Procrastinating 101: Lateness as an Evasive Move

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Procrastinating 101 again.  (Funny how nearly two years into this little online seminar, we're still at the survey level, the introductory 101.  But then we are still accommodating late arrivals.  And some of us--ahem--are still working on basic knowledge and skills, even after all this time.) 

This week, we are focusing on "Cure Seven:  Respect Yourself," in Diana DeLonzor's prescriptive Never Be Late Again:  7 Cures for the Punctually Challenged.  Theoretically, if we have been employing DeLonzor's good advice, we should be nearly cured by now.  I suspect, however, that some cases may prove a bit more intransigent.

The current chapter paints a portrait of The Evader latenik which many of us will recognize.  Ms. DeLonzor tells us this kind of problem with showing up on time is really all about low self-esteem, which can contribute to punctuality difficulties in one of three main ways:

• When you suffer from low self-esteem, you tend to expect less of yourself.  Because of those low expectations, you may set lower standards for the way in which you live your life.  Chronic lateness, unreliability, and procrastination can be part of those lower-than-normal standards.

• Low self-esteem can cause feelings of anxiety or depression, prompting you to engage in the type of actions I refer to [as] the "evader syndrome," in an effort to relieve that anxiety.  The urge to soothe yourself can take priority over being on time.

• Low self-esteem can cause you to fear success or failure and to engage in what is known as "self-handicapping."

No self-assessment quiz this week.  I guess we're expected to "know it when we see it."  Though I would venture to say that I know lots of people whose self-esteem is low enough that they would compliantly apply virtually any negative label to their own behavior, but who are not, in my view, especially prone to lateness.

DeLonzor advises this five-pronged strategy for improving the condition--evasive lateness--if it indeed inflicts us. 

• Expect more from yourself--do what you know is right.
• Learn to manage your anxiety.
• Overcome fear of sucess or failure by challenging yourself.
• Do something you love.
• Build and maintain friendships and family ties.

As we have come to expect, Ms. DeLonzor presents a series of "exercises" which she says will help us begin to improve our self-esteem, and to change the lateness behaviors that stem from its less than ideal state.  I can already give myself credit for having practiced one of them religiously for years, though in isolation it has not yet had the effect of making me more punctual.  Here's how she describes it:

Let go of perfectionism.  Every day for the next week [or for several years] practice leaving the house or office without making things perfect.  You might leave the bed unmade or your desk in a mess [or the entire place looking like a cyclone has hit it].  Notice how it feels to "chill out" and let things go.  You'll probably find it liberating.  [I don't.]

 So, one down.  What else can I do to effect this "cure?"  Oh, yeah.  The exercise that would have us doing something courageous, something outside our oft-noted "comfort zone."  Like oh, say, competing in a triathlon, or two?  Been there, done that, still late for too many important things--though not for the race.

In fact, as I look over DeLonzor's list of 13 exercises, designed to help us begin to implement her five-pronged approach to a cure for low-self-esteem-based lateness,  I see that I have been doing much of what she suggests--recognizing negative self-talk; replacing it with positive self-talk; identifying my purpose and setting short-term goals related to it; nurturing relationships with family and friends.  Perhaps the difficulty is that I haven't been specifically targeting lateness.  DeLonzor does concede that some of us may have gotten to a point in life where our self-esteem level is fairly reasonable, but we may retain some residual habits and patterns which originated with since-resolved self-esteem issues. 

At this point in our reading of DeLonzor's book, we have run through all seven of the promised cures.  And I am coming to the conclusion that my lateness problem may have been caused originally by nearly all of the syndromes and character defects she outlines.  But the real difficulty is the habit of lateness that is deeply ingrained in me.  I believe that "treating" or "curing" whatever may have caused my lateness in the first place will not be enough to make me on time.  I need to change my habits.

But Ms. DeLonzor is one step ahead of me.  Next week's chapter:  "A Few Words on Habit Changing."

Procrastinating 101: Do You See Yourself in This Picture?

Chapter 1 of Dr. Piers Steel's new book, The Procrastination Equation, our featured resource on Procrastinating 101 for the next several weeks, busts a myth many of us hold to about why we procrastinate.

Considering the research on the relationship between perfectionism and procrastination, Dr. Steel finds little support for the widely held notion that our impossibly high standards make us late--in starting, in progressing, and in finishing things.  The perfectionist identity is worn as a badge by some of us, seeking to console ourselves for our perpetual dawdling.  Apparently, it is most often a sham.

Instead, we are going to have to grapple with the reality that it is poor impulse control--that scourge of the school child afflicted with ADHD, who is, in turn, the scourge of the classroom teacher--that is generally the culprit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  And of Dr. Steel's  elegant organizational structure.

Like any good academic, Steel starts from a definition of his subject.  Procrastination, he says, is "not just any delay but an irrational one."

I especially enjoyed reading that procrastination

isn't a question of laziness, although the two are easily confused.  Unlike the truly slothful, procrastinators want to do what they need to do--and usually do get around to it, but not without a lot of struggle.

And that

dillydallying is in part hereditary, . . . we are hardwired to delay.

I also warmed to this acknowledgement that delay can be sensible in some cases, as when, for example, there is a good chance of the task being changed or preempted:

The obsessive who completes every task at the first opportunity can be just as dysfunctional as the procrastinator who leaves everything to the last moment.  Neither one is scheduling time intelligently.

And to this, identifying the need for flexibility in the face of changing circumstances and shifting priorities:

Not everything can happen at once; it is in your choice of what to do now and what to delay that procrastination happens, not in delay itself.

As an aid to our understanding, Dr. Steel rides the self-assessment wave, like so many others writing about procrastination (and other bad habits and mental missteps that send us running to the self-help aisle).  He refers us to his website for the full test, but includes in this first chapter the Reader's Digest version of the instrument he uses to measure "irrational delay." 

My score?  31--which makes me an "average procrastinator."  (Which makes me think of the line from The Fantasticks I adopted as my adolescent mantra:  "Please, God, don't let me be normal!")  Just barely, though.  One more point, and I would have made the top 10-25%.

Steel goes on to describe a typical procrastination scenario--so well, in fact, that it made me start to sweat.  He urges his readers to put the following three questions to ourselves concerning our most recent "bout of procrastination":

·       Did you know the task was going to take so long? 

·       Did you realize that the consequences of being late were so dire? 

·       Could you have expected the last-minute emergency?

According to Steel, 

The honest answers are likely yes, yup, and definitely. . .

(My most recent "bout" of procrastination involved putting off the completion of this blog post.  My honest answers?  Yes, not really, and okay, you got me.)

But, as in the ancient commercial for Clairol, it can be difficult for "the casual observer" to answer the question "Does she or doesn't she?"--in this case, referring not to dyeing one's hair, but to procrastinating.  And here it is not "her hairdresser," but "only the procrastinator" who "knows for sure."  Because it is "purposeful decision" which distinguishes a) that which we wisely postpone in favor of what matters more to us, from b) irrational, and thus procrastinating failure to get down to business.

As he winds up this first full chapter, Dr. Steel sketches in his "portrait of a procrastinator," relying on research findings.  He tells us that:

·       about 95 percent of people admit to procrastinating

·       about a quarter of these indicat[e] it is a chronic, defining characteristic

·       writers seem especially prone

·       procrastinators are more likely to be unemployed or working part-time

·       procrastinators can be of either sex, [but the male] has a slight edge

·       [procrastinators] are more likely to be single than married but also more likely to be separated than divorced

·       older people procrastinate less

His "psychological profile" of the garden-variety procrastinator, however, is where the rubber really meets the road in this chapter.  That "I'm a perfectionist, therefore I procrastinate" thing?  Busted.

Based on tens of thousands of participants--it's actually the best-researched topic in the entire procrastination field--perfectionism produces a negligible amount of procrastination.

And Dr. Steel's own research leads to the same conclusion:

neat, orderly, and efficient perfectionists don't tend to dillydally.  [the scientific term, apparently]

He says the proclivity of those perfectionists who do procrastinate to seek professional help has fed the belief that the two traits are related.  

But what's really going on, for most procrastinators, is that our inability to delay gratification makes us respond to task anxiety by procrastinating.  Us 

impulsive people find it difficult to plan work ahead of time and even after [we] start, [we] are easily distracted.  Procrastination inevitably follows.

In concluding Chapter 1, Dr. Steel outlines the rest of the book, promising hope for those of us plagued by "the overfull kitchen garbage can in the morning" and "the nearly empty tube of toothpaste at night."  

I love his ending sentence:

The advice here is evidence-based, as scientifically vetted and pharmaceutically pure as it gets; it's the good stuff from behind the counter, so don't overdo it.

Next week, Chapter 2:  "The Procrastination Equation:  The Result of Eight Hundred Studies Plus One."

Procrastinating 101--The Imperfect Perfectionist

 In Chapter 5 of his book Still Procrastinating?  The No-Regrets Guide to Getting it Done, Dr. Joseph Ferrari writes of "perfectionist procrastinators."  He tells us that "trying to maintain a sense of perfectionism causes procrastinators to delay or not finish a task. . . "

That description resonates with my many years of experience with both behaviors.

Ferrari goes on to cite his own research as support for his contention that procrastinator perfectionists differ from nonprocrastinator perfectionists in what motivates their respective perfectionisms.  And here, again, Dr. Ferrari does not present a very sympathetic view of procrastinators.

According to Ferrari, procrastinators' 

. . . perfectionist tendencies are a result of trying to present themselves as hard-working individuals.  To ingratiate themselves to others, procrastinators claim that they delay completing projects because they are motivated by perfectionism.  [emphasis mine]

And their perfectionism

is motivated by a desire to belong and be liked by others; they justify their procrastination by saying that delays will result in a better outcome.

For nonprocrastinators, Ferrari says,

perfectionism is motivated by a desire "to get ahead," to produce the best possible product, regardless of what others may think.  There is no strong need to please others and be known as a hard worker.

Is it just me, or is he saying that only nonprocrastinators are truly striving for perfection?

Ferrari has researched nearly every aspect of procrastination, as he theorizes it, in his twenty plus years of studying the subject.  He goes on, in this chapter, to report on a study in which he asked procrastinators and nonprocrastinators to judge a hypothetical worker who never turns work in on time.  Regardless of whether this nonexistent person labeled himself a perfectionist or a procrastinator, or did not label himself at all in discussing his late work products, both groups reacted negatively, and many in both groups said he should be fired.  Ferrari concludes that

no one likes procrastinators--so why be one?

So, to sum up:

• Perfection is a fiction.
• Procrastinators claim to be perfectionists so that others will like them.
• Others judge procrastinators harshly, whether or not they call themselves perfectionists.
• Nobody likes procrastinators anyway.

I am ready to concede the first point.  Perhaps the third.  But the other two seem to require leaps I am not prepared to make.

However, just when I was giving up on getting something useful from this chapter, Ferrari's last three paragraphs saved him, beginning with this one:

Perfectionism causes you to miss deadlines, be too picky, have difficulty making decisions, avoid commitments, lose opportunities, feel dissatisfied with life, be guarded in relationships, and constantly worry and ruminate.  You need to accept that life has time constraints, and it's reasonable to be "good enough," given the deadline and your other commitments.

Again, something that fits with my experience.  Though it doesn't necessarily fit with the framework of his chapter.  Unless, of course, the "you" in this paragraph refers only to us procrastinators, while other perfectionists--the good, nonprocrastinating perfectionists--are exempted.

I don't think I would be likely to consult Dr. Ferrari to help overcome my perfectionism, which I insist on maintaining is genuine.   But he does offer these valuable admonitions:

• Aim to achieve 80% of your goals.
• Do the best you can, "using the signature strengths you possess."
• See the positives.
• Remember, "We all will encounter failure in our lives, but we must nevertheless do what we can to improve the lives of others."

To Resolve or Not To Resolve?

Okay.  Here it is the 5th of January, and I still haven't decided whether I'm making New Year's resolutions--or not.  So what is that about?


Maybe a pros and cons list will help me figure this out.  I have come up with the following positive thoughts about New Year's Resolutions--hereinafter referred to as NYRs.


NYR Pros
1.  I've (almost) always made them, so they're part of my tradition.
2.  NYRs give focus to my efforts to improve myself and my life.
3.  NYRs are useful conversation fodder at this time of year.
4.  If I manage to keep all or most--or what the heck! even some--of them, NYRs can strengthen my good opinion of myself.
5.  The exercise of considering and choosing NYRs makes for some pretty deep reflection.


All good, yes?  So why wouldn't I make like a polar bear and take the plunge?  What's not to love about NYRs?


NYR Cons
1.  I've (almost) always made them, so they're part of my tradition.  (Not so obviously a good thing.)
2.  NYRs can limit my focus, and concentrate my efforts too narrowly.
3.  As an NYR agnostic, I believe that my human mind is too small to know with certainty that NYRs have anything to do with outcomes, or with the quality of my life in the year ahead.
4.  If I manage to break all or most--or what the heck! even some--of them, NYRs can reinforce my low opinion of myself.
5.  The exercise of considering and choosing NYRs would require an amount of time and energy (given my perfectionism, which, come to think of it, maybe I should resolve to eliminate) that could be spent actually accomplishing something, resolved or not.


Clearly, neither list is exhaustive.  And since I have created two 5-item lists, I can't make my decision on a quantitative basis.  


As a fledgling Buddhist, I can see the attachment aspect of NYRs.  Not good.  But then I could resolve to let go of attachments. . . . But wouldn't that be basically becoming attached to the idea of non attachment?


Okay, now I'm getting a headache.


I have a provisional list of resolutions, just in case I decide to adopt any.  (Which makes me wonder who their original parents might have been, and why they decided to relinquish them.)


Revisiting last year's post on the subject of NYRs, I see that my quandary is not new.  Apparently, at least some things stay the same.  But what does that mean for the question at hand?  Resolve?  Don't resolve?


I resolve to think about it some more.

Life Management 101--Just Don't Do It

This Tuesday feature will continue to draw on Laura Stack's Find More Time:  How to Get Things Done at Home, Organize Your Life, and Feel Great About It for the next few weeks.  In Chapter 3, this week's subject, we consider  "Mastering the Third Pillar--PERSONALITY."  Five more pillars, and chapters to go.

As it turns out, "Personality" is one of the weaker supports in my productivity structure, as measured by Stack's Productivity Quiz--the strongest of my four weakest.  (Interested readers can take the quiz, on Stack's website, by clicking here.)  As I read this, it doesn't mean that I have a lousy personality, but rather that some of my "behaviors, habits, and choices" need "adjust[ing] in order to support [my] desired direction in life."  That seems apt.

My disappointing score on Personality resulted from my responses to the following quiz items, elaborated in Chapter 3.  I rated each quiz item on the following scale:  1) to no extent; 2) to a little extent; 3) to some extent; 4) to a considerable extent; or 5) to a great extent.  My responses are in red.

To what extent do I . . . 

• Control perfectionism, realizing that some things are good enough.  [2]
• Refuse requests when appropriate.  [2]
• Ask for help when I need it.  [2]
• Avoid procrastinating on what I know I should be doing.  [3]
• Know and honor my energy levels throughout the day.  [2]
• Communicate clearly to avoid confusion and rework.  [2]
• Consistently meet and usually beat deadlines.  [2]
• Focus on completing one task before getting distracted by another.  [2]
• Maintain a positive attitude.  [2]
• Stop trying to please all of the people all of the time.  [2]

No surprises here, really.  Perfectionist.  Can't say no.  Trouble delegating.  Procrastinator.  Too frequently working to exhaustion.  Communication difficulties.  Never met a deadline I didn't. . . well, almost never met a deadline.  Task overlapper.  Princess Negativity.  People Pleaser to the nth.  Isn't that why I started this blog?


But what am I supposed to do about all that?  It may just be my dreary late-December mindset, but all of the advice that Stack packs into this section on personality issues related to productivity, or the lack thereof, seems to me to consist of variations on the word don't.  Just don't be a perfectionist; and don't procrastinate, multitask, be negative.  Just don't be the kind of person that has all these traits that get in the way of living what Oprah calls "your best life."


To be fair, Stack offers lots of practical advice, and it isn't her fault that I've spent a lot of my adult life searching similar volumes for the answer, so that almost none of it is new.  So I'll keep reading.  Maybe it will be like meditating.  I'll just put in the cushion time, or in this case, the page-turning and idea-processing, and over time some change will seep into my bogged down system.  


Next week, Pests.  Not vermin, but distractions, interrupters, and other such roadblocks.  In the meantime, I'll keep trying to have a different, better, more productive personality.

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?

This morning, I am experiencing NaNoWriMo envy.  For those of you who have been living under a rock, or who have recently returned from the space station, or who check their Facebook pages infrequently, this pronunciation-defying, cryptic term refers to November, now officially National Novel Writing Month.  This is not, as one might think, a month like all the others dedicated to recognition of some particular group or cause, such as Black History Month (February), or Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October), or April--which does yeoman's duty as Alcohol Awareness Month, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, National Poetry Month, Keep America Beautiful Month, Historic Preservation Month, Older Americans Month, Keep America Beautiful Month/Great American Cleanup, National Osteoporosis Prevention Month, American Rivers Month, and Vision Research Month.  


No, National Novel Writing Month is not a time for appreciating the novelists among us, or their creations.  It is, rather, the invention of Chris Baty, a California writer who, in 1999, got the idea to challenge himself and a group of his writer and non-writer friends to produce a 50,000 word novel in a month.  The first time out, the month was July, and six of the twenty-one brave souls who started out on this unlikely mission made it across the 50,000 word finish line.  In 2000, the month was switched to November, "to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather," and the undertaking got its own website, and 140 would-be novelists. Over the next decade, attention from bloggers and mainstream media contributed to the geometric growth of the project; last year, more than 30,000 of the 165,000+ participants "won"--i.e., finished. 


It may be just the part of the world that I hang out in, but I'm hearing a lot about this enterprise, which has become an honest-to-God phenomenon.  If you check in on your Facebook friends, I'm willing to bet you know somebody who has been swallowed up in this year's NaNoWriMo.  


In 2004, Baty drafted his No Plot?  No Problem:  A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, along with his own novel, during the month-long writing marathon.  Had I picked up this handy little manual a couple of weeks earlier, I might have decided to jump in with both feet and attempt this adventure myself.  Until I waded into Baty's book, I was under the misapprehension that I would need to devote a full month of days.  Not so.  In fact, Baty cautions against taking a month out of one's normal life, taking a work leave, going to a desert island, etc.  NaNoWriMo is about squeezing the writing into whatever little nooks and crannies we can find in our everyday routines.  And it's all about lowering our standards, which has become something of a mantra for me.  


Baty touts the values of "exuberant imperfection," and the indispensability of his "secret weapon," the "superpowered, diabolical device that will transform you into a bastion of literary accomplishment,"--the deadline.  "Deadlines," Baty tells us, "are the dynamos of the modern age."


It seems he's definitely on to something.  And while I sit here wishing I were part of the NaNoWriMo Class of 2010, I can at least ready myself for next year, or for that month between now and then when I decide to go solo on a "noveling month" of my own.  In the meantime, I intend to more seriously explore the use of deadlines, and to deepen my commitment to "exuberant imperfection." Oh, and to familiarize myself further with Baty's recommended strategy of frequent treats.

. . . By Any Other Name

Beating The Little Hater

December 18, 2007

My son the hip hop blogger sent me this, from ill Doctrine--"a hip-hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad." And though I'm not as videogenic, or as hip as Mr. Smooth, I identify strongly with what he has to say here about the relationship of perfectionism to procrastination.  And why my standards for writing have grown over the years of not writing, until they loom like furies as I sit at the keyboard.

Every day, I understand more about the scourge in my life that is perfectionism.  And it is not just a stumbling block to creativity.  It comes into play in virtually every arena.  This past weekend, I was upset with myself for not being a perfect grandmother, who, in my "little hater's" view, would relish every minute in the sandbox, never tiring of pretending to be a front end loader, or of the incessant conversation of a three-year-old with a sophisticated vocabulary rendered partially unintelligible by the enunciation idiosyncracies of his age.  And yesterday, it was my mothering, life-partnering and household maintenance whose subpar results gave me grief.  I really need to rein this guy in.  Jay Smooth calls the actions of "all these little haters" a conspiracy, and appeals to all creative people to work together to beat them.  He asks us to share strategies.

Therese Borchard, author of the hit blog Beyond Blue, refers to perfectionism in a recent post as her personal "brick wall."  Her strategy? 

getting up at 5:30 in the morning to begin my day in prayer. Because if I go to God first thing each AM I'm less likely to hit that wall so hard.

Gretchen Rubin includes this advice in her post "Ten Tips for Being Happier:"

There are two types of decision makers. Satisficers (yes, satisficers) make a decision once their criteria are met. When they find the hotel or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied. Maximizers want to make the best possible decision. Even if they see a bicycle or a backpack that meets their requirements, they can’t make a decision until they’ve examined every option. Satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers expend more time and energy reaching decisions, and they’re often anxious about their choices. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Apparently, I may have gone a bit overboard yesterday, when I spent an hour an a half "maximizing" my choice of personal checks, though I think you'll agree that the results were excellent. 

  

But I see what Smooth means about all those open tabs. . .

Turning to another source of wisdom, I learned of the Buddha's perfectionistic (if occasionally homicidal) cousin, Devadatta. His story and its meaning are summarized in The Psychology of Mature Spirituality: Integrity, Wisdom, Transcendence, by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Melvin E. Miller.

The story of Devadatta shows that perfectionism is the enemy of perfection.

Of course, Devadatta was a moral perfectionist, caught up with rigorous rule-bound practice. Not really my issue. But still, the cushion recommends itself to me as a place to start befriending my imperfection. And it just might help, too, with what begins to look more and more like adult ADHD--which I am starting to think is a cultural artifact of our times.

I am taking away from Jay Smooth's video blog the "little hater" terminology. It is more evocative than the "internal editor" nomenclature I have been using for years to identify the voice that stops me from writing. An editor one might deal with rationally. A hater should just be tuned out for the killing influence he is.

So I will work on turning a deaf ear to "It's too late to make your mark," "You don't really have anything to say," "What the world doesn't need is another hatchet job of a manuscript in search of a drawer to die in," and their ilk. And just get on with it, already.

Reaching My Speed Limit

Rushing through traffic yesterday in the clogged lanes brought to us by stimulus-money-inspired road construction gone amok, I was led to contemplate the unpleasant experience of hurrying.  Something I'm doing too much of lately.  Hurrying, that is, not contemplating.  (And "late-ly" is how, and why I'm doing it!)


My middle child, who--fortunately, mostly--does not share my genes, is constantly haranguing me about walking too fast.  His reflex response to all requests from me is some variant of "Wait up" or "Calm down"--even when I think I'm relatively calm.  When he was a small child, The Hurried Child:  Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon, by David Elkind Ph.D. was a decade or so old. Its ideas had percolated into our cultural consciousness to the extent that I referred to them without ever having read the book. And I used to say that this little boy of mine was "The Unhurry-able Child."  I am still trying to learn what he can teach me.


By now, we have graduated to something called the Slow Movement.  (Neither constipation, nor the adagio part of a symphony.)  Articles and websites and bookshelves abound with calls to convert to "Slow Food" and "Slow Travel;" to educate our children in "Slow Schools" and move to "Slow Cities." It has been twelve years since Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey gave us Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How To Create A More Peaceful, Simpler Life From the Inside Out. And longer still since Dr. Gershon Lesser coined the term "hurry-up disease," which he warned puts us at risk for hypertension and early coronaries--products of literally speeding to get through (with) life.

So why are we still rushing around?  And how do we stop?

At Slow Movement, a website dedicated to promoting the voluntary simplicity and downshifting at the heart of this cultural sea change, they make the argument that slow is all about connection, to place, to life, and to each other.  And that fear of death and dying are at the root of what physicians have come to call time urgency impatience a hallmark of the dreaded, and unhealthy Type A personality.  In our acronym-crazy argot, this malady has morphed into "TUI," or its variant "TUP"--Time Urgency Perfectionism, said to afflict women disproportionately.  Blogger Wendy, at Chronicles of Chaos, writes humorously of finding a diagnosis for a condition that had convinced her that "something was wrong with me."


Wendy dismisses the simplistic advice for improving the situation found in the Boston Globe article that put her onto the whole concept--namely 1) taking a one-minute break for a funny email, or dancing (too little to make a difference); 2) reminding yourself to slow down (not likely to help someone addicted to hurrying); and 3) retreating to a no-tech zone (but that's where she finds funny emails and escape from the pressures of her life).  Standard lists of suggestions, like this from  
MySelfDevelopment, include:

1. Set priorities. Make a conscious decision about what you consider important, and let your schedule (and your attitude) reflect your intentions. For example, if relationships and health are high on your list, turn off the TV to free up time for taking walks with friends.

2. Do one thing at a time. When you multi task, it becomes impossible to concentrate, feel deeply, or think clearly. “Doing two or more things at the same time splits our consciousness in two or more ways,” observes meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran.

3. Wake up right. “Set your alarm clock early, but don’t get up when it rings,” suggests Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., author of The Last Self-Help Book You’ll Ever Need: Repress Your Anger, Think Negatively, Be a Good Blamer, & Throttle Your Inner Child. “Lie there a few minutes and practice the savoring response: Think about who and what is worth getting up for and the privilege of being awake in such a rushed yet wonderful world.”

4. Take off your watch. “People hurry up when they see a clock, which is why stores don’t have clocks–they want us to linger,” says Honore, who experiences less anxiety since he unstrapped his own watch. Because there are clocks everywhere–in cars and on cellphones and computers–he’s still punctual, but no longer feels like a slave to time. Test this yourself by going “watch-free” on evenings and weekends.

5. Listen to relaxing music. “Your body synchronizes to the rhythms around you,” says psychologist Sharon Heller, Ph.D., author of Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight. Look for music that’s paced to a relaxed heartbeat, about 60 beats per minute.

6. Resist road rage, “See every traffic jam as a meditation assignment,” Pearsall advises. There are few better opportunities to practice positive thinking and forgiveness or perform your deep-breathing exercises.

7. Find your center. Techniques such as meditation and yoga allow you to access patience. “Practices that bring you into stillness and quiet turn off the stress response,” says Peg Bairn, N.P., director of training at the Mind-Body Medical Institute, and an associate in medicine at Harvard Medical School. “They help you recharge your batteries and come back into alignment with who you really are.”

For myself, I will think seriously about these strategies and experiment with their use.  In the meantime, two behavioral changes beckon.  First of all, I will set and adhere to firm deadlines by which time I must leave the house for scheduled meetings, work hours, appointments, and other events.  I most often find myself hurrying when I haven't left enough time to get where I need to be.  Secondly, I will keep, as Gretchen Rubin advocates in her Happiness Project blog, gas in my car--and ask those who share it to help out with this.  Jumping into a vehicle which has been left, by me or by others, on fumes in the driveway has contributed much anxiety to my days in recent months.  This is partly a result of post-Katrina gas prices, which have made filling up a thing of the past.  But it also comes from failing to plan ahead, and a kind of magical thinking that seeks to ignore the fact that I'm going to eventually--and before the week is out, probably--have to spend a certain amount to fuel my necessary travels anyway.  Rubin calls this "underbuying."


And now, I'm going to move slowly through this day, sandwiched between two fully scheduled ones.  Tomorrow morning, I need to be miles from here at 7:30, to meet up with my traveling companions for a full-day out-of-state consulting visit.  I need to leave the house no later than 7, in a car with sufficient gas in its tank.  Tomorrow's blog post must be written today--but not in a rush.  I will try to store up some tranquility, and to listen to my in-home spirit guide, who would have me walk slower, wait up, and calm down.  It probably wouldn't hurt, too, to wear my "Serenity" bracelet, and to squeeze in a little dancing.