From Wikipedia (what would we do without Google and Wikipedia!!??)
– The act of replacing high-priority actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time.
– There are three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying
– To voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay.
– Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder. Such procrastinators may have difficulty seeking support due to social stigma, and the belief that task-aversion is caused by laziness, low willpower or low ambition.
This made me laugh:
My latest form of procrastination: googling the term ‘procrastination’ instead of editing my story.
I have a whole 4 pages to go until I have completed this round of editing of my novel. A couple of thousand words I suppose, at most – Ha not even that! A quick word count shows there is 1,262 words and I will be at the end, ready to put it aside to rest a while, so I can work on something else. So why am I not getting in and finishing it? Because I don’t like what’s happening at the moment – it’s not right – I have to change something. I think the ending has come too soon – the novel works towards a battle, and it’s over in a few pages. Surely there needs to be more, otherwise isn’t it a bit of an anti climax?? Perhaps I should leave it up to my beta-readers to tell me what they think? Probably…
So I probably should get back to it and stop all this procrastinating!
Heather Ewings 