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This is the text of a speech I am presenting tonight for Toastmasters entitled, “Procrastination.”

I struggled for a while with the topic for today’s speech, looking for just the right one. The one that would have punch, passion, and practicality. Longer and longer it took until finally it was almost too late. Then it hit me…procrastination. That’s the topic I’ll cover. We all suffer from it at one time or another. The causes are varied but the result is always the same. Tasks are delayed until the last minute or far beyond when would have been best to address them. What causes this? How can we combat it? Is some procrastination good, or is it always bad?

The definition of procrastination is to defer action; delay: to put off until an opportunity is lost. Ironically it is a verb which implies action. So the act of procrastinating is the action of deferring another action. Ugh. By procrastinating you are expending more effort by the time you have completed the task than if you had just gone ahead and done the task.

So why do we procrastinate? The most common reasons gathered by the “experts” in the field are: fear of failure, fear of success, perfectionism, boredom, anger, lack of skills and information, poor health, distractions, and the task seems to large. Walk through these with me for a moment.

Fear of failure is easy enough to understand. People fear being chastised for failing to deliver what is desired upon the completion of a task and as such are hesitant to start it. This can be combated by having a clear understanding of what the end goal is before beginning the task. You need to know where you’re going before you set out on your journey so you know when you get there.

Fear of success seems counter-intuitive. After all, who would be afraid at succeeding at what they set out to do? The fear is derived not from the actual success, but from a concern the standards that will be set for them in the future will be unachievable due to this current success. “They needed it in two days but I was able to finish it in one…now they’re always going to expect it in one.”

Perfectionism. Perfectionists can procrastinate the start of tasks when operating under the assumption if they do not feel they have the time / resources/ skills necessary to complete the task perfectly it should be put off. It is a challenge for these types of people to understand there is often an “acceptable” level of completion as compared to the “perfect” completion.

Boredom. This is tied most often to the task itself. Cleaning out the cat litter. No interest there…put it off for a while. Phew that stinks now. Now you have a vested interest in getting the task done. Dealing with boring or distasteful tasks can be best summed up with the “Band-Aid” metaphor. Give it a yank and the pain ends quickly. Get the task done and over with and the pain ends quickly.

Anger. This one screams passive aggressive behavior. Your significant other has honked you off in some manner and your response / vindication is…I’ll mow the lawn tomorrow. You know it will get under their skin so that becomes your rationale for procrastinating on the task at hand. Dealing with this has nothing to do with the task, but rather the underlying issue. Go kiss and make up…then get to work.

Many procrastinated tasks in the workplace stem from a lack of skills or understanding. The person responsible for the task doesn’t have the skills or information necessary to complete the task at hand, or doesn’t think they do. In either case the underlying fear of telling someone they can’t do the job prevents them from proceeding while also inhibiting their ability to get the help they need to move forward. This is a tough one. You need to have a relationship with someone professionally who can give you the “permission” to find out what you need. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but in the long run it’s usually for the best.

Poor health is a valid reason to put off a task in many cases, but there is often a base reason to why your poor health is interrupting the task at hand. If you dislike mowing the lawn, it’s amazing how often your back can act up. Be conscious to recurrences of the same excuses that prevent you from proceeding with tasks and see if your health improves when you realize maybe it’s not your back but rather you just don’t like to mow the lawn.

Distractions. I was thinking about moving this to the top of the list. In today’s world there is no limit to the number of distractions trying to steal your attention away from the task at hand. Email, instant messengers, cell phones, radios, TVs, YouTube, MySpace, the thieves go on and on. So what to do? How do you defend your fleeting attention span? Set a time and stop the world. If you have a task you know will take an hour, set aside an hour actively. Make a meeting with yourself. Put it on your calendar. Then set the phone to silent, put the instant messenger on do not disturb, and close your web browser. Focus on the task for as long as you can. When you feel yourself bogging down, give yourself permission for a brief (and I do mean brief) distraction before jumping right back in. Your focus can be enhanced by setting a reward upon completion of the task. Finish updating your checkbook at home and earn yourself a half-hour of guilt free time on Guitar Hero. There’s no shame in bribing yourself.

Finally task size. The old saying of every journey begins with a first step is quite true. Any task, no matter how daunting, can be broken down into smaller tasks that are achievable. Experts like David Allen of Getting Things Done fame espouse the “Next Action” method of defining what is the next thing that will keep the task or project moving forward. This is easiest to explain using a practical example. When planning a birthday party for my middle daughter the goal was to schedule a bowling party. There are a number of steps in making this happen, not all of which were able to be done at the same time. Defining the actions and then identifying the “next action” allowed me to keep the project in motion without feeling overwhelmed. The tasks were identify a local bowling alley, call and schedule the party, send out the invitations. The next action was “get the phone number for the alley.” While this seems like an oversimplified task, it actually is the only thing that would prevent the next action “call the alley and set a date” from happening. It’s small enough to be easily accomplished and can be performed with a high likelihood of success.

Procrastination is many things. For most it is a burden, for some it’s a defense mechanism. There are times it is perfectly reasonable to put off a task until later, but often the delay has little in the way of rational cause. It is not the demon it has been touted to be. It is beatable and manageable. If you’re putting something off, take a second and ask yourself why and deal with that issue first…then get back to work. How else do you think this speech got written?

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