The Purchase Price of Procrastination

An insidious problem. A pervasive condition. A preventable crisis. PROCRASTINATION, as it turns out, is one of the most expensive, yet invisible costs to both individuals and companies worldwide. A study by Salary.com of 10,000 people reported the average employee wastes 2.09 hours each day at work on these 5 activities.

Top 5 Time Wasting Activities (%)

Surfing Internet (personal use) 44.7%
Socializing with co-workers 23.4%
Conducting personal business 6.8%
Spacing out 3.9%
Running errands off-premises 3.1%

The Average salaried employee in the US makes $39,795 per year which translates to costing a company approximately $10,396 per year per employee. So if you’re a business owner here is the question: how many employees do you have?

If you’re an employee you should care because imagine what benefits could be offered to you without this cost. And also it should tell you that by eliminating those 5 activities from your schedule you should outperform your colleagues by 20-25%. That margin of separation has to increase your likelihood of promotion and/or pay increases.

What if you’re a salesperson, though? I pulled out my calculator and did the math. If a target compensation for a commissioned salesperson is $79,590 per year then that comes out to $38.26 per hour (using the same ratio that was used in the study). Which means a couple hours a day of procrastination (or creative avoidance) costs that salesperson around $20,792 per year in personal income!

That same $20,792 if invested for 30 years at 12% would grow to equal $622,927. If invested for 40 years it becomes $1,934,716!!!!

Is it worth that much money to you to procrastinate today?

This is a perfect example of the pain paradox that states “tasks or decisions that are difficult in the short term tend to have very large long term payoffs while tasks or decisions that are easy to engage in the short term tend to have very large long term consequences.” If you’re a salesperson, getting your act together for one short year and investing that extra money is a pretty big deal. So it might just payoff for us to PROCRASTINATE TOMORROW!

Maybe you’re skeptical of studies; maybe you think this is exaggerated (it’s not) but we all still have to ask ourselves is it possible that this imperceptible problem is taking money out of our pockets?

I believe it is.

And the solution isn’t more tools, extra training, higher pay, better people, newer products or fresher markets. The solution is self-discipline. It’s not a skill problem; it’s a WILL problem. It’s not an issue of employee motivation; it’s a matter of employee MINDSET. It’s not just a problem of time-management it’s a problem of SELF-MANAGEMENT. We’re not just losing to a poor economy; we’re losing to a lack of SELF-DISCIPLINE.

So here are my two questions for you. First, when we do procrastinate-what causes it? And second, what are the cures for procrastination? I’d love to hear some more thoughts from everyone.

P.S. If you’re a meeting planner it pays to book Rory to speak. If he motivates just 1 person in your audience to get their act together for just 1 year it more than covers his fee. OR if he just gets most of your audience to get their act together for just 1 week (depending on the size of the audience) you get a multiple return on your investment. Book Rory here www.roryvaden.com

http://www.SpeakerBlogger.com Arlen Busenitz

Nice tangible way of showing the consequences of procrastination.

Do you think that some of these activities (socializing) can actually boost productivity? The socializing creates relationships and a team spirit. However, this needs to be limited.
ChrisA

I’m procrastinating as I write this. I’m at work and reading your website when I should be doing work instead. So, I ask myself – why am I doing this?

Have you considered the impact of being dissatisfied with your job as it contributes to wasting time at work? When I’ve been motivated and happy at work, I have been more focused and work harder, so I naturally spend less time wasting time. But lately, my company has not been motivating me, so I waste more time because I’m not enjoying my work.

Allowing people to have more control in their work environment, make more decisions, and have less bureaucracy to deal with – these are strong contributors to my personal job satisfaction, which drives less time wasting activity.

Self discipline is definitely part of it, but when the work environment is unpleasant, I “choose” to be undisciplined as their is no benefit in acting otherwise.
http://www.takethestairsspeaker.com takethestairs

Well I’m not sure about boosting productivity but possibly boosting morale. Either way it definitely should be limited but the catch is still realizing how much it costs us. Almost like it’d be better to just get our work done and head home and socialize there.

I work from home intentionally because I’m several times more productive. I guess it’s up to the individual to figure out how much socializing is worth to him or her. Most often though my experience has been that socializing is more of a form of creative avoidance than a strategy for effectiveness but you raise a good point Arlen. Rock on buddy.
http://www.takethestairsspeaker.com takethestairs

Hey Chris, good question my friend. Kind of an ironic position you’re in as you’re commenting.

Most of my work and writing is focused around helping people do things they want to do and know they should do even when they don’t feel like doing it. So I guess inherently you’re challenge is altogether different if you’re doing it intentionally. Certainly I can see how job dissatisfaction would result in a lack of motivation for accomplishing tasks (in fact when I work with managers we talk about addressing some of the very issues you listed out).

Procrastinators typically tend to delay based on the idea that they want their work to be so perfect that they can’t ever get started because they never have a perfect plan, perfect skill, or perfect time.

And actually the procrastination I work on is in-deliberate by definition so not sure you qualify as a true procrastinator. Unless perhaps you feel there is a need for you to talk with your managers about changing some of the “bureaucratic restraints” and you are avoiding that or if you believe you should move onto a different position but you are putting off looking. In that case you’d be putting off something you really want to be doing but aren’t because of the perceived pain associated with it.

Great managers always seem to work to remove barriers and increase job satisfaction and conditions for their employees so perhaps you’re supervisors would be willing to partner up with you to change things. The list of items you described (allowing more control, decision making, etc) are things that I cover in my program “Leaders Take the Stairs – Creating a Culture of Discipline” and what you’ve written sure validates some of our other research about what causes employees to perform at a high level. Hopefully that message about what you’d like to see gets to your higher-ups some way or another.

What I would say to you personally though is that attitude, as you said, is choosing the way you view things. And in most cases waiting for your “company to motivate you” doesn’t usually work out so well. The happiest and most successful people I’ve seen seemed to discover early on is that they don’t leave it up to be anybody’s job to motivate them or make them happy-because it will never come. Rather, they take ownership of choosing to be happy first, which naturally causes them to “do” things to make them happy (whether it’s making changes to make the situation better or just “falling in love with the daily grind” to quote one of the richest people I’ve ever met) and then the bi-product of their action is a situation that is indeed happier to be in.

Unfortunately most of our “bosses” or “businesses” don’t know what would make us happy and even if they did they don’t always care. So being in charge of your own motivation is usually the best bet. Obviously you have the self-insight and self-management to monitor your own states and to know that you are making your own choices as reflected in your response above. I feel for you my friend; never an easy situation to pay the price when you don’t see the payoff.

My best advice is to decide to be motivated and make the changes necessary to support that decision- either in changing your attitude about your circumstances in your situation, doing what you can to change circumstances in your situation, or changing your situation altogether. We all are a part of creating our own work environment.

All the best. Hope to hear from you about what happens. Thanks for your post.
http://www.thegetintentionalmovement.com Ryan Jenkins

Solid stuff Rory!

I agree with ChrisA and I liked your response. Ultimately, it is up to us to be happy in our jobs but managers/leaders have such a great opportunity to cast vision that promotes more meaning in the workplace.

Procrastination births from boredom, irrelevance or the lack of clarity. So I think you can trump those by playing to your strengths on a daily basis and in a role/position/business that you find meaningful. Easier said than done but we are all capable of getting there.

Just my 2 cents.
Thanks for the insight!!
http://www.takethestairsspeaker.com takethestairs

Nice Ryan. I love this line:
Procrastination births from boredom, irrelevance, or lack of clarity!

Well said.
Pingback: What Is The #1 Real Tool To Stop Procrastinating? « Act To Be
Rick Rodriguez

Rory,
I’m surprised that the biggest reason for procrastination in my life, hasn’t been mentioned yet. That reason is fear. When I had a job with a guaranteed salary, the fear of going back to a place where everyone hated my guts (I was paid to be the company enforcer, catching people who were doctoring company records to hide their mistakes), caused me to put on extra weight, because I would take 90 minute lunch breaks, eating whether I was hungry or not, just to delay the moment that I would have to go back to work.
For the past two years, I’ve been on a pure commission basis – and have now been wrestling with fear of cold-calling, caused by fear of rejection and failure. My current way of procrastinating is to find myself doing things that seem like “work” – but in fact aren’t revenue-producing, and could be done before or after regular business hours – and yes, responding to your email in this fashion may qualify.
One way I’ve started fighting this form of procrastination – and sometimes it works, other times not – is to say to myself something along the lines of “By this time tomorrow, I will have made at least 10 cold calls – and even if nothing but rudeness comes from all of them, I will have survived” – and the knowledge that this is a reasonably true statement – knowing this, because I’ve done it before and survived – will sometimes get me moving again.
I hope this note of mine might help someone else sometime. I have to get back to generating income now. Take care.

Rick Rodriguez
TheDon

ChrisA,
I think I may be too old for this forum. Never have I thought that it was my employer’s job to provide for my satisfaction in my job or in my life. As a life long sales guy, it is up to me to find my fulfillment and to find ways to make work fun. As soon as you look outside of yourself to find these things, you are looking in the wrong place.
Have you ever contemplated the idea that you are not fulfilled because you are not fulfilling the requirements of your job. The idea that I am not going to work hard because someone hurt my feelings perpetuates downward cycle of negativity that will surely end in dismissal. You know if you are not doing a good job and it affects your attitude.
Be that “bright” person (personality and intelligent) that people look to for motivation. You’ll find that the “hurt feelings” go away. You’ll get promoted and be able to change your company for the better.

Go get Tiger!!!