Bethany wrote the “Around the Tea Table” column for YLCF Journal from 1999 to 2001. Her idea was “create a more personal, heart-to-heart atmosphere, as would an intimate tea between close friends… Consider this an invitation to come for a visit and share thoughts around the tea table.”
Dear Sisters,
Have you ever opened your desk drawer and been staggered at the amount of letters you haven’t yet responded to? Perhaps you’ve been horrified by the pile of books on your bookshelf that you are supposed to read. Or perhaps you’ve started half a dozen cross-stitch or sewing projects and left them all less than half finished. Maybe you have promised to write an article for your friend’s newsletter and missed the deadline by several days.
I’m sure you’ve all faced similar situations, if not those exact ones. Though I’m ashamed to admit it, I have been in all of those situations, and am in a few of them now! Being in these dilemmas has brought a lot of questions to my mind. A few of them are: how did this happen—how did I get so behind? Is it my own laziness and/or procrastination? Or am I simply committing to too much? Is this actually wrong, or just an annoying little quirk in my personality? What can I do to remedy this?
Now, I can’t speak for the rest of you, but this is how I get behind on things… I have approximately 34 pen friends, and to most of them I write fairly long letters (two to eight pages). In order to keep up with all of them, I must discipline myself to write at least two letters per week. This is not a very hard thing to do, especially since I love to write letters, but I let myself become sidetracked far too easily: I get a particularly enthralling book from the library, and can’t seem to stop reading it until I finish the last page—or I get on the Internet and start discussing theology with a friend, or do work on my websites. The list goes on and on! If I would simply do what I ought to do, when I ought to do it, this problem would cease to exist.
I have really struggled with the question of whether I’m behind because I procrastinate, or because I am committing to too much. I think it is actually both. As I stated earlier, I become sidetracked and do other things—so I do procrastinate and that is most of the problem. But the other part is that I promise to do too many things, or I get involved in activities I don’t have time for. For example, I recently had to leave two e-mail groups that I really enjoyed, because I simply lack the time it takes to properly participate. Those were hard decisions for me to make, but now I feel much better for making them.
As for whether or not this problem is wrong, I believe I can safely say it is. I am sure that God is not pleased when I overload myself with too many activities, or put off things I am supposed to be doing. And we all know that He is most displeased when we break our commitments! I know many people who simply laugh off their procrastination by saying, “Oh you know me—I never seem to get around to doing things.” Or, “Oh, I am such a disorganized person.” This is not right. Little things lead to big things, and if I—a 16-year-old girl with hardly a care in the world—feel overloaded right now, then what am I going to feel like when I am married and have a family? My responsibilities will be incredibly more numerous and difficult, and if I have been cultivating laziness when I am young, the habit is going to be awfully hard to break when I am older. I have heard it said many times that what you do with yourself in your teens will affect the rest of your life. This is serious business, girls! We’re not just talking about putting off writing to your friend Mary for a few weeks or leaving your knitting project in your closet—we are talking about what you’re going to do for the rest of our lives…we are talking about forming our characters!
Finally, what can we do to remedy this? Well, the first step is to recognize that you have this problem. Then figure out just what area (or areas) is the culprit. Pray hard about it, asking God to help you overcome this, and work out some kind of plan or schedule that will help you keep up with everything. Besides giving you great peace of mind, this is also the thing we need to do!
God bless you all in your endeavors!
Your Sister,
Bethany
This column on procrastination was originally published in Winter 1999 YLCF Journal, #26. At that time, Bethany was almost 16, and her bio read: “lives with her parents, her brothers, and her sister. She enjoys reading (classics & inspirational/doctrinal books), writing (stories, articles, & letters), music (playing piano and listening to classical & Celtic music), cooking, sewing, and much more.”
These days, Bethany “spends her days enjoying life with her husband Jason and trying to keep up with their 15-month-old daughter Genevieve. She is still learning not to procrastinate. In her sparest of spare time, Bethany runs Posey Lane, a little Etsy shop, with her younger sister.”
Click here to read another Around the Tea Table conversation with Bethany on “Our Best Friend.”
Oh, I wish I had thought of this in MY teens, I honestly thought it was just, like you wrote, “an annoying little quirk to my personality”. Now, at 22, newly married and halfway through my first pregnancy, these earlier “quirks” grow out of proportion, and it’s not a letter to an understanding friend or a half knitted mitten that is left undone, it’s the bills, our appointments (and by them mine, and worse, my husband’s reputation), the dishes, the laundry, cooking and cleaning (MY WORK as much as my husband’s job is his). And I wonder what I did with my time and energy back when I was neither married nor pregnant, and how much easier it would have been done now, if I had practiced it then ..?