Procrastinate? You May Hate Your Home

Do you have too much stuff?  That may be the reason you're always late for meetings.

 Believe it or not, a new study has shown that people who have too many material things aren't just greedy. They're procrastinators, too.  It shows a high correlation between procrastinating, and well, clutter.

 According to newswise.com, the more stuff you have, the more likely you are to be a procrastinator.  Why?
An overabundance of “stuff” can have a detrimental effect on a person’s mental health and disrupt their sense of home, says procrastination researcher Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University.
Ferrari and co-authors investigated the connection between procrastination and clutter and discovered that chronic procrastination can lead to problems with clutter in the home.
Ferrari's previous research determined that procrastination has many causes and consequences and that it’s different from delay, pausing, waiting, pondering or prioritizing.
Procrastination is a tendency to delay the start or completion of a desired task to the point of experiencing discomfort, he explains at the web site. It leads to dysfunctional ways of being, and consequently, a reduced quality of life. Procrastination is not the same thing as waiting, postponing or delaying. In general, delaying is not a problem, waiting is not a problem, but when we do those things we are often gathering information. "To procrastinate is to avoid something strategically and purposefully. Clutter is an overabundance of possessions that create chaotic and disorderly living spaces. It’s not the same thing as hoarding, it’s broader than that. It’s not a psychological disorder like hoarding is, at least not yet," he is quoted at newswise.com..
"In our research, the findings suggest that a general propensity to procrastinate when it comes to attending to routine, everyday tasks, such as sorting and disposing of personal inventory items, can lead to problems with clutter. Procrastinators reported excessive clutter and that their overabundance of possessions negatively affected their identity. The more clutter you have, the more likely you are to be a procrastinator. Which makes sense, because you’re unsure of what to get rid of," he continues.
It may even make you hate your home.  "The more the clutter, the lower the sense of satisfaction with home. Extending that to procrastinators, people who are more indecisive hold onto their things because they can't decide what to keep," he concludes.  "I would suggest for people to focus on relationships, not relics. Life is not about me, it's about we. It's about us together.

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