Laura Tomacic has never been a procrastinator, and it’s a good thing. Her job as program director for the Executives Club of Chicago demands that she coordinate thousands of reservations for top business people, most recently a luncheon with speaker Steve Forbes that drew 1,400 guests. “When I was younger I’d get my weekend homework done by Friday at 6 p.m. so I could watch `The Brady Bunch,’ ” she recalls.
Today, panic keeps her from putting things off: “All I can think of are the phone calls I’d get if invitations didn’t go out on time. That’s what’s driving me — complete fear,” she laughs. She likes to stay on top of things at home, too, and that can be a problem. Her husband, a mortgage broker, is a confirmed procrastinator, reveling in last-minute travel plans, for example. “If he says he’ll take care of something, I’m constantly checking up on it. I know I drive him nuts.”
Opposites on the procrastination issue tend to attract, a fact that can lead to a lot of unpleasantness, notes Rita Emmett, a professional speaker and motivational trainer based in Des Plaines. Her thoughts on conquering procrastination — for yourself or a partner — drew more than 100 participants to a recent women’s health forum at Gottlieb Health & Fitness Center in Melrose Park. And she’s just written a book on the subject, “The Complete Procrastinator’s Handbook,” for which she hopes to find a publisher soon.
Many times procrastination is cast in a humorous light, and the subject often brings nervous laughter instead of real solutions when it’s discussed, she says. A recovering procrastinator herself, Emmett says she was daunted by the growing “time-management industry” that urges people to craft detailed mission statements and keep calendars with military precision. “Procrastinators just aren’t going to craft a complicated mission statement,” says Emmett, a former English major who left college just a few credits short of graduation and didn’t go back until her second child was in 1st grade.
To get clients moving, Emmett asks what they are putting off. Usually, things like chores and errands top the list. “Then I ask them, “Are you putting off your life? Your hopes, your dreams, your relationships? Have you been meaning to go back to school or ride a mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon?” Those are the things that make clients feel the worst, Emmett says. Returning library books late can make you the butt of jokes, but putting off a career dream or a financial goal can rob a person of self-esteem.
Because getting started seems to be the most difficult part of getting over procrastination, Emmett suggests identifying an important task, then giving it an hour of undivided time–no more. This lets you get started on a project without waiting for an entirely free day, which tends to never come, she notes. “The timer goes off after an hour and even if you haven’t scratched the surface on the project, you’ve taken care of the guilt of at least doing something,” she says.
Another tip: Reward yourself. “If completing a job were its own reward we would never procrastinate,” Emmett says. Procrastinators always seem to have something hanging overhead, she says, which makes them less likely to play hard and then take on their next assignment rejuvenated. An avid reader, Emmett rewards herself for completing an assignment by giving herself the time to dig into a good book that’s not work related. “People who don’t procrastinate do a job and then reward themselves for doing it” without a lot of agonizing, Emmett says. “Previous generations had that rhythm. There would be a celebration feast at harvest time and a barn dance.”
Today, work never seems to get finished, and procrastinators more than anyone feel they don’t deserve to celebrate because they’ve wasted so much time on the project, she says.
In today’s fast-paced work world, one might think procrastination had gone the way of the long lunch hour. Yet with fewer staff employees doing more work, some experts say, putting off one job to do another is even more common.
If there is an upside to procrastination, it may be that business moves fast enough today that last-minute performers can sometimes be rewarded. For instance, the monthly newsletter for Nantucket Nectars, a Massachusetts-based juice company, doesn’t come out until the second week of the month.
“If I was stricter about the deadline, it would be a bland newsletter, and I work much better under pressure” notes the editor, Wink Mleczko. The delay allows her more time for creativity and others more time for sending in submissions, notes Mleczko, who recently filed her income taxes on the last day of her extension period.
