Time To Act!

There’s a great line I want to share with you.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” 

That’s a quote from Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series and the Dirk Gently books. 

It’s a line that resonates with most people because we’ve all experienced the pressure involved in trying to reach or deliver to a deadline. We’ve all experienced the stress of missed deadlines too.

I’ve missed plenty in my time. There’s been lots of whooshing. 

In my student days especially. 

Up All Night

Having frittered away the term I’d pull furiously active all nighters, writing at pace. The few small hours left before the submission day would be filled with me attempting to finish assignments. 

I would regularly leave myself with just one night to complete the essays I should have gradually built up over the previous days, weeks and months.  

I would spend the night scribbling pages and pages of A4. I’d then cut them up and sellotape segments together.

My thoughts would always jump around as I wrote, so it was a case of pulling it all together and rearranging ideas to make sense. The end result was like a scroll of papyrus parchment.

 This photo was taken by a flatmate just before sunrise after an all night writing session.

Once my papyrus scroll was complete I’d then carefully write out the final edition and hand it in with minutes to spare.

This Is The Modern World

Thank god for editing software. These days I can drop ideas into different places and then easily bring them together on the screen. That’s a massive improvement in my work process. What a difference thirty years makes!

These days I also work better to deadlines. There’s much less whooshing going on, but to be honest, like many procrastinators I still struggle. 

I mean, as long as there’s a deadline I’ll get it done, but I get close to edge.

There is a sort of signal that appears at just the right time, to let me know that it’s time to change gear and put my foot down. It’s like when Batman sees the Bat Signal, he knows it’s time to spring into action.

Take Your Time, Hurry Up

Tim Urban in his fantastic Ted Talk about procrastination describes this sudden realisation that time is running out as the awakening of the ‘panic monster’. 

The panic monster is the same as the Bat Signal. It’s time to act.

Just as the deadline hoves into view, the panic monster appears, sends your brain into overdrive and all of a sudden you get to grips with the situation. You go into hyper productive overdrive and get stuff done. Just in the nick of time.

Without the panic monster work often just doesn’t happen. Personally I work badly when there’s no deadline. Where’s the urgency? There isn’t one. So what’s the rush?

In order to deal with this I employ a strategy. I reach out and ask for deadlines from others. That’s my strategy. I know that I’ll do things that will benefit other people whereas I wouldn't necessarily do it for myself. 

It’s as simple as saying “When do you need this for?” and insisting that we agree a time for submission. Often a submission date for the first draft, which will really help me to make progress in stages.

Or if it’s a presentation I’m doing then I’ll ask for a date for a brief pre meeting to share slides or discuss the tech. Just something that will mean I have to prep in advance and don’t leave it all to the last minute.

So I harness that trait and ensure that I need to fulfill obligations to others that will also coincidentally make me ‘do the stuff.’ (I’m pretty sure I was a labrador in a previous life.) 

It's The Final Countdown

These are arbitrary deadlines really. I’m creating leverage. The deadlines are artificial. But it works for me.

When there is no external leverage that’s harder. Because, when there are no natural deadlines, action might never take place.

And here’s a thing. There are areas in life that are important but which have no deadlines. There’s no Bat Signal going to appear in the night sky. The panic monster won’t arrive and insist you get started.

I’m thinking right now of areas where you can experience slow decline but the pace is glacial so you don’t notice it.

Too many times people wake up one day and realise:

• They hate their job but feel too old to retrain
• They can’t climb the stairs without wheezing
• They’re stuck in a destructive relationship
• They’re five years from retirement age and they have no pension plan
• They’ve put on an extra kilo every year for the last twenty years

All these situations are slow burners. They sneak up. None of them had a deadline where it would become clear we needed to take action. The panic monster was never going to turn up and shock us into doing something.

So what to do?

Everybody Hurts

Tim Urban posits the idea that, in one form or another, we’re all procrastinators. We’re all delaying on something that is important to us and that has no deadline urgency to help us move to act.

He recommends looking at events from what he calls a life calendar point of view.  His life calendar has one box for every week of a ninety year life and he shares some great perspectives to view the calendar from. 

Take a look at the calendar for yourself and work out where you think you are on it. Then look at what’s left. 

Think about your goals. What would you would like to do in the remaining time?

Are you doing anything about those goals? Because the thing is, with these sorts of deeper non-deadline driven aims, the panic monster isn’t going to show. 

We don’t get the Bat Signal. And so we unknowingly, unwittingly procrastinate.

Are you guilty of long term procrastination? The kind that Urban says is “much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier short term deadline based kind.”

Take A Look At Me Now

Today’s top tip is to look at your own life calendar. Take some time this weekend to simply reflect on the bigger picture and to ask yourself what are you procrastinating on? 

After that, what’s the quickest, most simple action you can take to get started?

It can be the tiniest step. However small an action it is, congratulate yourself because you’ve made a start, begun to progress and ended your procrastination.

Without the panic monster or the Bat Signal!

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago; the second best time is now” - old Chinese proverb