Don’t Delay
brown wooden blocks on white surface
Have you ever said that you were going to set something down ‘for now’ and then put it in its proper place later? If you’ve done this, I’d bet that there were times (probably more often than not) that you never went back to put it in its proper place and then later had to go looking for it because it wasn’t where it should have been.
It may seem easier in the moment to put something off, or to delay making a decision about something, but one consequence is that the task will most likely take much longer when you finally get back to it. If you don’t put something away, you’ll have to look for it later. If you don’t make a decision, you’ll have to re-familiarize yourself with the options. If you don’t file something, you’ll have to review it again to determine where it should be filed.
Person holding white sticky note
You might be rationalizing that by not doing something now you’re ‘giving yourself a break’ because you’re stressed, tired, or have a lot to do. Notice that you end up more stressed with the weight of a bunch of undone tasks nagging at the back of your mind?
When you put things off that could be done right away because you don’t ‘feel like’ doing them now, you’re acting as if your future self will magically be a different person who is more capable or who will ‘feel like’ doing things that your current self doesn’t want to do. That’s not likely to be true.
If any of this resonates with you, don’t worry, you can break the bad habit. I encourage you to practice doing things right away, especially if they will take less than 2 minutes. If you catch yourself trying to put something off that could be done quickly, say out loud “I’ll do this now to help future me”. As a bonus, in addition to making things better for your future self, your current self will feel good about the accomplishment.
