Chapter 12

Allen finally discusses the topic of procrastination, and I can relate because I naturally am a pessimistic person so my mind does a lot of thinking down the line that tends to end in the worst outcomes.  This is probably linked with the fact that I worry so much, but it hinders me from moving forward!  For example, I know that I have a paper but I let the days pass and let the deadline creep closer and closer.  It is not that I forget about it for those days (it is actually at the back of my mind as something I have to do and hold onto ideas that come up), but I don’t start since I feel that I won’t be able to put my ideas together successfully.  Oftentimes, I wait till the deadline is very close because I feel the result would be the best I could have done with the time given, and I am forced to turn in what I have.  However, the smart thing to do for possibly getting the best result would be getting it done early to get feedback on it for improvement.  Being ahead is generally better than falling behind, but actually sitting down and starting tends to be one of the harder parts of a project.  As it says in the chapter, “those projects with distant goal lines are still to be done as soon as possible; ‘long-term’ simply means, ‘more action steps until it’s done.’ not ‘no need to decide next actions because the day of reckoning is so far away’“ (247).  Maybe thinking of the consequences of procrastination will scare me into starting projects sooner, because I know how bad it will be when a blow up does happen. 

I think Allen’s way of viewing “what’s truly impolite is allowing people to walk away from discussions unclear” is really effective when working with more individuals on a project (246).  If there are undecided actions, the progress toward completion becomes less efficient.  People won’t have a clear vision of how to complete their portion.  This helped me in a recent project, because each person really had to know their own part in order to form something that was cohesive.  We addressed almost every issue that we could think of that might come up once we went to do our own parts.  That way we each knew what to do and focus on our own task rather than having to manage confusion across multiple people.