Planning, Procrastination and Life Leeches

The last couple of weeks, there was heavy activity at my home. The day was coming close for the return of my sister-in-law to our hometown in India. I am not a big fan of airports which I disclosed with ample detail in my previous post here. International travel causes a lot of stress to me, with the shopping, packing, weighing bags with no end until the departure of the flight.

My sister-in-law began packing a month and half in advance. She would weigh the bags(which is not suitable for weighing bags) every weekend. However, there would be more shopping every weekend and more items added to the bags. So the contents in the bags would be rearranged and weighed again. I concluded that my sister-in-law is a kind of person who likes to get things done ahead of time and likes to be in control. The lesson I learnt through my international trips, is to postpone packing until the last couple days before the day of journey.

The day of the departure finally arrived. While we were driving to the airport I saw the bumper sticker on a car ahead of me saying 'I was gonna procrastinate today... but I'll wait till tomorrow'. I like bumper stickers messages like that; It was funny and messages like that bring a smile on your face unlike the serious and sensitive religous and political messages. I felt that my sister-in-law should take a cue from the message. But is there a broader lesson to be learnt for my sister-in-law and myself included who like to be in control of every aspects of our lives.

During the senior(final) year of my Bachelors, I was travelling in a train from Kolkata, what was then called Calcutta, to my hometown after a disappointing performance at a job interview. Train rides have left great impressions and memories on me. While I was watching through the cabin window, I saw rows of fields; sugarcane, corn, rice paddy immaculately swaying in the distance. As I watched the fields and electric ploes passby, I thought about my performance and blamed my poor lack of planning and procrastination. I pondered and repented the number of hours I wasted each day instead of practising or reading a book in preparation for the interview.

My friends tried to help me by saying that they didn't do any better either. They always denied doing well in an exam. Even good students deny they did well and that re-assurance was of little effect as I felt they were lying and I could care less if they did any worse than me. The competition was with other students from the entire country and not just a bunch of my classmates. I concluded that I should plan better if I was do good in future for my GRE, GATE and other upcoming competitive exams coming up later that year. A few months later, I got the job offer from my interview in Kolkata.

As I grew older, I did not grow any wiser. There are still ocassions where I blame myself like a guy on deathbed thinking about not having spent quality times with his family. I think most humans fall into that pschological guilt trap. And sometimes life chores can be burdensome, they can be simple but their multitude can be overwhelming. Also the randomness of life can throw something unexpected at you inspite of all the detailed planning.

We live in an age where 24 hours is not enough to do the things we need to do. Each one of us have things to do every day and every month of the year; rent, mortgages, utility bills, credit card statements, automobile maintenance, laundry, home and lawn maintenance, health, life and home insurance, immigration, investments, retirement planning, vacation planning; and responsibilities; kids, spouse, parents, sublings, relatives and friends.

The above items are just the personal tasks. The list expands when we add the tasks from that we have to do at work. In the current world where multi-tasking is not a 'good-to-have' trait but is required, one has to juggle between projects, meetings, scheduling, prioritizing various tasks, follow ups, documenting etc.

All these life leeches(tasks and chores) can leave a perpetual mental burden on us. This overwhelming list can cause us to procrastinate till the last day. Then there are modern inventions; the killers of limited productive time; Internet, TV, Sports, Cell Phones. There is no doubt that these all add value when used optimally and when consumed in moderation. These modern day distractions have caused much unwanted procrastination for many of us.

Over the last couple years of pondering, reading and watching, utilizing many or all of the aforementioned modern day inventions, I did come up with some ideas and tricks that I utilize to accomplish the various tasks. Some of these are not so modern and might need a pen and paper. Neither are these ideas in any form earth shattering(I am fully aware of the limitations of my brain) but they work for me. These ideas and tricks can be found in the concluding post to this article.

Note: The concluding post will be linked to this article later when it is published.