What’s your excuse?

Just think about it: even denial can be a form of procrastination. I am often shocked when Turks delay giving bad news to a family member, as they want to protect them from grief. It is not unusual for them not to tell an elderly aunt for a few days that her nephew is seriously ill, or has even died. American thinking would say, “Hey, you’re gonna have to give them the bad news anyway, just bite the bullet.” Turkish thinking may say, “It will be better coming from relative X and they are not here yet,” or, “If we first of all say the person is a little sick, then say they are in hospital, then say they have died it softens the blow over a few days, rather than just hitting them with the news of a bereavement straight off.”

When I was a child I loved strolling to the neighborhood grocery store hand in hand with my mom. I used to read aloud to her all the signs we passed. We had to pass by a bar on the corner. The sign hanging above the door of the bar read, “Free beer tomorrow.” I remember reading that one yet again and thinking to myself: “It says tomorrow every day. Well, when is tomorrow?” I asked my mom and she laughed and replied, “It never comes.”

Tomorrow -- there is a word for it in every language and everyone uses it. Spaniards say “mañana” and Turks say “yarın.”

Some cultures use it more than others. If you tend to put things off as long as possible before finally doing it and if you like to look for excuses to avoid completing certain tasks, you might very well be a procrastinator. As a business owner, I have met a lot of procrastinators. If you have ever had any repairs or renovation work done you will know what I mean: “Yarın…”

I have also noticed that people like to delay doing things at work. Usually they say they forgot. Procrastination can really stunt your career growth and can even derail it in extreme cases.

Family coach Rita Emmett offers seminars on “Conquering Procrastination.” I don’t think such a course has been offered here yet. Maybe we could offer it, I hear you say. But no, maybe later: I would have to do some preparation for it and I could not start preparing before tomorrow!

Anyway, coach Rita begins by asking participants to clarify their own personal, specific procrastination pitfalls by writing out a list of 101 things that they’ve been meaning to do but never got around to. Making this list may take several days. You have to start before tomorrow!

Can you imagine walking around your workspace and through your home and looking in the cabinets and closets to see what you needed to do or sort? You may find things that need to be: checked out … changed … returned … removed … repaired … waxed … cleaned … put away … altered … organized … replaced … converted … moved … taken out … tossed out … remodeled … reorganized … washed … deleted … painted … finished … de-cluttered … purchased.

I did this exercise at the bookstore recently and decided afterwards that some of my Turkish staff don’t like to throw anything away. When I asked them about certain items and why they were there, they would reply that it might be needed some day.

One of my favorite films when I was young was “The Music Man.” It was one of the last great movie musicals. Actor Robert Preston made his musical debut as “Professor” Harold Hill, the upbeat charlatan who promises to teach a small-town boys band by the “think system.” Professor Hill convinces every mother to sign her son up for music lessons: “Don’t delay! The child may be a musical genius.” Hill was a great salesman who would not let people procrastinate. His philosophy was: “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”