NEW Be sure to check out our new opinion polls throughout the website. If you recognize any of these scenarios, procrastination may be sneaking into your life, stealing valuable time and eroding your productivity.
Procrastination is the habitual delay in starting or seeing a task through to conclusion.
When you make a promise to yourself to start a project and then hesitate or become distracted or do something else instead, that's procrastination. Once delay becomes a habit, it begins to undermine your ability to function effectively and becomes a problem for yourself and for others. For example, you have blocked out Thursday afternoon to begin computerizing the filing system. After lunch you check in with the office manager to see if there are any problems requiring your attention before you begin the file update. You then allow yourself to be pulled into a discussion that began in the hallway and developed into an impromptu meeting in a co-workers' office.