by Chuck Harding

Created on: February 12, 2009

Procrastination. Now there's a ten-dollar word. It's one I've been meaning to look up for sometime, been thinking about it for a while though. I just seem to tuck it away in the back of my mind in the closet called "I'll decide later". You know what I mean?

I'm just poking fun folks.

It, procrastination, is a serious subject for some people, and rightfully so. It can be a big cog in the wheel of getting things accomplished on time. However what I was always confused about was the difference between procrastinating, thinking things through, verses making a quick choice. On one hand I would be guilty of not being able to make a decision quick enough and on the other hand if I acted too quickly I'd be labeled as impulsive. A real "catch 22", wouldn't you say?

So how do you separate the two, procrastination vs. impulsive. There must be some middle ground here somewhere. There is and I finally found it. You see if someone shouts, "the house is on fire" I don't need much time at all to make the decision to get out . . . in a hurry! That's called urgency and that is how most decision-making decisions are made . . . on the sense of urgency. So I decided to set up an "urgent" scale, a tool to help rationalize how quickly I make my decisions.

If I'm told the task needs done right away, I file it under one of four headings, which are as follows:

"Urgent" - "Most urgent" - "Really Urgent" - and - "Do it now or you're dead."

It's a quite simple filing system. Once entered into the "urgent" category, I'm free and clear from any criticism of being viewed as impulsive. It was urgent! "Right?" Plus, I can't be blamed for procrastinating because it got done pronto. Win-win.

But, naturally, all things aren't urgent. They may only be "important". Here in lies another area of confusion. Important to whom and how important? Thus we have reached another crossroad of decision. If it's important to me I'm more likely to do it than if it's important to the person making the request, (unless it's my wife!). Importance can be subjective. I m told people react, or act, to two main driving forces. (1) The fear of loss, and (2) The greed of gain. . . two very good reasons to decide to do something. Do it because I don't want to lose my job . . . fear. I can decide to make an investment because I'll get back tons of money . . . greed. Some things you do without much lengthily thought or procrastination, you have established good reason. So in the query down process I created a second scale

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