Don't Let 'Tomorrow' Ruin Your Business Today

Back in the days when I was employed by a corporation, trading hours for dollars and slaving away my existence, we used to have a phrase around the office. When you think about it, it was the ultimate "employee mentality" in the worst form. In fact, it was evidence of a deadly disease, corroding our very souls, and oozing out of our intellects, infecting everyone we came in contact with. The phrase we proudly (if not ignorantly) spouted was this: "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?"

Do you feel it? Did your skin crawl when you read that? Did the hair on the back of your neck stand up? Did your blood boil a little, and did you just want to shout, "NO!" and set me back to task?

If not, you, too, may be infected with this malady.

It is not uncommon. In fact, if you look closely I bet you will see the devastation of this despicable disorder everywhere you look! The indications of this infectious illness are all around us. The neighbor's yard piled high with junk and overgrown with weeds. Your coworker's office with papers everywhere. Your child's incomplete book report, the book only half read. And heaven forbid that I talk about the pot belly I have noticed that you have added in the five years since you last visited the gym. And all of these things crying out to be dealt with and completed ... QUICK!

But our universal condition often gets the best of us. Let's just call it what it is. We PROCRASTINATE. "I don't need to do it now, I can do it later. There is always tomorrow." Besides, we have better things to do, right? We have places to go, people to see, things to do. We're so busy. The kids have practice, the boss has yet another project, the TV has reruns!

And so, we go from day to day managing our lives on the perception that 'someday' we'll get to that. Someday I will learn to play the oboe. Someday I'll take my kids to the park they love to go to. Someday I will start my own business. And most of the time we manage a series of minor crises in our lives because we wait and wait until the last possible minute, and then hurry to complete what we should have started hours, or days, perhaps even weeks or months ago, all the while justifying it to ourselves by saying, "I work better under pressure." (The Zoloft prescription helps a little, too.)

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