In our case, it wasn’t an issue of procrastination, it was an issue of “is it too late?” We hadn’t communicated clearly about what our deadline was for this task, and to me, “We didn’t do it” meant that we had missed the deadline, but “We haven’t done it yet” meant that it wasn’t too late. Sure, if your tasks have no explicit deadlines and a not-so-high priority, they might not get done for a long time.

But yeah, I of course agree that it’s good to keep your word and to hold to your commitments. I think I’m already on that bus. *checks her ticket*

My husband promised me he’d clean up the left side of the bed. (Where he dumped a bunch a crap when he moved in.) Every other month or so I’d be all “Yo, left side of the bed?” And he’d tell me “I’m working on it” or “I’ll get to it”, and I’d leave it at that because I didn’t want to be all naggy.

…until a YEAR LATER, I finally LOST IT. Lo and behold, he had it cleaned up and put away in under an hour.

When I asked him what the deal was, he just said he hadn’t not done it and that he meant to do it, which meant that he knew he needed to do it and so it was on his list of things to do but never had enough priority to him to get it done.

What it came down to was an issue of priorities. It was never high on his priorities until I lost my mind, which moved it IMMEDIATELY to priority #1.

Anyway, I know you’re a fan of Steve Pavlina’s so I’ll pretend he said this. Don’t commit to doing something unless you are absolutely 100% going to make it happen. That way people can trust you when you say something and the Universe takes your word as law.

Anyway, you’re totally literal, so you don’t think you haven’t ‘gone back on your word’. But you can “I haven’t yet” yourself to the grave. Just think about it is all I’m saying.