Read Sharky’s article on beating procrastination and planning ahead. Insightful

How many times have you thought about doing something, then after thinking about it, you decide that you can just do it later, for any of the following reasons, if not all?

• You are not yet ready to do it at present.
• You are too tired.
• You are too busy.
• Someone or something is stopping you, or you want someone else to do it(The Blame Game)
• Yada Yada
• Blah di blah

I could go on and on and on, but I’m sure you’ve done that a number of times, as have I. If, however, you do that ALL the time, then you happen to be a victim of theft. And what is being stolen from you? The most precious commodity of all …TIME!! The culprit is not one who can be apprehended by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, nahh. This is one that you gotta nab yourself and he goes by the name “PROCRASTINATION”.

Whoever coined the phrase “Procrastination is the thief of time” is a genius because it shows the true nature of this beast. Procrastination can come in any form so at times it is very difficult to identify. Some of the most common forms of it are the ones that I have listed above and all of them try to justify being lazy. Some people are such cry babies and they will try and look for something or someone to blame for not doing something when the onus is all on them to do whatever they have to do. It’s shameful really. Who do you want to make things happen for you?  You have got to make things happen yourself and stop waiting because waiting is actually a synonym of procrastinating. Check your thesaurus.

So I said this beast is difficult to identify right, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to spot him. Where do we draw the line and say “Okay, now I’m procrastinating”? It’s simple. If you so much as THINK about DOING something, and you don’t actually DO it when you could have….BAAAAMM!!! You have been robbed! It starts with the small things. “I need to take out the trash. Nah lemme do that later.” “I gotta wake up and be early for school. But just 5 more minutes of sleep will do no harm.” And then it gets bigger.  “I need to call so and so and finalize this multimillion dollar deal.. Let me call him at 2 instead.” “I am supposed to go to this meeting right now but haaa I can do it another day. Lemme do this instead” See now here is the danger with procrastination, how it gets most of us. We make ourselves believe that by foregoing doing something, we get to do MORE of something else instead, and that makes it okay. “Lemme sleep some MORE.” “Lemme chill for a lil’ LONGER, I’ll do it later.” You think you are doing MORE of something else when in actual fact, you are doing NOTHING of ANYTHING!! Meaning that zero progress is made, because you will still have to get things done no matter how long you keep on postponing.

The bad part about procrastinating is that one way or another, it’ll catch up to you. That something that you had foregone earlier still needs to be done. Either that or you end up losing out on so many opportunities because you were lazy. Please, stop it. If you were one of those then you really need to stop, for your sake. I’d advise you to be prudent enough to have a schedule or timetable of things that need to be done in a day, week or month, and make sure that you DO them within the period of time that you have allocated for them. Planning is alright but you have to see your plans through if you are going to make any progress. Some people wait for the month of December to make “resolutions” for the following year which I’m not even sure most of us follow through with anyway. Try and make resolutions for shorter lengths of time;  weeks.  Days even. This gives you the ability to see if you are making any progress in the short run, and that has to translate into long term progress if you do it well.

Have you ever heard a song by American Hip Hop artist, J.Cole, called “Mr. Nice Watch”? In it he says the words –

“They say time is money, but really it’s not.

If we ever go broker then time is all we got

And you can’t make that back, no you can’t make that back…”

People say time is money but that is a very poor likening. If you go broke, you can make that money again, maybe even more than what you had before. But if you lose time, then that’s it. Kapisch! You cannot recover time that you have lost. So keep that in mind next time you think about waiting to do something. The worst procrastinators are young people. We feel like we have all the time in the world, like we can wait forever to do something. We lack that sense of urgency. Maybe we entertain the school of thought that if we miss out on all these opportunities as young people, when we are old and worn out we can just take a sip from the proverbial fountain of youth and then those opportunities are somehow presented to us again.  Dream on. Time waits for no man, not even Norman. Time is forever moving, kunge kombi iri pamushikashika (like an Emergency Taxi at an informal loading station). Make every second count, every grain of sand in the hour glass of your life must be used in building something productive, not to let it get carried away by the wind. Now that’s progress.

Don’t waste time waiting. Do. Take your handcuffs out, and catch that time-thieving, good-for-nothing nincompoop called Procrastination! Bata mbavha iyo!!!

By Marshall “Sharky” Muchenje

Connect with the author

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/itssharky /

http://www.facebook.com/el.sharky.16

Twitter :     http://www.twitter.com/itsmesharky

Email and Gooogle+  : sharkythaemcee@gmail.com