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4/6/2000
Get
It Together
-
by Liz Kelley Kerstens, CGRS
This
columns is posted on the Clooz.com Web site with
permission of
MyFamily.com. The
column was originally posted on the Ancestry.com
Web site.
The Deadly P’s:
Procrastination and Perfectionism
To procrastinate is to "put
off intentionally and habitually." In my lectures on
organizing and time management, I frequently talk about
procrastination because I have found it to be a large
factor in the progress people make toward getting
organized. This fact was brought home to me this past
weekend when I was vending at a genealogy book fair.
Several current Clooz customers came up to me and said
they have my software but haven’t installed it yet, or
have installed it but haven’t used it yet. When I asked
them why, they usually replied that the whole process of
organizing was too overwhelming to even begin.
This is an overt sign of
procrastination, but a less obvious sign of perfectionism.
Perfectionism in this context is "a disposition to
regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable."
Perfectionism can actually lead to procrastination. In the
example of the Clooz customers above, these people are
looking at the entire problem and finding the solution
unattainable. When that happens, it becomes easier to
avoid the problem entirely than to tackle it in bits and
chunks.
If you’re looking at an
organizing nightmare and your stress level is mounting,
isolate one corner or one stack of paper or one closet
that can be tackled. Remember, you didn’t get this
disorganized overnight, and you’re not going to suddenly
become organized overnight. So what’s the rush? If you
can learn to tackle small portions of tasks at a time, you
will be able to make progress. If you continue to see the
whole picture and get overwhelmed with the task, you’ll
continue to procrastinate.
Procrastination can lead to
undesirable results. For instance, if you’re not in the
habit of making regular backups of your computer files,
the first time your hard drive crashes, you’ll learn
about the undesirable side of procrastination. If you only
keep copies of your genealogy information in your house
and haven’t shared it with anyone yet, when you have
some sort of catastrophe such as a flood or fire, that
procrastination beast will be paying a house call.
Sometimes it’s hard to
recognize procrastination and perfectionism in ourselves.
You can tell if you have perfectionist leanings if you:
- Won’t start a project if you
don’t think you have enough time to complete it;
- Won’t start a project if you
don’t have all of the necessary supplies;
- Won’t start a project before
thoroughly researching every possible way to
accomplish the project.
You can tell if you are a
procrastinator in any number of ways, but generally if
you:
- Allow piles of paper to grow
in your home or office;
- Don’t respond to e-mails and
letters in a reasonable amount of time;
- Delay important projects for
more easily accomplished tasks.
If you recognize yourself in
either or both of these lists, it’s OK. There is hope! I
recommend that you allow yourself to work on little
projects that will work toward bigger projects. Accomplish
tasks in chunks and you’ll not only see progress, you’ll
feel great about your progress! If you only have 10
minutes, you can go file some papers, but you don’t have
to file the whole stack.
Remember, progress rather than
perfection!
Elizabeth Kelley
Kerstens, CGRS,
is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing,
editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists’
newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the
electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a
frequent contributor to Ancestry. She can be
reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com.
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