This month, I’m waiting …

Gordon Craigie

PROCRASTINATION – I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but I’ve kept putting it off! In everyday life it’s usually simply dismissed as time-wasting or laziness, but procrastination is actually much more complex than that. Dictionary definitions range from the basic “to put off or defer (an action) until a later time” to the more judgemental “the act of delaying something that you should do, usually because you do not want to do it”.

Often there can be good reasons for putting something off, as the old truism or cliché “act in haste, repent at leisure” warns us. But it is generally accepted that procrastination tends not to be a positive trait, especially when your editor is sending you ever-more urgent smoke signals demanding your copy for the next issue! In my defence, I’ve always been more of a “just in time” rather than a “just in case” person but I’m also acutely aware of the need to be prepared well in advance of certain situations and then, well, just get on with it.