Perfectionism And Overcoming Procrastination

Have you ever postponed something super important because you wanted to have fun on a Friday night? Convincing yourself “Oh, I’ll just get it done tomorrow?” This action of putting off a task until the next day or a later time is called procrastination. Someone displaying procrastination would either be delaying their work for another job that they consider more important or be distracting themselves with an activity that is more interesting. Many people think that most disorganized or lazy people acquire or pick up this intrusive habit, but I disagree with this misconception. Productive people, too, occasionally lack the desire to get things done on time. Take for example myself; I have always struggled with this mannerism and even more

Harold Taylor does a fantastic job at identifying reasons why many of us in today’s society temporize. He explain that “perfectionism and indecisive decision making are results of someone struggling with procrastination” ( ). As procrastination becomes a more common act, it can also bring about the action of perfectionism. Perfectionism is said to be the “refusal to accept any standard short of perfection” ( ). This conduct is paired with procrastination negatively as it causes one to postpone tasks because they feel pressured to meet their high standards ( ). For instance, a bride may push aside planning her wedding because she is so overwhelmed with wanting it to be perfect. She gets too caught up in overanalyzing the tiny details, such as focusing on napkin patterns or music choices which initially just wastes time. The bride may think she’s creating the perfect wedding, but in reality, she’s procrastinating; spending way too much time on maybe one aspect of the big picture. Later, when it is almost too late, she realizes that time has not only slipped away, but the rest of her wedding needs to be planned out. There is no need to spend inappropriate amounts of time on a task that does not require that degree of accuracy or completeness. Many people use this excuse of “perfectionism” to disguise what is honestly going on, and when doing so, they allow themselves to continue to participate in