Procrastination. It’s human.
…and it’s a behavior that manufactures stress for you and those around you.
When deadlines and commitments are interdependent, trust is not only important, but also necessary.
One of the ways people destroy that precious space called trust is to procrastinate. In fact, when you are pushing the deadline or missing it entirely, you add pressure and create problems for those around you. Keeping your word is critical to trusting yourself and others.
When you don’t, this can lead to breaks in your relationships over time and certainly cause concern or second guessing before people will partner with you again in the future.
Consider the downstream effects from these behaviors (on you and others):
- Hitting the snooze one more time
- Waiting until the last minute to deliver your part of the project
- Shopping for gifts or cards the day of the event
- Doing just one more thing before you leave for a scheduled appointment
- Hosting an event without coordinated planning
- Staying up late when you know you have an early start the next day
- Losing track of time in a meeting when you have a back-to-back kind of day
- Arriving late to an appointment because of _______________
- Ignoring deadlines or deprioritizing someone else’s project because they’ll understand
- Overscheduling (or scheduling as if nothing could go wrong, no white space)
If you frequent any of these, know you can change these practices and reduce stress.
You simply need to care about the impact on your relationships more than your comfort in the moment.