Every procrastinator has his or her own attitude, frequency and reaction regarding procrastination. Even those who put themselves on this horrendous habit have succumbed to its evils once or twice. On the other hand, there are the endless procrastinators who take pride in having mastered their talent. Then there is everyone else on the spectrum. They all have something in common the five stages of procrastination.
1. Completely forgetting about whatever it is you had to do.
The infamous “mind slip.” It really happens to the best of us and it is often the root cause of procrastination toward something. Somehow during our busy lives, we neglected to write down what we had to do. We didn’t put it in our planner or scribble it down on our white board that hangs directly over our desk. And we didn’t put it in our phone either. Didn’t plug it in the calendar, create a reminder, or set an alarm. Heck, we didn’t even make a new note about it. So whatever it was we had to do is basically dead to us. And it will stay that way until, inevitably, something comes along to jog our memory.
2. Then comes realization.
Oh, sh*t. Yep. We forgot. Totally forgot about that. How could we? Hmm. Great, okay, so what’s next? Any ideas how we’re going to get out of this one? Man, Mom is going to kill us. No. Wait. She said she’d remind us! And didn’t. C’mon. Not even fair.
3. Panic.
Nope, that’s it. We’re done for. Time to cry. Quit. Quit while we can. And run. We have to run far, far away from here. Somewhere where no one will know that we forgot. Actually we can just scream. Or cry. Yep. Crying it is.
4. Denial.
Ha guys. Funny joke. This isn’t actually happening. Where are the hidden cameras? Ashton? Is that you? I must be on Punked. We didn’t forget. We never forget. We would have written it down somewhere. That’s the answer. This just isn’t happening. Yeah. That’s it. Done. Problem solved. Now, where were we? Instagram? Yes. All of the pictures. Facebook? Yep. Let’s close out of it and then immediately reopen it because we literally have nothing else to do with our time… Online shopping? You bet. It’s been almost a month since I’ve received a package in the mail, so let’s send myself something.
5. Acceptance.
Fine. Not getting out of it. Let’s buckle down. Gotta do it. Let’s just get it done. Even though now we’ll have to run on a heinous amount of sleep. Like seriously. We’ve taken longer naps than the amount of shut eye we’ll get tonight. But hey, we do this to ourselves. We can’t forget that. And maybe next time we’ll be better. And maybe not. But for now, we have to make like Nike and Just Do It.
