At least if you are a procrastinator, it's always the season. It's usually almost past the season before you get the motivation to do something about it. You may not be a procrastinator, but I'm sure you know one. That would be the person who is always late getting something done, always has an excuse, is always sorry, but never changes. In my family there are two of us. I will admit that I am one of them, but I always have a good reason! My son makes no excuses for himself. He doesn't own a watch or a calendar and usually doesn't care what day of the week it is. The other two members of my family thrive on clocks, calendars and schedules and always have things done early. I can't imagine what that says about them.

I decided to look for information on what makes me procrastinate and what I could do to stop. I thought that self-help books on procrastination would be the best way to begin. I didn't find too many, but one I did find covered the topic very well. The Tomorrow Trap by Karen Peterson identified two types of procrastination, one related to tasks and one related to people. Many people apparently can display both types at the same time. This book is for people with serious issues and covers compulsive behavior and psychological and health related issues which all derive from procrastination. Maybe a little too in depth for someone like me. My issues include things like conveniently forgetting to call the dentist for 3 days in a row.

If procrastination has left you living in a disorganized disaster zone or maybe it's the other way around, there are two good books at NPL to help you organize that disaster. Simplify your life by Marcia Ramsland, a professional organizer, will give you advice for organizing and uncluttering every aspect of your daily life. Getting organized by Stephanie Winston includes organizing your work life as well as your personal life. In one section of her book, procrastination is listed as an efficiency saboteur, and steps are given for making a huge task more managable and less likely to inspire the urge to procrastinate.

After the self-help books, I decided to look on the web to see if there was more help to be found. I discovered an article from Psychology Today discussing ten things you should know about procrastination. The Writing Center from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a handout on line which deals with procrastination when writing . Many of their suggestions could be applied to procrastination in life in general.

Sadly enough, I started out with the idea of making fun of procrastination and myself for being one of those people whose motto is "never do today what you can put off until tomorrow". Well, I've learned that procrastination is not a joke, and not an easy fix!