In any endeavor, there are barriers everyone faces at one time or another. Perhaps the most common one is astalling tactic that you may call upon either consciously or subconsciously - procrastination.

 You may remember it from your high school or college days, when students thought it was "cool" to put off regular study and then "cram" the night before the big exam.  You may recognize it in a spouse or relative who talks about Christmas shopping for months and then lets it all go until December 24th.  And you may even take comfort in the fact that procrastination is a habit of the masses.  One look at the post office lines on April 15th is enough to confirm that fact, as everyone tries to file tax returns before the stroke of midnight.

Procrastination is the habit of needlessly putting off things that we should do, (or say we want to do) now.  Procrastination can be caused by negative attitudes or fear of failure.  It can be rooted in our own inertia, or as a result of lack of planning.  It does more than almost any other habit that we have to deprive us of satisfaction, success, and happiness.  More than two centuries ago, Edward Young wrote:

"PROCRASTINATION IS THE THIEF OF TIME"

In fact, procrastination is much more.  It is the thief of our self-respect.  It nags us and spoils our fun.  It deprives us of the fullest realization of our ambitions and hopes. In business it can even cause or contribute heavily to our failure.  "He who hesitates is lost."  We've heard that before.

When things are put off until the last minute, we create pressure.  Every step finds an impediment.  We push ourselves into blundering by having to make hasty decisions and judgments, and it actually becomes harder to do things.  Haste does make waste.

Herein lies the paradox.  By trying to take things easy, we do not make them easy.  Actually we make things harder.  The first step in overcoming the tendency to procrastinate is understanding why you behave the way you do, and what kinds of situations cause you to take action.

None of us needs to look beyond himself or herself for examples of how procrastination has thwarted the achievement of our goals. Do you remember postponing that report that you should have done Wednesday?  On Thursday and Friday you found yourself loaded with important jobs, and had to work over the weekend (without secretarial help and without people to whom you could have gone for quick answers) to get it ready for that Monday morning meeting.  Or perhaps you postponed visiting a sick relative (until a better, more convenient time) only to hear that it was too late?  Many salespeople have lost an account to a competitor because they put off deciding how to approach a difficult prospect.

No one escapes his or her quota of difficult or unpleasant tasks.  It is often these unpleasant tasks which contribute most to our success.  You will learn a great lesson when you realize that they will not fade away if you ignore them or procrastinate.

Eventually you have to roll up your sleeves and wade into them.  Learn to do the unpleasant things first; get them out of the way so that you can do the things you like to do later.

Do not allow an obstacle or difficulty to become an excuse.  Instead of "I'm tired, I'll do it tomorrow," try "I'm tired, I'll just work for another half hour and then go to bed."  Reward yourself only after you've completed something.  Instead of thinking, "I'll never get this done," allow yourself the coffee break or other time out you want after completing one part of the assignment.  Remember, that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

You do not see listless or languid people at the top of the Success Ladder.   As Samuel Smiles said:

"People who are habitually behind in their work are as habitually behind in success."

As a general rule, it is wise to make decisions promptly and crisply rather than lingering over them.  In the competitive field of business, timing is critical and by waiting for precisely the right time, you may be much too late.

The well-organized life and business leave time for everything, for planning, doing, and following through.  To the procrastinator, time is like a taskmaster with a whip.  To the organized, action-oriented person, that same amount of time is like a savings account where the interest keeps growing.  You have the power and ability to manage your time, or to have it manage you.