Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
Procrastination Doesn’t Pay
Well, dear friends, it pains me to write this – since I know many of you are deep in your taxes – but I have just had the truest vacation. I’m relaxed and happy, having returned from a perfect spring break that was my best ever; we were completely off the grid, without phone, email, and T.V., that modern day version of Cerberus. It was just sand, ocean and the sounds of the birds to wake us in the morning.
What, you say? How can the Perfect Daughter really relax without organizing something? The truth of it is that I organize and plan so that I can have time for my family and myself. Big, whole blocks of nothing! Fantastic vacations don’t just happen. One has to make them happen. Much of my enjoyment was because I left a clear desk: Taxes – done; Camp registration- finished, E-mails- answered. (A sense of humility helped. As much as I love when my clients say that can’t live without me, no one has died in my absence.)
So that’s me. How about you? Do you procrastinate and fail to plan for the inevitable? Very few of us really truly work best under pressure. Some deadlines are true – like, um….tax day — whereas others can be fudged a bit and forgiven. In today’s very scheduled world, I see it more and more that people play chicken with deadlines and I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t work.
Consider yesterday’s client: she had gotten behind on paying her bills, not from lack of money or moral failing, but from lack of organization. So she paid them but we were faced with untangling the confusion wrought by that, admittedly minor, lapse. She had received all the late notices, and we had to spend a few minutes on each one with her check log and a calculator trying to find out what was actually owed on each bill.
Waste of time… not to mention late fees!
Then, there was the client who missed the early-bird deadline to register his kids for camp at a discount. He got the registration in a few days late and then spent a half-hour on the phone pleading with the camp director to give him the discount. Yes, he did eventually get it, but what a hassle. One has to wonder if the camp director is going to remember this interaction every time she sees those children. Better to have gotten it in on time.
Worst of all, the couple who lost one day of their spring break after getting ticketed for having an expired car registration. Road trip to see Grandma in Pennsylvania- postponed! Sorry, kids! Sorry, Mom.
So what’s to be done? If you aren’t on time or organized, the handy thing to do is auto-pay. There’s even an app to help with bills! At a minimum, set up a monthly calendar reminder made from a checklist to see that bills are being paid on time and deadlines met. And armed with that, you will have a better understanding of your bills and budget and who knows where that will lead you? I hope, dear friends, to a beautiful sandy beach with the sound of wind and waves.
By the way, you still have 24 hours- so you can still get those taxes in on time!