I am a procrastinator....

Keep putting work off until the eleventh (or twelfth) hour? Here's a few reasons why you might be procrastinating, and a checklist to help you stop. Plus, corporate dishonesty or office politics-which bugs you more?

Mar 22 2004
By Anne Fisher
Fortune.com

Dear Annie:
I just had my annual evaluation and, while it was generally very good, my boss made special note of something I know is a weakness: I tend to procrastinate. So far, I've never actually missed a deadline on any of my work, but there is less and less "wiggle time" with every assignment, so that sometimes my colleagues are forced to rush to accommodate my last-minute ways. I've been an "eleventh-hour" person all my life-usually up until dawn doing a 20-page term paper the night before it was due, in college, for example-but I can see I need to focus on changing this now. Where do I start?
Tick Tock

Dear Tock:
A man after my own heart! After all, why do at a leisurely pace today what you can rush through tomorrow, right? The causes of procrastination are legion. Some people work best under pressure (or think they do: nothing like that ol' adrenaline rush of fear to get things rolling). Others put off only the tasks they really dislike, and if you're faced with enough of those during the average day, it may be a sign you need to change jobs. Still others of us suffer from a deep-seated fear of success, and all that comes with it, so putting stuff off becomes a means of self-sabotage. Of course, I have no idea what's driving your eleventh-hour habit, but I did come across a checklist for making new habits that may help. I have this list (in bold type, below) taped to my computer; it's condensed from Time Power: A Proven System for Getting More Done in Less Time Than You Ever Thought Possible (Amacom, $24.95), by time-management expert Brian Tracy. See if it rings any bells with you:

Select one task where procrastination is holding you back, and resolve to start and finish that one project. Most of us are pulled in so many directions at once, it's easy to put off one thing-no matter how urgent-until you've taken care of something else, and then one more thing, and then that over there.... Stop!

Make a detailed list of everything you will have to do to complete that one project. Think on paper. One thing that works for me-simple, but effective-is to make a to-do list with little boxes on each item and check the boxes as I go.

Choose the single most important item on the list and do it first. Good idea! As the saying goes, "Well begun is half done."

Set a specific time when you are going to begin. Makes sense, doesn't it? Write it in your datebook (or Palm Pilot, or what have you) as if it were the most important appointment of the day-because it is.

Refuse to make excuses or rationalize putting off what you need to do. Ah, excuses. Funny, isn't it, how impatient we are with other people's-and how tolerant (nay, indulgent) of our own?

Visualize yourself working with a sense of urgency. Program your mind by repeating the words "Do it now!" over and over. Another thing I find always helps, speaking of visualization: Picture yourself having finished this task, and how great you'll feel when it's not hanging over your head anymore.

Readers, what say you? Ever had to get that procrastination monkey off your back? What worked for you? Write and tell all. This is so widespread a bugaboo, I'd bet you have some great suggestions, and I'll include them in a future column.

Meanwhile, I got a letter the other day from a longtime college professor about to take the plunge into a corporate job who is concerned-thanks to all the recent scandals (Martha, say it ain't so!)-that ethics in the business world have sunk into an intolerable pit. This reminded me about a survey Watson Wyatt did a couple of months ago revealing that 72% of U.S. employees believe the people around and above them behave "with honesty and integrity" in financial matters, and in dealings with clients and investors. When it comes to overall ethics, though, the picture gets cloudy: "Hypocrisy and favoritism"-in other words, rotten office politics-was the No. 1 reason cited by workers who had lost respect for their employers.