There are at least a few things that we all should accomplish, but we do not start doing them. Procrastination is a really serious problem nowadays. To illustrate this, we can take as an example the work of Professor Piers Steel from the University of Calgary. The esteemed Professor was doing some studies about procrastination and was supposed to finish them for five years, but because he himself procrastinated, it took him twice as much to finish the work he started. And even though there are dozens of time-management tips and tricks that proclaim to make you start doing the things you have been delaying to accomplish, a lot of them aren’t helpful.
American Psychological Association Fellow, Joseph Ferrari, who is a professor of psychology at DePaul University, after a lot of research that has done regarding this topic, says about procrastination that “It really has nothing to do with time-management. As I tell people, to tell the chronic procrastinator to just do it would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, cheer up.” So time management is not the solution, and what should actually work is having the self-awareness that you should get the right things done.
If you do not finish your most important tasks that are related to your priorities, they will pile up and later on you will be stressed and less likely to complete them well. So while we all agree that priorities are things that should get done no matter how we feel about doing the actual work, we could save ourselves from loads of stress and guilt by doing them immediately after we have the chance to do so and leaving the relaxation time after that, because we will then have a great feeling of satisfaction and we will also have the opportunity to enjoy the guilt free relaxation.
Instead of over-thinking about starting the work, we should adapt the philosophy of starting fast our most important tasks and have a slow end in the finish.
