Pro Crastinator
June 10, 2010
I’m up against a few deadlines this week and have realized my one true strength is ignoring those deadlines until it’s absolutely necessary to give them my attention. This is client work. It’s work that will pay for my retirement or at least supplement my snack habit. And it’s work I’m avoiding.
Why?
Because I’m not an amateur crastinator, I’m a PROFESSIONAL Crastinator.
If I could get folks to pay me for putting off recycling, making the bed, doing my oil changes, filling out my taxes and mowing the lawn, I’d be so rich I would be able to pay people to do all those things. Come to think of it, I do pay some people to do some of those things. But that’s the nature of being a professional – I’m going about this in a business manner. I am a pro.
“Couldn’t you just do that work now instead of blogging or podcasting?” asks the chorus of stable voices in my head.
Not really. How else am I going to keep the masses happy with my creativity? How else will I keep the Google juice flowing to the blogs and stave off the attacks of one local Jeffrey Cutler who writes only about sneakers and white kicks, but seems to find a place in my Google Alerts almost daily? And how else am I going to maintain my sanity?
Working too hard is the antithesis of balance. This balance – preached by friend CC Chapman – is something he sees as necessary. Work hard when you must, but make time for yourself too. In a recent podcast he talked about how ‘making time’ to do things isn’t all that difficult. You just have to do it.
He’s right you know. If you want the recycling arranged properly, take a minute to do that. Will eat up about four minutes, but how much happier will you be when it’s done?
I LOVE LOVE LOVE making lists and crossing stuff off. CC does the same thing, but I suspect he’s a little more realistic with his lists. I make a list like this…
So there might be something on there that doesn’t require a whole lot of work…but it’s an accomplishment and allows me to maintain my PRO status as a Crastinator.
Even writing this post now and recording this as a podcast are making me more energized. In fact, I will share with you a secret that’s not really a secret if you’re a good manager or business person.
If you want something done, give it to the person who is too busy to do it. Seriously. They are so busy that they will plow through their work more efficiently than the interns you’re constantly searching for. And they’ll probably do the job better because their skill at dual-tasking* is honed to a razor-sharp edge.
*Dual-tasking is my interpretation of the word multi-tasking. None is really true if you talk to physiologists and others who study the human brain. We can work on ONE thing at a time. We might keep dashing away mentally to other tasks for milliseconds, but we cannot actually do two things at once.
With that said, I’ll be going now. I have a lot more items on my plate to ignore and my little brain won’t be able to be effective at doing so if I’m spending all my time being productive here.
Until next time, I’m Jeff Cutler for Bowl of Cheese.com.
How do you Crastinate? Comments welcome.
