Message of the Day - The Power of Procrastination

Good Morning,

 

I wanted to write this message last Saturday, but have been very busy as of late and had to put it off (good tickler, huh?). The only reason I am getting to it today is that my body forced me to take a sick day. You know the feeling when you move and pretty much every muscle in your body cries out in protest. Add in an onslaught of allergies (sore throat, runny nose, etc.) and that is how I feel today. No worries, I will be better tomorrow.

 

Anyway, this is a great time to talk about procrastination and how it can change your day, your life, and the world as we know it. Yes, procrastination can change the course of history, and most certainly did, during the American Revolution. As you may remember, we were doing poorly up to the Battle of Saratoga. There we won a decisive victory; captured thousands of British troops, and more importantly, gained the agreement of the King of France to assist us in our revolution.

 

What if we lost that battle? The revolution could have fizzled; we could have lost our troops and never have gained the agreement of France to help us. This almost happened, but due to procrastination it didn’t come to pass.

 

Lord Germain, the Secretary of State in Britain, was to issue orders to General Howe, currently in the New York city area, to move his troops up the Hudson river and join General Carlton to defeat the Americans in a pincer (attacked on both sides). In fact he did issue orders to General Carlton to move south from Canada to make the attack, expecting to write Howe shortly thereafter.

 

What happened is Lord Germain was going away for the weekend and stopped by his office to sign to orders to General Howe. One problem, they were not written yet. Lord Germain’s aid offered to write them up there if Lord Germain would wait 10 minutes. Lord Germain refused to wait and said he would sign them when he returned after the weekend.

 

When he returned, both he and the aid had completely forgotten about the orders, and that left General Carlton to his fate, which marked the turning point in the American Revolution.

 

By procrastinating, the British gave up a good chance to squash the revolution and keep their colonies. Source: (http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1964/2/1964_2_6.shtml).

 

What are we losing when we put off to tomorrow what we can do today?

 

In my day job, I am constantly changing gears and trying to jot down notes due to the speed at which information and tasks come at me. They can get lost if I do not do them right then and there. Procrastination in my daily work means tasks do not get completed and usually come back to me as an urgent issue.

 

To combat procrastination we need to both organize ourselves so that we do not miss out on the opportunities to get our tasks completed and also to develop processes to allow us to change gears quickly (not necessarily multitasking), to allow us to finish these items and move to the next.

 

Otherwise we may feel the power of procrastination in our lives.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net   ß Check out the cover of my upcoming book, “Learn And Grow Daily!”

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

502-533-9336

 

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