Page 59 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com

25 IT’S NOT A GOD TIME

Franklin actually wants us to reverse the rot and do tomorrow’s work
today. At least that’s what he says: ‘Have you somewhat to do tomorrow,
do it today’…

That sounds a bit ambitious—until you consider that really it’s a sneaky
way of Franklin making his point about procrastination again in a slightly
different way. By exhorting us to take on tomorrow’s work today he’s really
just trying to strike back at the way work tends to get mugged by that
mañana spirit.

DEFINING IDEA…
Procrastination Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.
~ VICTOR KIAM, THE MAN WHO LIKED THE RAZOR SO MUCH HE BOUGHT THE

COMPANY

It’s particularly unfair that we opt for a Spanish word to portray
procrastination since it’s pretty much a way of life for most of us. In fact
in our household I don’t think I would ever get round to doing the washing
up if it wasn’t for the occasional writing deadline. Let’s say the washing up
is all done, however; you’ve polished the windows, done the ironing and
cleaned the mouthpiece of the phone handset. You’re running out of things
to do and there is that sneaking suspicion that you might be putting
something off. Now is time to try to figure out why.

The most likely reason is that the job in question is one you don’t want to
do. It might be hard, it might be scary, but whatever it is you’d rather see
if somebody else could make the bad thing go away. That’s natural enough,
but instead of waiting and hoping you have to either decide if you’re just
being work-shy or whether the putting off is down to a fear that the task is
too big to handle. In which case, don’t wait for someone to make it go
away; either hire someone to do the job or delegate it to someone else.

First, be honest with yourself about the difference between a genuine
decision to delay doing something (because conditions will be more