I must confess I am a procrastinator. It is such a bad thing, and I don't even remember when I became one. 15 years ago I was obsessively keeping my tasks ahead of schedule, but meanwhile I became a big procrastinator. I know the theory, and I know the self-help tips. As we all know there are times when knowledge and performance are at odds. Knowing what I am supposed to do, or at least what I should do, does not make me do it!I submit papers and projects the day of the deadline, I respond e-mails at last minute, I do shopping when my fridge is almost empty, and I read books on other topics than I must read for my research project. I kind of like to work under pressure. Then what I do is to fill my calendar with projects and deadlines. Resulting only in a overload that will only perpetuate the procrastination and run into last minute deadline submissions.
Yes, I know I should plan and manage my schedule and take from the load and leave some open spaces. Perhaps writing into my calendar all the little notes I stick to my computer would be a good start. Just to not have the impression my schedule is not as loaded, when in fact the load is split in two parts: one is in my calendar the other is on little Post-it notes on my computer at home. Organizing and selecting. Classifying into emergent and important tasks. Make notes before the deadline that the deadline is approaching, like little signs on the road that a major Exit is approaching on the highway. And most of all setting time for "doing nothing." Time to relax. With all the pressure and deadlines I will take time to play with Taylor, so why should I not put that in my calendar, that is "program" also.
There are tons of books and articles and even a special web site for procrastinators where we can buy T-shirts. Ok, now back to wrok :-)