What should you be doing today that you haven’t yet started? Perhaps even reading this article is a way of avoiding a job which is calling to you! It seems that we waste up to 69 minutes a day avoiding tasks that need to be done. We pay a high price for our procrastination: up to three years of our lives. Women are better at procrastinating than men are, and young people are better at procrastinating than older people.
The research, by Microsoft, found (unsurprisingly) that we tend to delay unpleasant tasks more than pleasant ones. Half of us wait only a couple of days to ask someone we fancy out for a date; we can take up to two months to dump an unwanted lover.
As one psychologist explained: “People often avoid ‘doing’ things which may lead to important results. Yet ticking things off your ‘to do’ list helps you to better focus on your goals. It may be that Britons like to spend time mulling things over before actually doing them – perhaps too much so.” This Lent what unpleasant task do you need to tackle in order to move on with your life?
Give up procrastination for Lent