Stop Kicking the Bean Bag and Get Busy!
Stop Kicking the Bean Bag and Get Busy!
by Mark T. Edmead
I can be the ultimate procrastinator. Over the years I’ve diluted myself into thinking I perform my best work under pressure at the last minute. Maybe this came from my undergraduate years. Heck, perhaps even earlier during high school. You know the drill. You have a school paper to write. But instead of starting early and working on it a little bit every day, you instead go outside to play with your friends, watch TV, or do ANYTHING else except writing the paper. Then at the 11th hour, you buckle up and write the paper. And to make matters even worse, you get a great grade! So as far as you are concerned, waiting until the last-minute works best for you.
Your high school teachers were probably very forgiving. Not that they didn’t care but they have so many papers to grade that as long as you can compose a reasonably coherent sentence or you can conjugate verbs you are golden. Maybe you continued your education to obtain an advanced degree. Masters or even a doctorate degree. But not your professors were as forgiving (mine were tough). And the research papers were more complex. They want scholarly peer-reviewed references. In APA format no less. Oh boy. But because you might be working while going back to school you don’t have a lot of time to devote to writing papers. Some might resort to “buying” school papers from any one of the websites that sell completed papers for your class (I never did that. But as a professor now for an online university, many of my students have done that). Fast forward to your first real job after school. Instead of a school paper, you have a work project you need to complete. And you do the same thing. Do everything else except what you need to do. However, your employer is not as forgiving as your high school or even college professors.
What does all of this have to do with a bean bag? Let me tell you.
Many years ago, I’m married with kids. I’m home and my spouse and I made a list of chores to do around the house. I don’t recall exactly what was on my list but it probably included things like clean up the garage. Mow the lawn. Trim the trees. Clean up the living room. Stuff like that. Not exactly my favorite things to do. So, I’m walking around the house like a lost hiker. Aimlessly walking around and not doing what I’m supposed to do.
We had this old bean bag chair in the living room. As I’m walking around, I approached the bean bag chair and kicked it. Not hard but just kicked it to move it to the other side of the living room. It would have been more efficient (and effective) to just pick up the bean bag chair and move it to where it was supposed to go. 1-minute tops. Oh no, I instead gave the bean bag chair a series of small kicks to move it to its new location. It probably took 3-5 minutes instead (big living room and I had to navigate around all the furniture). Once I was done I noticed my spouse standing in the doorway. She said, “stop kicking the bean bag and get busy!” “What do you mean?” I asked. She replied, “It seems to me you don’t want to do the work but instead of just getting it done you waste time by kicking the bean bag.” Busted. I was resentful that she called me on it but it was so true. And I still have those tendencies today.
I don’t have a bean bag any longer but there are many things that I kick around first rather than doing the work. Even sitting down to write this was a bit of a challenge. My immediate “go-to” is to do everything else except writing. Do my laundry first. Clean my desk. Return some emails. Check out the news. See what others are doing on Facebook. Everything and anything but sit down and write. Funny thing is that I don’t mind writing. I don’t think I’m a great writer but I do get the satisfaction seeing my articles printed on a website. In reality I like the result from writing but not necessarily the process (just like I want a clean house but not necessarily the process of cleaning it myself).
My question to you is, what is holding you back? What is it that you need to accomplished but instead of tackling the job at hand you are doing everything else. What is your “bean bag?” Interested in increasing your productivity? In upcoming posts, I will provide some insights on what to do to get back on track. How to stop kicking the bean back and get back to work.
It is not my intention to make light of the fact that some people procrastinate. According to relevant academic research, procrastination has been linked to the complex arrangement of cognitive, affective and behavioral relationships from task desirability to low self-esteem and anxiety to depression. Disclaimer: Procrastination can be a cause of serious stress and illness. So, if you suffer from chronic or debilitating procrastination, one of these conditions could be to blame, and you should seek the advice of a trained professional.
Reference:
Solomon, L.J; Rothblum, E.D.(1984). "Academic Procrastination: Frequency and Cognitive-Behavioral Correlates" Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 4, 503-509