When Later Never Arrives

Does this ever happen to you? Maybe you drop a sock out of your basket of clean laundry as you’re taking the basket to the bedroom and you think, “I’ll get that later.” Or perhaps you put a dish in the sink and tell yourself you’ll wash it later. It could be you apply later to paying a bill, returning a phone call, or filing papers.

The question in many of these examples is, what would make it easier later? (Other than not having your hands full with the laundry basket.)

I used to teach a class called “Getting Organized for Non-Linear Thinkers.” Some of you may have taken the class. To exemplify the “later” problem, I’d drop a pen and say, “I’ll pick that up later.” As it would take almost no time to bend over and pick it up right then, and I certainly had no plans to be sitting on the floor closer to the pen in the future, the question becomes: When would later actually be?

The problem with “later” is that it has no real meaning. It can be after you put down the laundry, 30 minutes before the deadline, or never. So, at those decision points ask yourself, “is later really the better choice?” It could be. You have constraints on your time and resources, not everything can be done right now.

However, if later is better, schedule the task to define when later will actually arrive.

-Sydney Metrick