings—substituting action for anything else, which is the act of procrastination.

Habitual procrastinators earn the title of habitual by practicing their craft steadily over a lengthy period of time, and as a result of this practice, they often have many undone tasks that require attending to. When the procrastinator has a bit of free time, he thinks of all that he’s put off and quickly becomes overwhelmed. “How could anyone jam years’ and years’ worth of tasks into a spare twenty minutes of free time?” he wonders. If you are a procrastinator, you may be asking, “So then, how do you get several years’ worth of tasks done in such a small amount of time?” Stay tuned. In the second half of this book, you’ll learn how to develop positive ways to cope with, and accomplish, your tasks.