“We really need to get going on your 2025 tax return, due date is getting close.” This is what the email said on September 26… the extension deadline, that is.
Why?
Why do I do this to myself?
It isn’t like I didn’t already pay in all the taxes I owe earlier. But I guess not early enough … evidently, they penalize you if you are late, even if they owe you money back.
Every year it is the same thing. I file all my returns in the last couple of days while I am chanting daily, “I will never do this again, I will never do this again, I will never do this again.”
When my taxes were reviewed and ready to send in, I thanked my CPA.
She responded, “You are very welcome.”
I got a “very”.
I think this is what they call passive aggressive. Come on, if she is human, I am the bane of her existence. My procrastination is making her work on taxes up to the very last minute.
Simultaneously, I am reading a book called Situated by Angela Duckworth. This is the follow-up to her book Grit, ten years later.
Maybe she is a procrastinator too.
She describes what the real problem is. She explains that science basically proves that “will-power” can only take you so far. Most high achievers put in the work. They are disciplined. They use will-power and hard work to push through the barriers, including procrastination.
I guess I do too, I just wait until the last minute to do it.
Instead, she suggests changing your situation. My version of getting ahead of the problem. She has this three-box model: situation, thoughts, response. Your situation shapes your thoughts, and your thoughts shape how you feel and what you do. Willpower enters in that last box. It’s the white-knuckle moment when we try to override an impulse after the situation and our thoughts have already set it in motion.
Unfortunately, I procrastinate a lot of things. In the old days it used to be suggested that I was just one of those people who worked better under pressure.
I used to think this was just efficiency.
I definitely procrastinate things I don’t like to do. I think I am hoping in the back of my mind that the task fairy will come and take care of it for me. And it usually is tasks. Like the maintenance of life kind of things:
- I hate to get gas and wait until I almost run out…almost…because I did run out 2 or 3 times. And I decided my marriage was important enough to go get gas when there is still 20 miles left.
- I don’t even think about doing laundry. No, the pile in my closet doesn’t remind me. Running out of workout clothes or something is the only trigger.
- Some procrastinations are because two values collide. Like cleaning out the refrigerator on garbage day. I keep thinking I may eat it and, after all, I don’t want to be wasteful. I feel that is bad stewardship.
These are the everyday things that plague me.
Now Angela Duckworth assures me that we can’t change our behaviors with just thoughts alone. And I am Exhibit A. I know better, and knowing better has never once gotten me to the gas station.
When I did my taxes, it really didn’t take that long. The same few hours I spent in October, I could have spent in March and have been done with it.
When I went to get gas this weekend, it took the same 5 minutes it would have taken if I had done it a few days ago, but then I wouldn’t have been rushing to church.
It isn’t like procrastinating provides benefits. Not only does it still take time, but I have that gnawing feeling in the back of my head that I need to be doing something. This is cumulative…well that and the constant email reminders from the CPA, or the nagging from my family to get my clothes out of the dryer.
And then, a few chapters in, it hit me. I somehow find ways to help me get the things done that are important to me. I think without the life hacks, I am really an equal opportunity procrastinator, likes and dislikes.
Life hacks are basically what Angela Duckworth is suggesting.
Exhibit B: my pantry.
I had to go on an anti-inflammatory diet to help me with arthritis in my hands. The pain would wake me up at night, and I’d have to take Advil and wait for it to kick in so I could go back to sleep. Everyone is like, how can you eat this way? In this case “no pain” is substantial gain!
So, what did I do? I eliminated the things I am not supposed to eat from our pantry and refrigerator. And basically, stopped eating out.
I changed my situation. Life hack extreme.
Another issue I used to have is being late. As a therapist and coach, I basically meet with people all day. If I don’t have a client first thing in the morning, I wait until I do to leave for work. Life hack #1 is to schedule a client first thing to get me up and out of the house. When I meet with a client, I am also bad at stopping on time. I would just keep going until the client had to leave. Life hack #2 is I try to schedule clients back-to-back and have the front desk text me when the next client arrives, so I stop on time.
Actually, I think I just figured something out. My procrastination has different categories. I procrastinate starting what I don’t like, but I also procrastinate stopping things I love to do.
I love to paint. I can paint all day until my back is killing me and someone reminds me that apparently my family still expects to be fed. I love talking to clients, so without another client sitting in the lobby, why would I stop? Cooking is different. I can cook well, but rarely do I cook for myself. I don’t think it is the cooking part I love. Apparently feeding people is the 6th love language. Put a group of people I care about around the island, suddenly I have unlimited motivation.
So maybe the issue isn’t that I lack willpower. I clearly have plenty of it when I care about what I am doing. What I seem to need is something outside of me that either gets me started or makes me stop.
And apparently, I have been changing my situation for years. I just didn’t know there was research that supports it. (You mean I didn’t come up with this on my own?)
Angela Duckworth gives credit for life hacks or outside help as a way to change your situation. The funny thing is that her research shows that most people like to think they can do it all on their own; that the change needs to be internal. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from that. I’ll take all the help I can get.
When I was in that last-minute willpower push to file my taxes, I decided to stay in self-discipline mode to change my situation for next year.
I went ahead and sent all 63 (9 months’ worth) 2026 checking and credit card statements to my bookkeeper to reconcile while I was already downloading all of 2025. This is one of the main steps that keep my CPA from starting. She can’t start until all books are closed. Books need all accounts reconciled. The bookkeeper needs all the statements to do that.
It is all back to me.
But maybe, just maybe, I will never do this again.
