I don’t claim to be an expert on procrastination, however you could say that I am somewhat experienced in it. I have always been the kind of person that leaves things till the last minute, however “the last minute” is only relevant when there is a deadline involved. If you are working on long term projects or projects for your self, there is no deadline and as such procrastination can take on a whole new meaning. So (assuming that I am not alone here) why do we procrastinate?
Perfectionism — ironically I just deleted my first attempt at this paragraph as it was not perfect. When you set out on a task you have an initial picture in your mind of what success would look like. This is could be something simple like write a short article expressing your thoughts on procrastination, however you can find yourself unnecessarily changing and adding to this picture of success. The article should have perfect grammar and a touch of wit, the argument should be able to withstand academic scrutiny, if the article does not get read by thousands of people then it is a failure.
This is usually something that goes on unnoticed, and before long you have changed the picture of success to something unachievable. You sit and think about this new task you have created for yourself and realise that you will never be able to achieve the goal. The thing is, this was never the goal, the goal was to…
