Recovered procrastinators, your rock bottom?

[8 Bit WWBG]

Do we have any recovered procrastinators here that want to share their "rock bottom"? Anyone still can't kick the habit and having closer and closer calls?

I could be better, but I could also be far worse. I've never missed a work deadline, but I've had a few come close.

An acquaintance shared a particularly harrowing story today. I'm very much hoping it all works out, but the situation would never have come to pass had this person just done the work on time. What could have been simple, inexpensive, and guaranteed is now tedious, ripe with fees, and may not even work out!

Did anyone out there have a "never again" moment that has kept you in shape since?

[Deleted]

I don't have your "never again" moment, but I am a "recovered" procrastinator. I have no horror stories to tell. I just simply know myself.

As soon as something is given to me, I do it. But that's just the administrative stuff. I can look at student papers for at least a week, thinking that I don't want to there. These are always essays and the tough stuff.

If I don't do the administrative stuff immediately, I won't ever do it. Well, I will if they remind me three times and eventually take names. I have never been at that point.

[Opti]

I'm not recovered but I'm much better about work things than things outside of work.

[TheOtherMe]

I'm nowhere close to recovered. I can admit I am a procrastinator.

[Jaguar]

Well I had to have open heart surgery for a massive blood clot. I didn't go to my appointments for nearly 18 months. If I had gone on time and gone when I should have the clot would have been caught sooner and smaller and not needing open heart surgery to fix it.

Since then I haven't missed a doctors appointment since May 2004.

[Deleted]

I don't procrastinate i work. Only in my personal life at home. So, yeah there are things i could be more on top of. The one big thing i procrastinate on is Packing. I HATE packing to go places. I just find it tedious and annoying. So, i often wait to the last possible minute. Finally, i learned that it was so annoying and that when i finally got it done, i felt annoyed for hours where i was going. Now, i pack for a trip at least a week in advance and put everything in the corner ready to go. Much more relaxing now.

[happyhoix]

Well, I personally didn't have one but I think I witnessed one.

Years ago DH said he wanted to go camping over an upcoming long weekend. He is a procrastinator, I am not. Normally, for vacations, I would do all the planning and preparing and he would just come along and enjoy the ride. However, at the time, work was really busy for me, so I said I wouldn't mind going camping but I didn't have time to do the planning or preparing. If he was willing to do all the upfront work, I was all for it.

Well, I think DH thought I would step in and do it anyway, but I was tired of being the only organized, prepared person in the family. So I stayed out of it and let him prepare for it. We leave for the camping trip and we don't have batteries for the flashlights - he forgot. We don't have groceries - he didn't get around to that. His plan was that we would to the park and on the way get some fast food, then set up the tent, spend the night, and then the next day, drive all the way back into town and go grocery shopping. Forgot the bug spray, forgot towels and washclothes, about all he remembered was the tent and sleeping bags. So that first night he's got a piece of scrap paper writing a list of all the stuff we needed - he ended up having to drive all the way back home the next day for some of it.

I didn't say a thing, but a few months later I planned our next camping trip. Got all the camping stuff together the weekend before, made sure everything was there and working, did a grocery list and went shopping the night before, got lots of ice for the ice chest, etc etc. That weekend, after cooking and eating dinner and having all the stuff we needed to do it, DH looked at me and said "I like your way better."

I don't know if that was his rock bottom or if, after a life of nearly missed and missed dealines, of frantic last minute racing around, of getting done things so quickly they were only done half a$$ed, of C grades when he could have easily had A's if he put a little more thought and effort into things - or maybe it was just that he was getting older and more mature - he began changing.

Now I can't remember the last time we had one of his furious last minute scrambles to get something finished. He isn't as organized as I am (but I'm a little OCD, I think, so that's ok) but he isn't nearly the procrastinator he used to be.

[Deleted]

I can't say that I have recovered, I mostly just try to manage the symptoms.

I make a point to divide every project into pieces and set deadlines for the pieces and tell someone else what the deadlines are so that I feel accountable.

I'm still going to putter around on the internet until 10:30 and the race to finish the thing I wanted to get done by lunchtime, but they are smaller races this way.

[Firebird]

I didn't say a thing, but a few months later I planned our next camping trip. Got all the camping stuff together the weekend before, made sure everything was there and working, did a grocery list and went shopping the night before, got lots of ice for the ice chest, etc etc. That weekend, after cooking and eating dinner and having all the stuff we needed to do it, DH looked at me and said "I like your way better."

BAHAHAHHAH almost this exact thing happened in our house - except I'm the one who was ill-prepared (not out of procrastination, more because I've camped about 5000% less than DH in my lifetime and I had no idea how to prepare or what we needed). Now we split up the duties - he gives me a list of stuff to buy, I go shop, he stays home and packs.

[thyme4change]

Hi, my name is Thyme, and I'm a procrastinator.

There are really only two moods that move me to come to probards - depressed and procrastination, sometimes a mixture of the two. So, now you know.

[8 Bit WWBG]

Admitting it IS the first step.

I've become quite fond of the Calvin and Hobbes storyline with the math assignment that he keeps getting second chances on (freak snowstorm, teacher forgetting...). I think he STILL messes it up. The line I like is "a day can really slip by when you are deliberately avoiding what you are supposed to do".

I'm bad with booking travel tickets, and sending out cards.

[TheOtherMe]

I can book travel tickets.

When I was getting ready to move here, I set aside one month for the packing. I was living in CO and I was trying not to use the a/c. I was getting up at 6 AM 7 days a week and packing for about 5 hours. Then I would shower and go about my day. Some of it did involve tossing stuff, donating, etc. but I was done before the movers arrived. He was surprised at how much less stuff I had than when he had walked through for the estimate.

Now I have been here almost three years and I can't bring myself to finish unpacking--so yes, I am a procrastinator.

I have the kitchen, dining, living, bathroom and one bedroom all set up. Most of the rest is still in boxes.

[Phoenix84]

I'm still a procrastenator. In fact, I'm procrastenating right now. I am starting graduate school in the fall and I really should brush up my calculus and thermodynamics before school starts in August..... but it's more fun to putter around on the internet and play video games.

Yeah, unpacking from a move is my achillie's heel too. When I moved to Ohio I didn't fully unpack for over a year, was so much easier to unpack everything I needed and shove the rest into the spare bedroom. When I did my current move, I was a lot better.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

I'm going to reply to this thread.

Really. I will.

Just one more show on HGTV and I'll reply. Well, maybe 2 shows. Or 1 and a half...

[susanb]

I never considered myself a procrastinator until I read that indecisiveness is the brother of procrastination. Reading that was my rock bottom in a way. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I am still sometimes indecisive, but now I give myself a decision deadline, which has helped.

[lurkyloo]

I've failed every quantum physics midterm I've ever taken--but aced every final (3 quarters total). It was a surprisingly efficient means of garnering two A-'s and one A.

If we're talking moving boxes, though, I have yet to hit bottom. We have boxes that never got unpacked from 3 houses and 6 years ago.

[midjd]

I'm not much of a procrastinator on work tasks, but I'm one of those habitually late people WCP would like to see strung up and burned To make things worse, DH is the polar opposite - if he has to be somewhere at 8:00, he considers himself late if he's there at 7:45. He gets VERY stressed out if we're going to be late to something. I'm of the "what the hell is the point of getting there early and having to wait and be bored?" mindset.

I hate to even share what worked, because I am still mad that it did. But eventually DH's nagging and bad mood at being late became more painful than skipping my final run around the house to do something I'd forgotten. If he wasn't so extremely mellow and go-with-the-flow on every other subject, it would have blown up... but I got SO tired of the "I told you it takes 45 minutes to drive there, we needed to leave at 2:15. How many times have we talked about this? Now we're going to be late." speech I just gave up. Sacrifices! ;D

[zibazinski]

I was married to one and I wasn't so I used to lie about when we had to be there. Then he figured out I was always lying so that didn't work. It's about POWER not a mindset. My mom used to pull the same crap until we just left or started without her. When it no longer worked, she stopped.

[Anne_in_VA]

Both DH and I are procrastinators except about paying bills and financial stuff. He's also sort of a hoarder asnd I have to keep trying to get rid of stuff.

I was reading this thread and stopped to watch some TV, wash dishes, unpack summer clothes - am I a procrastinator? Yes!

[TheOtherMe]

So far today, I've checked off one thing from my to do list. Have a few more to go.

[Malarky]

I'm laughing at those of you who haven't unpacked boxes.

I had four boxes in my basement that I finally threw away 10 years after I bought this house. I decided not to even look in them because I knew if I saw what was inside, I would suddenly need to save those items. Clearly whatever was inside wasn't that important since I couldn't remember what it was and hadn't bothered to look inside for years.

I haven't recovered from procrastinating at all. I just have short spurts of sanity and try to accomplish as much as I can during those moments.

[8 Bit WWBG]

...:::"But eventually DH's nagging and bad mood at being late became more painful than skipping my final run around the house to do something I'd forgotten. If he wasn't so extremely mellow and go-with-the-flow on every other subject, it would have blown up... but I got SO tired of the "I told you it takes 45 minutes to drive there, we needed to leave at 2:15. How many times have we talked about this? Now we're going to be late." speech I just gave up. Sacrifices!":::...

This probably belongs on the "respect" thread, and it jives with my "there are times to argue, and there are times to just trust me that I need you to STFU, promptly do exactly as you are told without question, and don't complain".

I pick my battles, and if its really not the end of the world, I try to skip the "late" speech. But there are also times when one simply CAN. NOT. BE. LATE. If that means we arrive early and sit for 30 minutes, too friggin' bad. Better safe than sorry.

And I'd bet $10,000 in cash that my "hurry up or else we'll be late" mood is far preferable to my "we were late AGAIN even though I told you how important this was" mood.

[Chocolate Lover]

I haven't recovered from procrastinating at all. I just have short spurts of sanity and try to accomplish as much as I can during those moments.

unless you're paying me. I can keep up and on track AND be organized at work. I'm getting money for that. At home, I'll get to it when I get to it. Eventually. Maybe today. I think.

[Tiny]

Hmmm, I use to think I was a procrastinator... but I realized I was just too busy to do stuff.

I'm actually quite lazy. At some point I discovered that putting stuff off till later was more work than it was worth so I stopped doing it. ;D

[Firebird]

I hate to even share what worked, because I am still mad that it did. [image] But eventually DH's nagging and bad mood at being late became more painful than skipping my final run around the house to do something I'd forgotten. If he wasn't so extremely mellow and go-with-the-flow on every other subject, it would have blown up... but I got SO tired of the "I told you it takes 45 minutes to drive there, we needed to leave at 2:15. How many times have we talked about this? Now we're going to be late." speech I just gave up. Sacrifices! ;D

So you're saying I should yell at DH more and eventually he'll grasp the importance of being on time to stuff? ;D

[8 Bit WWBG]

...:::"I hate to even share what worked, because I am still mad that it did.":::...

Hehehe, yeah I'm wondering what it was. YM speculates when not given the truth. Maybe its lying about the real time, or setting the clocks ahead. Maybe its a bribe or an exchange.

[KaraBoo]

I have a weird sort of procrastination going on - I have a perfectionist personality and if I can't do something perfectly, I don't do it. When I have doubts on how to proceed, then a full stop comes to the project until I have a plan in place.

However - having that plan will also backfire on me. If I can't execute said plan due to external issues (such as other people interrupting me), then the world just ended and I'm a miserable failure in my own mind.

DH has learned that when I'm in that type of mood to either get out of my way or attempt to get to the truth of why I'm upset. I've also learned that it's my issue, not his and I attempt to not take it out on him (or anyone else in my line of sight).

DH on the other hand is perpetually late to everything - I have learned to tell him that we need to be there 30 minutes earlier than the scheduled time frame. For us - that has worked. I'm not sure if he knows about my technique or not, but I'm not about to ask him either......why ruin a good thing? ;D

[msventoux]

I haven't hit rock bottom yet, but it's probably coming. I don't procrastinate at work at all, but in my personal life I'm extraordinarily lazy. Procrastination has it's upside though. At home, if there's something I really don't want to do, I'll do something else that I didn't want to do that isn't quite as bad as what I'm currently avoiding doing. Don't want to vacuum and detail the car? Awesome, I'll clean out the garage instead. Don't want to clean the bathrooms? I'll spring clean the rest of the entire house. Don't want to go grocery shopping? I'll mow the lawn instead.

[zibazinski]

Nazul!