Until I was 40 years of age I used to procrastinate all the time. My preferred way of doing this was to use what I can safely call now the TPOT method. TPOT stood for “There’s Plenty Of Time” and was my way of convincing myself that there was no need to hurry, as there was always another day when the necessary work could be performed.

Making repairs in the house, weeding the garden, and writing computer programs for the company I worked for could all be placed in the TPOT. Either TEA (Topics Expecting Actions) or BAGS (Basic Assignments Generating Solutions) would be placed in the TPOT along with HOTWATER (Heavy Office Tasks/ Work Activities That Expect Replies). This mixture of ingredients would be held inside the TPOT until they all STEWED (So That’s Expected When Exactly? Directly?). Oh no! I now had to address the problem with little or no time to do my best work. Emergency repairs had to be made to the dishwasher, the weeds had to be hacked with a scythe, and computer code written in the small hours of the morning. None of this made me very popular. As I matured in years, I gradually realised that the TPOT method just caused problems to brew. It took some swallowing when I realised that I could have completed my work a whole lot better, if I had simply not procrastinated at all.

To sum things up, I have found that prompt action yields BEER (Better Efforts, Effective Results).  

If you enjoyed this work, here are three links to my work online:

http://www.intheknowtraveler.com/archives/2323
http://www.gonomad.com/reflections/0806/iran-conversation.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070818.BLOG18/TPStory/specialTravel