The View From Here

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Procrastination

I heard about a report that was recently released that claimed procrastination makes people less healthy, less wealthy and less wise. Since I'm a habitual procrastinator, I found the results of this study alarming. Part of the report states:

Steel, considered one of the world’s leading experts on procrastination, made his conclusions known in a recent thirty-page article ("The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure") in Psychological Bulletin, which is published by the American Psychological Association. He states that 54% of all procrastinators are men while 46% are women. In addition, young people are more likely to procrastinate than older people.

Steel also found within his study that temptation is the major cause of procrastination. Because more temptations and distractions exist in U.S. society to divert people from the task at hand, more procrastination occurs. Other causes of procrastination include the perceived value of performing a job, the aversion of performing a task, impulsiveness, the sense of immediacy, lack of motivation, and the person’s belief in being able to do a job.

On the other hand, Steel claims that procrastinators are not perfectionists as is sometimes claimed in self-help books and other literature. In fact, it is just the opposite. Perfectionists procrastinate less and, thus, perform tasks better because they avoid delays. However, they worry more than procrastinators but have more confidence that they can finish the task.

After reading this, I gave my procrastination habit some deep thought. What I've decided is I'm deadline driven more than a procrastinator. If everything I have to do in a day is listed and due by the end of the day; I'll work my list. The due date can be either something I gave my word to do, something I want to get done, or something that must be done for external reasons. I don't differentiate among those.

So, am I truly a procrastinator then? Yes, it's true I find miscellaneous activities to pass the time on occasion; however, most of those activities are simply the more fun things I get to do in my job...like writing this blog or designing a brochure for the firm.

I'm interested in how others view procrastination. Does it cause you worry or problems with your job? What are your thoughts?

Friday, January 05, 2007

Creativity

Writing about creativity got me to thinking…a very dangerous thing indeed. I have a terrible habit of rolling ideas around in my mind ad nauseam until I do nothing with the idea. This has been an on-going issue with me.

Let’s take being creative. I love creativity. I enjoy drawing, photography, writing, making jewelry, painting…the list goes on and on. However, I find that I don’t incorporate those loves into my work. I have been trying to figure out why I don’t.

I have assumed that there had to be two different areas of my life…the work one and the personal one. I have kept them compartmentalized my entire career. The people I work with are not the people I socialize with. The same holds true for the people I meet through work. I struggle with getting over this assumption. I’m making progress though.

I am trying to bring creativity into my work. The idea is to make work more like fun and to enjoy what I’m doing more than I already do. It has helped that both my bosses love that I’m creative. I’ve convinced them to redesign our website and make it completely non-traditional. I’ve used my creativity to come up with a novel design for the new site. Now, I’m working on rewriting all the content.

Actually I’m procrastinating by blogging instead. So here’s my theme for our website…A single drop of water can send a ripple for miles; similarly a single idea, given at the right time, can help you for years to come. I’m using a raindrop theme throughout the site. My concept is to tie the knowledge and solutions we share with clients is similar to the power of a raindrop.

Now I have no idea how this will all turn out. We’re in the initial design phases. But, it is more exciting to be writing about accounting from a creative point-of-view than from the traditional boring one.

Differentiation

It’s a constant dilemma, how do you stand out from the crowd. While listening to Marketplace this morning on my way to work, I heard a compelling example of originality. The story is about a restaurant in Montreal called Robin des Bois (Robin Hood).

The owners of the restaurant “take from the rich and give to the poor” through having famous, celebrity-type people volunteer to be the waiters/waitresses in the restaurant. All wages saved from not employing full-time waiters is then given to local charities, along with profits.

What is also interesting is that the banks gave them money to start up this venture. As any small business owner will tell you, especially those in the restaurant business, getting money from a bank is not that easy. Thanks to all their work at differentiating their restaurant, they have a waiting list for celebrity wait-staff, a waiting list to dine, and a profit to donate...all done within four months of opening.

Creativity is what led to this shining example of differentiation. Taking a known model of business and making it into something worth talking about. Taking the time to allow your creative mind to play, will yield surprising, and often profitable, results.