Some addictions are more obvious than others. The longer I know a person, the easier it is to identify their addictions as I witness their repeat behaviours and how it affects them. I used to think of an addiction as something illicit, dark and dangerous. But over the years I’m noticing and learning that there are many forms of addiction and many things/behaviours to become addicted to that are totally accepted by our laws and the majority of our society. For example, it has recently been proven through standardized clinical trials that food is an addictive substance. Who knew? This edition of CBC’s The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti describes it nicely. I believe I may be one of those with a food addiction but I’m not sure. The reason I say that is because perhaps food is just a guise for my procrastination addiction. Or maybe I have more than one addiction!
It really isn’t funny but sometimes I have to laugh at my rational, tactics and the extent to which I will avoid doing what I don’t want to do. Today for example, I set aside the afternoon to read Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Juien Smith for a book review assignment for the Building Social Media Relationships course I am taking at McMaster’s Centre for Continuing Education. So it is now 4:14 and I haven’t even opened the book yet. Instead I have:
- Made lunch and ate it even though I wasn’t hungry yet but wanted to get it out of the way so I wouldn’t have to stop reading when I DID get hungry.
- Cleaned the kitchen sink; then the bathroom sink just because it is another sink and I may as well do both at the same time.
- Made a pot of soup with all the leftover food that was in the fridge so it would be ready for supper.
- Called my son to see if he wanted to join me for dinner.
- Because I already had the phone in hand, called the superintendent of my building about something the property manager had already addressed.
- Organized my recipe binder which I took out to inspire my soup creation.
- Worked on my blog which is not as overdue as my book report.
- Organized my electronic files on my new 2T external hard drive which were scattered among a multitude of computers, thumb drives, CD’s and other external hard drives.
Today wasn’t even a bad day. At lease I did SOME homework which was closely related to my intended task. And can you see the pattern with food and why I’m not sure if it is a food addiction or a procrastination addiction I’m dealing with? Half of the items on my list were related or indirectly related to food. On a bad day (and before my 30 Day No Sugar Challenge) I would have made 3 or 4 recipes (I live alone BTW) presuming perhaps the next global disaster was about to occur and I will need all that food for survival. Because it is the fall and baked goods are amazing this time of year, half would have been some sort of sweet bread and/or dessert.
At times it has come in handy to procrastinate, which doesn’t help me overcome the problem. For example if I procrastinate doing a job long enough at work that is very boring, the project gets dropped (not because of my procrastination though) so I’ve saved some very valuable time by not having done it, and allowing me to accomplished a bunch of other things I’d rather do which in turn keeps me happy :). Another example is that I tend to do a bunch of other chores to rationalize why I’m not doing the thing I don’t want to do. At least I’m getting something productive done.
So now, seeing as I’m on the topic, I will likely procrastinate even more to do a bit of research about procrastination addictions on some of these websites.
Overcoming Procrastination/Chronic Procrastination
And yes I’ll have to face it, I’m sometimes even Addicted to Love Oh yeah! Sing it Robert
Creating a Positive Lifestyle 
So true about procrastinating! I think we all do it to some degree but at least you are getting important things done while you procrastinate.