Can it wait until the morning?

Thomas More, in an otherwise uneventful life, said: "What is deferred is not avoided." I spent perhaps 20 minutes Googling to get to that quote, but it temporarily saved me from having to write this. I excel at procrastination. I seem to get a kick out of doing anything but the activity that, rationally at least, I ought to be doing at that moment.

We all do it. Whether you are a solicitor, accountant or financial planner, your clients will undoubtedly be prone to putting off the important decisions and actions that you have guided them towards. Aside from the fact that most concepts we grapple with professionally are both fundamentally important and particularly dull, your clients are biologically programmed to put off doing them. It should be no surprise that they would prefer to alphabetise their CDs or sort out their sock drawer.

There are libraries of self-help books out there devoted to making money from this fact of human life and, as you would expect from an Olympic-standard procrastinator such as myself, I spent more than a few bob reading many of these books when I should have been doing something else. So, what did I learn?

• Tom recently started a job selling double glazing. Despite repeated self-affirmations in the mirror every morning, he has yet to make his first sale. Rejection after rejection has demoralised him. He organises his desk, surfs the internet, and puts off his cold calls until potential clients are leaving for the day.
  Tom's problem is low expectancy of success from making his next round of cold calls. You doubt your ability to follow through with the diet, you don't expect to get the job, or you fear you have nothing to say to people at a networking event - you expect only rejection now, so you put things off.

• Dick stares at a blank Word document. His seminar notes on trustee responsibilities are due tomorrow. He finds writing about it mind-numbingly dull and would rather just freestyle it on the day but the attendees have been promised a delegate pack. He decides he needs a break, rings his mum, walks the dog, and finds himself even less motivated to write than before. At 10pm, he starts out of necessity, and the result reflects the time he put into it: the work is terrible.
  Dick's task has low value for him. This point may be obvious, but it's worth stressing: we put off things that we don't like to do.

• Meanwhile, Harry is excited. Instead of grabbing a sandwich in his lunch break, he's booked time off for a trip to Corsica and bought two plane tickets for him and his fiancée, Sally. He needs to reserve a hotel room. This can be done anytime and wants Sally's input anyway. He has more urgent things to do (his passport has expired, he has no beachwear, etc) and then forgets about it altogether. As he's packing he remembers, but by now there are no rooms by the beach, which was Sally's must-have.
  By far the strongest predictor of procrastination is Harry's problem: impulsiveness. The positives from this lifestyle (spontaneous holidays) are often outweighed by the negative (no sea view, no sandwich).

Impulsive decisions

We are less motivated by delayed rewards than by immediate ones, and the more impulsive we are, the more our motivation is affected by such delays. A structured approach will go a long way to defeating impulsiveness, especially one that doesn't rely on stamping out an ingrained personality trait, but on channelling it wisely instead. Several forms of pre-commitment are useful in this regard.

Ulysses did not make it past the beautiful singing Sirens with willpower. Rather, he knew his weaknesses, so he committed in advance to sail past them: he literally tied himself to his ship's mast. Many people see a productivity boost when they decide not to allow a TV in their home or unplug their broadband. Another method is to make failure painful. Set aside money for a charity if you don't meet your goal - one that runs counter to your beliefs really ups the ante.

It's also important to break up goals into lots of sub-goals, which are easier to achieve and have more immediate deadlines. Typically, daily goals are frequent enough, but it can also help to set an immediate goal to break you through the 'getting started' threshold. Once that five-minute task has been completed, you'll already be on your way to the larger daily goal. My morning list is: turn off the alarm, don't hit the snooze button, get out of bed, go to the bathroom and don't get back into bed.

Because we are creatures of habit, it helps to get into a routine. For example, exercise at the same time, every day. Understanding procrastination can help you help your clients. You might find that you can apply some habits to your own life or at least add them to your to-do list… in due course.

Steven Hennessy is a chartered financial planner and associate director at Myers Davison Ginger

He writes a regular blog about behavioural finance for Private Client Adviser

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