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It’s funny how sometimes the right thing comes along at the right time. I was looking at a video on cloud-watching, which sounds like an ideal way to procrastinate instead of doing something useful, but as I was making some notes the next video in line started to play. It was a TED talk about procrastination.

Tim Urban provides a humorous overview of how procrastination works. He tells a familiar story of having a major thesis due, and how logically the work involved would be staggered in a reasonable and achievable manner up until the due date. This was fine in theory until distractions and instantly gratifying behaviour got in the way.

Urban reveals how procrastination has the potential to impact all of our lives. There is an ongoing internal battle for many people between the rational decision-maker, the instant gratification monkey with lots of easy and fun ideas, and the panic monster. The panic monster comes into play when there is a deadline and the likelihood of a consequence for not completing an agreed task, such as public humiliation.

And here is the thing. Deadlines contain procrastination. They don’t necessarily block it, but they limit the extent of procrastination, which in some forms of creativity or tasks, can be endless if there is no timeframe around it.

I know that deadlines motivate me. So, after having a laugh at the talk, I gave it a bit of thought. Somehow I always deliver on deadlines that matter, so I thought that I would set some writing deadlines of my own. I had a think about the projects that I’ve been working on, bits and pieces that just seem to mosey along when I don’t have a specific timeframe to work on. And I set myself some deadlines.

Not the vague, just in my head kind of deadline. Deadlines written on the whiteboard in my study, ready to remind me when I’m having a dawdling kind of day when my mind would prefer to veer between clearing out emails or sorting something – anything – into some sort of order. Isn’t it time that cupboard in the kitchen that drives me nuts is sorted? No. Instead I look at the wall, look at what I had planned to work through for the week or month, and get on with it.

Do you suffer from procrastinationitis? And if so, how do you trick yourself to get things done?

[Photo: yarn bomb message spotted at Lane Cove]