The problem with procrastination is that the true cost is far greater than any external consequence of the delay.
For example, I don’t know who has been waiting with ‘baited breath’ for a copy of the score to my first opera, Abinadi (based on the story from The Book of Mormon), but someone asked me where they could obtain a copy a few weeks ago. This brought up the fact that for the last 7+ years I have been procrastinating putting in the revisions I made to the score while it was undergoing its production at BYU under the directorship of Lawrence Vincent (revisions that were clearly marked on my personal copy of the score).
Over the years I have blown this project up in my mind to one of gargantuan proportions. Every time I looked at the directory that contains the files to my opera, I felt a growing pang of guilt, frustration and hopelessness. It seemed like an impossible task and has caused me much, much misery. This is the true cost of putting things off.
I knew that when I started my ‘complete or delete’ project at the beginning of the year that there would be no deleting when it came to my first opera. I put it off for over a month, getting in a number of smaller score releases. Tension was mounting. Finally, I pulled out my copy of the score and a DVD of the BYU production and went through it, listening and comparing it to the score. Though I did have to rewind a couple of times, it took about two hours. What did I discover? Wow, there’s really not much that needs to be done!
Today, I sat down with the score and, laptop on lap, made the revisions in my easy chair. This took all of about 3 or 4 hours!
Years of agonizing, having a project loom over me, all for what amounts to one day’s amount of work! This is the cost of procrastination!
So stop it. Right now you’ve got something you’ve been putting off for weeks (months, years) that you know that you’re never going to give up on or release yourself from. Forgo the future agony. Just do it.
