Procrastination

The inspiration for this short entry comes from a post over at Centre Court Trading and in particular the phrase: “I lose focus every now and then and I still find it tough to shut out distractions when I’m in need of a new stimulus”.

The majority of people will, every once in a while, be asked to review their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps this will be in a job interview or a team ‘bonding’ session and for the most part it tends not to be taken too seriously. “I work too hard”, “I care too much”, “I’m too dedicated to my work”, “I’m happy to work overtime for free” etc etc. I’m guilty of it too although in my personal time I do like to do some self-reflection, most commonly in the form of a modified AAR. What have I achieved? What have I learned? What could I have done better? And what am I going to do differently next time? Well, seemingly like the Sultan, I definitely get distracted too easily and often find myself trying to focus on multiple things at once. Being a man, I don’t do this very well. However by far my biggest weakness is procrastination, and indeed I am an expert at it. In fact under “what am I strong at?” first on the list would be procrastinating. If I have to do it, I’ll probably find something (likely more arduous) else to do instead. Its a disease. Right now, I’m only writing this because I don’t want to dust and hoover before the football.

Its probably the biggest limit on my gambling profits. As I mentioned in the very first line of my first post I love watching and gambling on tennis but so often, as soon as I feel like I should be gambling on tennis I immediately find something else to do instead, read forums, watch tv, do house work, go for a run, you name it. I don’t try and fight it anymore because there’s no point in gambling whilst distracted. This is the reason the whole “should I gamble full-time?” debate largely passes me by. The fact that I probably couldn’t earn enough doing it is a secondary issue.

Tomorrow I’m off to the races for the first time in my life. I hate horse-racing but it is what my company passes off for team bonding and at least there is free car parking. If anyone is at Salisbury races tomorrow I’ll be the guy not drinking, not gambling and not having fun.

Anyway, in order to avoid continuing to blog I’m going to go do some dishes.