One of the biggest obstacles to enjoying life is procrastination.  You don't want to do something, so you avoid it, putting it it off until it becomes an emergency and, often, far more complex or expensive than it would have been if you'd done it right away.

Avoid taking the dry-cleaning, you'll pay rush fees when you need that suit for a business trip.  Put off cleaning the bathroom, you may find yourself scrubbing it at 2 a.m.  Put off reading the book for your book club and it becomes a chore, not a joy.  Delay buying tickets for a trip or a show and you may be locked out.

If I think about myself, I have three typical reasons for procrastinating:

1) Forgetfulness.  I forget that tickets are going onsale for a show or that a friend's birthday is coming up, so I can't take care of things on time.  This is where a calendar — and a daily review of that calendar — come into play.  For really big projects, give yourself a one week head's up.

2) Distraction.  You mean to stop by the post office and pick up stamps, but then something else comes up and you never ge back to it.  You start doing laundry, but pick up another task before all the loads are done, folded, and put away — so you end up living out of laundry baskets.

3) Lack of discipline.  It's much more fun to sit on the couch watching a movie than to clean the house or run errands or go to the gym.  That's where discipline comes into play.  You have to decide what's important to you and just do it.  Of course, you can make it easie for yourself by grouping errands together for ease or by keeping a packed gym bag at hand so that there's one less thing to do or buy doing quick cleans in a spare 5 minutes so the whole project is less overwhelming.  But ultimately, you just have to do it now!

What are your reasons for procrastinating?