Do It Today: Overcome Procrastination, Improve Productivity, and Achieve More Meaningful Things

The Single Biggest Reason Most
People Procrastinate In Life
For most of my life, I’ve been a habitual procrastinator.
When I had my first summer job at age 16, I did everything
not to work. I had an inside sales job at a telecom company,
and I had to sell mobile contracts to clients.
The company had software that would automatically call the
next client when you finished a call. So you would be on the
phone constantly — but I found a way around that process.
After every call, you had to log your activity on the system.
Things like “client is interested, but has to discuss it with her
grandson.” Yes, I sold to a lot of elderly people (not proud of
it).
As a professional procrastinator, I took a lot of time to craft
a lengthy summary of the call. When my manager asked me
about my low number of calls per day, I told him, “If one of
my teammates calls the client, they know she had to talk to
her grandson. That’s valuable information, right?”
I did everything to put off the next call. I also procrastinated
during my years at university—pursuing a master’s degree
in marketing. I always waited until the last moment to finish
an assignment or study for an exam.
I even procrastinated when I worked as a freelance
marketing consultant after I graduated. “I’m doing
research.” This time, I told myself. I didn’t understand why I
always put off things to the last moment. I thought it was a
part of my character. And many of my friends were similar;
they would say: “Who wants to work? Let’s have some
beer.”

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This is what I believed: “Work is something you don’t like to
do — you just do it because you need money and status.”
Sadly, many of us believe that is the truth. Fortunately, my
procrastination behavior changed this year. It wasn’t some
kind of magical productivity hack or software that turned me
into a productivity machine. I’m more productive and
focused than ever. And I’m more satisfied with my work
than in the past.