Breaking the ‘Later’ Habit: Transform Procrastination into Progress
I love later.
It’s that mythical, magical time in the future where suddenly all the time, inspiration, knowledge will magically appear and help me to get things done.
Phone call?
Later.
Book or change an appointment?
Later.
Work on that project I’ve been wanting to do but…
Later.
It’s not procrastination. It’s just that there’s so much else going on that one other piece couldn’t possible fit in this chronological puzzle.
Except…
I found that you can fit things in now— if it’s a high enough priority.
When “Later” Takes Two Paths
There’s this tipping point with later. In my experience, it can go two different ways:
1. The Push: That thing I said I want to do/learn about/try gets pushed off and pushed off until, suddenly, I look back and years have passed and it still hasn’t happened. This is me and trying to learn new languages or brushing up on ones that I haven’t used in a while (and have forgotten most of). Un jour, mon français, un jour…
2. The Cataclysmic Rush. The deadline could be real, or fabricated. “Real” would be anything with a due date (I’m looking at you reports, monthly bills, events, anything with an actual due date). Fabricated could be what feels like something else lighting a fire under your behind. For example, you realize that it’s been months since you decided you were going to re-organize the kitchen drawers and you just can’t stand it anymore and company is coming over and all of a sudden it has to get done now.
Waiting for the Universe to Align
The Big Bang Theory suggests that out of nothing there was suddenly, in one moment of magic, an entire universe. Pretty cool to think about.
“Later” and “someday” can be a lot like waiting for the Big Bang to happen again, waiting for that perfect moment where the stars align, the planetary rotation is on point, and you feel like doing the thing you said you wanted to do.
When there’s a deadline involved, this can translate to a very urgent, panicky operative energy. Been there, done that, not very fun.
The Commitment Cure
The flip side of “later” is commitment. Committing to letting it go because it’s not a priority, committing it to a calendar with a date that you know you can make time for (I’m looking at you, pantry) or, in the case of larger projects, committing to taking the project step by step, piece by piece, consistently plugging away at it until its complete.
Evolution is a lot like this. It’s a slow, bit by bit, commitment to change to best suit the environment. As humans, we’re constantly evolving. It’s most obvious as children, but even into adulthood, as more knowledge and wisdom is gained, we have the potential to evolve to new become new people. Biologically, Homo sapiens kept the reptile brain and evolved the prefrontal cortex, so too do we get to psychologically keep who we once were and evolve into something new.
The key to transformation is to shift later into action. Either let it go, or make the commitment and start taking the tenable steps necessary to make the Thing a reality— and surrender to how the process unfolds (it will likely not go as envisioned, but in the way that it is meant to. That is a story for… later).