We’ve all been there, the beginning of a big project. Whether the project is school related (a non-group project if you’re lucky), or personal, task is the first step. Say what you want, but I know I’m not the only person that at one time or another has almost faltered in completing a task due to fear of the beginning.

Organizing my record collection? Now that was a task. Even though it was something that I wanted (and needed) to do, I still procrastinated about it for months before starting. That’s months spent losing and finding records that I actually wanted to listen to. Then I finally came to the realization that I was the source of the problem, I was my own worst enemy. I realized that I spent more time looking for records than I was actually listening to them. At that moment I took all of the records off of the shelf and forced myself to start the organization process. It was at that point that I noticed how easy the actual task was. I had built it up in my mind to be some daunting, gauntlet-like task. In actuality, it was the inverse. I had to put more effort into finding the records while things were unorganized than actually organizing them.

One thing I also learned from that experience was that it could be applied to just about every other aspect of my life. Taking the first step was always hard for me. But when I realized that forcing myself to take that step yielded benefits, my life started to become easier. Things that I would put off for “tomorrow” became things that I would start almost immediately. Taking the first step began to transform from something that I dreaded, to something that I looked forward to.

It is this fundamental shift in opinion that has the potential to change any procrastinator’s life. Once I realized how gratifying it is to rest AFTER completing tasks it became something that I started to work towards. Not saying that I stopped procrastinating completely (that’s just crazy talk), but I began to seek that feeling of completion. To-do lists are becoming my friends, instead of my “trusty” methods of doing things at the last minute. I started to think of any big projects as a mountain. Yeah, it’s WAY easier to sit at the bottom; but the feeling at the top is one of pure bliss.

After coming to this conclusion I began to notice the things that my fellow procrastinators complain about. “This is going to suck!” and comments of the like are common among us procrastinators. And to that I pose this question: Isn’t it going to suck a lot more if you have to do all of that work in a shorter amount of time? I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s too easy to complain about something instead of actually doing it. But be sure not to spend more time complaining and procrastinating than you do on the task at hand.
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