Are You Procrastinating? – 9 Hidden Signs to Look At

We all are guilty of procrastinating at one point of more in our life. While it is okay to put things off for a bit when we are extremely overwhelmed, or not having enough facts to support arguments, for examples, it is NOT okay to put things off excessively and periodically.

Procrastination is especially not fine if we know there are consequences that come with it, which there usually are, whether we want to admit or not; or, even if it seems like there are good justifications to procrastinate.

Following are 9 hidden signs that you are procrastinating to do something.

1. Your house is clean and your work space is super organized. 
The problem is, it’s unusual and that’s not you. You’re proud regardless. Hey, there’s nothing wrong of cleaning and being organized, you convince yourself.

2. You read through your Junk Mail and Spam folders. 
You never know, maybe you’ve been deleting a lot important stuff all these times. While you’re at it, might as well clean up all those e-mails from back in the days. Organize and put them into specific folders, so they’re easy to retrieve, if and when you do so.

3. You do lots and lots of (almost endless) research. 
You need to have a lot of facts, and all answers to potential arguments. You need to be sure it will be perfectly appealing to your readers and there is no mistake whatsoever. The problem is, every time you discover something, you also find a whole new set of unanswered questions. It’s just proving how much lack of knowledge/skills you have.

4. You want to get things done right the first time. 
You have to know everything before you decide to take on or start on a project. Or you’d die from embarrassment if your Editor find a misspelled words. Or new clients will demand their money back at the first glance after seeing their website that you did cause they, somehow, don’t like it.

5. You want to get things done in 1 shot. 
You only have 20 minutes left of the day, there’s no way you can finish that project, might as well don’t start it at all. You’ll get to that first thing in the morning. Wait, you have an appointment first thing in the a.m. Oh well, you’ll start the project after that. The project would only take you approximately 45 minutes from start to finish. You sure can find a full free 45-minutes gap in between your schedule. When you do, you’ll start working on it.

6. You’re proud to tell everyone that stress is your most powerful motivator. 
You work best when deadline is near. You know because that’s when you normally get projects done, and you know it’s always a big relief when you get to that last step and scream, “Finish!” You made iton time again. Awesome.

7. You need to get rid off of all little things on your to-do-list before you get to those big projects. 
You tackle the easiest things first, and then when all the necessary itty-bitty actions are done, you’ll get to the big projects. The problem is, the little things keep adding up. It’s really unavoidable that you couldn’t get to your big tasks so far.

8. You feel guilty. 
Not sure why but you feel guilty. Something inside is bothering you. You know you need to start on/finish those big projects, but points #1 through #7 above are inevitable. You gave in to them and you don’t see anything wrong with that. If only there is more than 24 hours in day, you would have gotten to those projects.

9. You’re being defensive. 
When your best friend asked, “How’s the e-book going?” You answered, “I haven’t started yet because…” and it takes you 3 minutes to complete the sentence because you can’t decide which excuse is the best one to give. A simple conversation-starter question, or maybe even just a greeting, that could’ve been answered with simple “yes” or “no” had just turned into an essay question that you have to provide a long answer with supporting arguments. Well, for some reasons you feel the need to provide reasons.

Some procrastinations are good, and that’s when you put off the little stuff to finish the bigger and more important projects. If you now realize that you have been procrastinating something important, work on it. Figure out why, and get over it. It is not easy, but there are many ways you can get help. Always know that you’re not alone. People everywhere have overcome procrastination, and that means, you can too.