Procrastination and Priorities

There has been a couple of conversations that have happened in the last couple of weeks that I feel almost obligated to discuss the issue of procrastination and priorities. I will be coming from a place of my own experience in both of these topics.

Procrastination

There is not much to say really. You stress yourself out when you procrastinate. The worst part is that you do not only stress yourself out, but you offer a work/paper/project/portfolio…etc that is not done to the best of your ability. I had a teacher in first grade that would talk about this. “Would you hand this in to Jesus” (yes I did go to a Christian school) she would always say. I always thought it was stupid. Until I got to college. I realized two key things about procrastination in college that helped me understand why my first grade teacher harped on us all of the time for it.
1. On the items I procrastinated with, I rarely, if ever, learned from my work, and rarely, if ever, received a low grade. I accomplished my goal of achieving the grade. But is that the true goal of college work?
2. I was not proud of the grades I received because I knew it did not reflect the effort I had put in. I often walked away with a guilty conscience.

If you are going to try to skate by while offering a C effort to receive an A grade, and if you can do that and sleep at night with a clear conscious; ignore this posting. But if there is something in you, like there is in me, that needs to know the A you receive (more like B-) reflects the effort you put in, then do your best to stop procrastinating. I found that these two things listed above had one thing in common as well: no I would not hand that in to Jesus because it was not my best work.

A small side note, do not let school work be the only thing you evaluate in terms of procrastinating. The work you have been called to do as a disciple of Jesus Christ is not to be put on the back burner either. Something we seem to do a great job at as Christians, is waiting until later to do what God has called us today. We depend on later as if later is an option. Do not let that be you.

Priorities

This leads me to my next point. Some of us need to get our priorities in line. If you are not a Christian, that is alright, I encourage you to still read the Scripture because there are just a lot of good things in there. But if you are a Christian, a striving disciple of Jesus Christ and you are putting things like making money, getting rich, Monday night football, drinks with the dudes/ladies…etc before being a husband/wife or a father/mother then you need to get your priorities in line. There is nothing wrong with making money, being proficient at your job and hanging out with the dudes or ladies and watching some football or whatever ladies watch; but there is a lot of work to do and we need to prioritize the way we do it. When is the last time you were home from work on time? When is the last time you said no to plans to have a date night? We spend so much time giving our energy to people who do not really care about us (businesses) and less time giving our energy to the people who care about us most (families). I am not saying anything about you, I do not even know you. But if you need to check your priorities, do it.

College students, you are the worst at this. The reason you are the worst at this is not your faulting necessarily. The truth is, you lack the experience necessary to understand the gravity of your priorities. You are coming from a position of having relatively low demand on you as far as responsibility is concerned. Most college students in a library on a Saturday afternoon or doing their homework at home on a Friday are either exceptional students, or Juniors and Seniors dedicated to their studies. This is certainly not true for all dedicated Freshmen putting in the time, but it is true of anyone whose priorities are in order. Your number one priority in college, is to finish college. I will let you in on a secret guys, it is not to meet women. I know, I know… what do I know right? But it is true. College is also not about having a time period in your life you are chalking up mistakes to that you hope your children never find out about. College is about your studies.

Now, I played many a video games in my four years at CMU. I saved lives in those games. I am still waiting on a thank you for saving the world multiple times from the pending forces of evil. What I never did, was let saving the world become more important than getting my work done. There was a time in life where I was working, had 18 credits and doing an internship. I ended up coming out of that with the best marks I received in college. You want to know how I did it? I prioritized.

Bring it home

When you get to your career and you start to list all the things you will have to do to make it in your career and in your life, the excuse of “there is not enough time” will not work. The truth is, you are right. There is not enough time. You will never fill up your wife’s love tank. You will never play with your kids too much. You will never study enough. You will never write long enough, spend enough time at work, spend proficient time doing that proposal. There is not enough time. The question you have to ask is how you are going to spend the time you are given? We all have the same amount of time in a day, that never changes. Why is it that some people are just doing way more with their lives than others? Priorities.
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Food for thought: With all of your gifts, talents, and potential; with all of the grace that God has given you… why would you waste it?

Possible resource: Choosing to Cheat by Andy Stanley