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Powerful Behavioral Techniques to Curb Procrastination 129

rapid growth, he was overworked. The task seemed daunting and
complex. He found writing the manual laborious, put it off, fell
behind, and got two extensions.
Brad was concerned that his procrastination would get him fired.
He was baffled. He stated that he was ordinarily well organized, but
not for this project. He reported that he had materials piled up around
his office. He had materials on policies on sexual harassment, bul-
lying, sick leave, drug testing, health care, education, 401(k) retire-
ment plans, performance reviews, progressive discipline, grievance
resolution, and so forth. Downloaded materials were scattered in
different sections of his hard drive. Materials and discussion notes
from different meetings with legal counsel were scattered among the
various papers. In a tone of exasperation, he said, “I got myself in a
mess with the paperwork and with my job.”
Brad had a complex form of procrastination. He worried about
not living up to the president’s expectations. He had high expecta-
tions for himself. He badgered himself for messing up his con-
centration by worrying about what he wasn’t doing. He saw the
manual as a showpiece for his company and a measure of his
worth. However, regardless of the causes for his procrastination,
Brad had a new deadline to meet, and this might be his last
chance.
We talked about the triggers for Brad’s procrastination and
fleshed out a number of issues, including his high expectations
and behavioral diversions to avoid his failure anxieties. He sheep-
ishly confessed to playing Hearts on the Internet, and that was his
biggest diversion. If he was overworked, he acknowledged that this
was part of the problem. He lost time by playing the game and saw
himself in a perpetual catch-up effort.
Brad caught on quickly about managing his expectations and
separating his sense of human value from his employee manual–
writing performance. He felt relieved when he saw that his worth
was arbitrarily defined by his performance on the manual. How-
ever, he still had the manual to write.