PROCRASTINATION + IGNORANCE + TRIFLING = PIT
Every day I would see that envelope staring at me, almost begging me to open it up. It was the first thing that I saw when I woke up and the last when I finally turned off the light and went to sleep. Then one day after much hesitation, I finally opened it. What was now staring at me was not a bill that I was dreading to see, but a check. A while back I had purchased a computer that had a rebate of $100. I had taken the time to fill out the form, made a copy for my records and mailed it off. I then forgot all about the rebate, but now staring back at me was a check for $100. I started to do my happy dance and smiling over my new-found money. Upon examining the check, I noticed the date that was written on it and right beside it was the expiration date for cashing the check. Guess what? I was 30 days past the expiration date. Then I had one of those moments. You know the one where you take your hand smack yourself in the head and wonder why didn’t I open that envelope sooner? Because I assumed that it was yet another bill that I didn’t want to face. Due to my procrastination, I lost an easy $100. Procrastination will cost you money, no matter what you are procrastinating about. If you procrastinate about paying your bills, looking for a job, or looking for your next career move, or deciding to get an education, it will end up costing you more money in the long run. Think back to how many times you may have found yourself saying, “I really don’t like my current job and I want to find a better one”, only to run into an acquaintance that you haven’t seen in years. After catching up on old times, the conversation turns to your jobs and you explain that you’re looking for a better position and the person tells you that they have an opening for exactly what you’re looking for. They give you the email of the person you need to contact and tell you to email your resume to them when you get home. You exchange contact information and as you turn and walk away, it hits you like a ton of bricks, you don’t have an updated resume. Well I can’t think about that right now you say to yourself, I must go home and update my Facebook to let everyone know who I ran into today. I’ll update my resume on the weekend when I’m off and I have more time. You get a call on Friday from one your friends, letting you know that another friend charter a boat on the lake for Saturday and there’s one space left just for you. After you arrive home late Saturday night from eating dinner out, you glance over at your laptop and think about working on your resume. But you’re way too tired to work on that tonight. You tell yourself that you’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning.
Sunday comes and goes without you even attempting to update your resume, and before you know it, it is Friday again. You receive a text from the acquaintance that you ran into a week ago, letting you know that they spoke to the contact person and let them know that you would email them with your resume.
Four weeks later you just happen to run into that acquaintance again, and they ask you if emailed your resume. You hang your head for a moment and barely mumble a no.
The acquaintance says that’s a shame, because they just filled the position a few days ago. Your procrastination probably cost you a good opportunity…but you will never know it.
PROCRASTINATION GOES HAND IN HAND WITH IGNORANCE. When you decide to procrastinate, you set yourself up for being ignorant to knowing where you are financially, educationally and job wise. What you do not want to face, look at or research due to putting it off for tomorrow, leads you to ignorance. The next day becomes next week, next month, next year, five years, ten years or a life time.
Why do we put off doing today onto tomorrow? We know that the garage needs to be cleaned out and we could even have a garage sale and make some money from it. Instead we just pile more stuff inside and getting over-whelmed whenever you open the garage door.
