The Waiting Game

I booked my restricted driver license test today. About jolly time too; legally I could've taken it almost five years ago. But what with one thing and another I never got around to getting the practice I needed in order to pass it - really, I just kept putting it off. Now though I'm beginning to feel the pinch of not being able to drive a car, and have finally shifted my A into G and got rolling. Then I'll have to remember to not put off a defensive driving course (which chops six months off the mandatory waiting period between restricted and full).

Procrastination is a funny thing: you know that you have to get thisorthat done, but it's so much easier to do it tomorrow than start today. The problem is that the old saying is quite true: Tomorrow never comes. In the end you generally have to expend much more effort and energy, you are more inconvenienced, (and more stressed of course) than if you just did it ahead of time. It's not all bad though. Some people (myself included) work best under pressure, and produce their finest work when shoved into a corner. Give these people space, time and no set schedule, and they'll fritter away these extra resources until crunch moment. It's very hard to help them, and perhaps it's best not too: maybe they were made to be like that. I have a suspicion though that at least some of it comes from a lack of discipline and motivation. AKA Laziness. I don't want to do it now (or anytime in the future, for that matter) but when I have to I suppose I will.

Oddly enough, the issue of whether or not the 'put-it-off-till-the-last-moment' strategy is a good one tends to be as hotly contended a subject at dinner tables as religion or politics. Idealist: Procrastination is lazy. Pragmatist: Procrastination works for me. Wholistic Realist: Go for it if it's your thing, but if you fail remember: you dunnit to yourself.