Stop Procrastinating and Get Started Today

Image Credit | Abhiram Prakash | Pexels

 In 1955, Cylrnil Parkson published an essay in the magazine The Economist. The first line of that essay was "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion". This observation, which later became "Parkinson's Law', describes a phenomenon where the more time you give someone to complete a task the longer that task will take. 

You may have seen this law at work in your own life. Take for instance a Saturday afternoon where you've been tasked with cleaning out your garage. This is a task, that realistically you might be able to complete in about an hour. However, because you have nothing else scheduled for the day you may take time to make coffee, think about how you would like to arrange the garage, move things around to test a new arrangement then begin to pull them out. Then you might decide it's time to take a break for lunch, before returning to sweep the floors, wipe down the walls and return your things to their new places in the garage. What may have been completed quickly and efficiently if you had a shorter deadline naturally expanded to fill the entire day.

In fact, this happens over and over again in all of our lives.  Why though do people procrastinate and push work off and how can we stop procrastinating to get things done today?

You Fear Failure

This is a big reason why many of us won't do something immediately. We are afraid of failure. Perhaps when you were younger you wanted to ask for a date at the dance but were afraid of being rejected and that led you to wait so long to ask your crush to the dance that they agreed to go with someone else first. It's important to admit from the beginning that you may indeed fail. Every task, every mission, every project carries with it the possibility that the end result will not meet the goals it set out to achieve. Those that get things done understand this but push ahead anyway. They know that a failure to complete the task will guarantee defeat, but genuinely putting forth your best effort increases the chances of success exponentially. 

You Don't Think Now is the Right Time

Many times we are worried that now is not the right time to get started on a big project. Perhaps you want to start a new business but the economy isn't the best, or you're planning to write a book, but you have too much on your plate. It's easy to come up with excuses when you are hesitant to start work. Those excuses are simply a way of making us feel better about failing to begin or finish the task we have started. They are a way to insulate us from the consequences of our actions. 

What you must do is look at history and understand that every time something great has been done there were reasons not to do it. For example, the Apollo missions put the first men on the moon. NASA had predicted just a 5% chance that the astronauts would successfully survive the trip. That seems like a great reason to not even try, but we know that not only did Apollo 11 land two men on the surface of Luna, but 5 additional missions would carry mankind to the moon. The Apollo program gave way to the Space Shuttle, the Space Station, and now for private companies like Space X or Blue Origin who plan to take people to orbit and beyond. If NASA had looked at the 5% success probability and never gotten started we may not have many of the advances in science and technology or the inspiring missions that drove a nation and the human race forward.

You are Worried About Competition

That's a valid thing to have a concern for. You should think about and plan for how you will work with or against your competition. The thing is, that your competition is just as affected by Parkinson's law as you are. They are afflicted by the same bureaucratic processes that lead to extended lead times on projects and procrastination that cause cost overruns and budget deficits. This is an advantage for you! While your competition is busy taking too much time, putting off work for tomorrow that could be done today, you have an opportunity to blaze a trail and beat them to market, over and over again. Those cumulative wins can add up over time, to make you the market leader. 

Getting Started is Exciting

When you start a new adventure, project, or task it can be an exciting time period. Especially if it's something you're looking forward to. You may be worried about how things will look, the competition, potential failure, or any other number of reasons you can conjure up to keep yourself from getting things in motion. Once you start, however, you have momentum. As Issac Newton observed an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Once you have that momentum of getting your project started you can use it to measure the project and encourage and motivate yourself to keep going and keep pushing farther. The successes stacking up a minute after minute, day after day can be exceptionally good at pushing you to take the next step towards success. 

Live Life with No regrets

As I think back through my own life and the things I did do and the things I wish I had done, it's the things I didn't do that give me the most regret. Not building my own business sooner, not buying Apple stock 20 years ago when I thought it was going to grow, not taking time to travel in Europe before starting a family. Looking back people tend not to retreat trying new things and going for their dreams, but rather they regret the things they didn't try. Don't let an opportunity pass you by and leave you with regrets. Push forward and ahead. Do not procrastinate. 

You will never find a better time to get started than right now. There will always be excuses and reasons why you should put things off until later. There will always be ways to complicate simple work and make it complex. Avoid these natural tendencies and push ahead. Give things your best shot and get started today. Achieve things greater than you thought you could.