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Try It! Interactive Exercise - I’ll Do It Later
Did you know that “later” never comes? It’s that elusive figment of our imagination that we think will eventually result in a conclusion. But it never does. All we do know we have is “now”. However, we don’t always take advantage of the “now”. If you’re one of those who finds that phone calls take a half an hour longer than you thought they would, or that your short run in the park turned into a marathon when you found some friends who challenged you to keep up with them, then you need to pay attention to the procrastination bug. It can be silent, intrusive, and insidious.
Most people find that they can do simple chores and tasks quite easily. But the more complicated projects cause confusion and delay. Here are some suggestions for dealing with procrastination:
- Break large tasks into small ones
- Prioritize the order of tasks; list them in the order they need to be done; list them by difficulty
- Start with the easiest or most necessary task, then proceed to the most difficult ones
- Give yourself a reward for accomplishing a task. These can be simple things like watching one television program or phoning a friend and talking for ten minutes (as long as these rewards themselves don’t become a means to procrastination)
- Work with others; the group will find a way to accomplish difficult or unpleasant tasks more easily than one person can
- Place yourself in a physical location where you won’t be interrupted—go to the library, turn off your phone, turn off the television
A. Saving a Habitat: A Constituency of Frogs
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What has been a comfortable and beautiful home for the bullfrogs of Blackberry Pond is about to be destroyed, and the frogs are angry and upset. There is no suitable pond nearby that they can easily migrate to if the planned housing development is allowed to proceed, and their neighbors, the mayflies, the dragonflies, the snakes, the ducks, and the herons, will all either be destroyed or be forced to find other places to live. Unwilling to give up without a fight, the frogs unite under their leader, cyberfrog. They decide to petition the town’s zoning board to prevent development of their habitat. But where to begin? How can mere frogs make an impact? How can they be convincing? The project seems overwhelming and no one knows how to get started. One of cyberfrog’s constituents suggests that perhaps they should take things one step at a time. Cyberfrog agrees and decides the first they need to determine the tasks necessary to be able to proceed with the project.
Step One: Break large tasks into small ones
Step Two: Prioritize the order of the tasks |
Click here to assist cyberfrog |
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