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Procrastination is expensive!
- 1. Long Chen
- 2. Home on the computer
- 4. Decision
- 7. Long Chen
- 8. Home
- 9. Long’s Room
- 10. Decisions
- 12. Result
- 13. Long Chen
- 14. Management Concepts Planning Communication
- 16. Time Bound
- 19. Long Chen
- 20. What I learned about myself
- 21. Lesson Learned
- 23. Better Manager
Editor's Notes
- This happened two weeks ago on a Sunday night. I got home from work around 10:00 p.m. I was feeling tired, so I decided to take a shower and go to sleep early. When I got out of the shower I got on my computer for a little bit.
- After a short while, my mom came into my room asking me to search for plane tickets for next week. At this point, she haven’t decided if she wants to take the trip yet. I searched the tickets and told her what the prices would be.
- When I told my mom the different ticket prices, she was still unsure if she wanted to book the ticket and which flight. Since she was still deciding, I decide to play some video game. About 30 minutes later, she finally decided that she does want to book the flight, but at that point I was in the middle of my game. This is a game that requires constant interaction with other players. Pausing the game only last for about one minute. Therefore, I told her I will book it later when I am finish with my game. After I was finish with my game, I decided to go to bed. At this point I had forgot about the tickets, but as I was falling asleep I remember that I haven't book the ticket yet. However I told myself I would book it the first thing in the morning.
- The next morning, I woke up around 10 a.m. The first thing I did was, got on my computer and book the flight my mom wanted. However, as I was doing the ticket search again, I noticed the price had jumped almost $100 since last night. I was shocked at the price and thought it was a mistake, but sadly it wasn’t.
- Since my mom had decided on traveling, we ended up booking the ticket for the new and more expensive price. It felt like the money just flew away, the worst part was all I had to do was get out of the bed that night and book the ticket, and we could have saved that money.
- One of my friend’s son is getting married and I am invited. I am thinking about going, but it is out of the state. Traveling out of state is expensive, plus I need to get him a gift. I will have to check to see how much are the plane tickets.
- When Long gets out of the shower I am going to ask him to search the tickets for me, that way I can plan how much I will be spending for the whole trip. I am going to tell Long the dates and destination, and go back to my room. It will probably take him a some time to search. Minutes later, he told me the prices for the tickets.
- The plane tickets are reasonable, but let me see who else is going. I told Long not to book it yet, I will let him know in a little bit. I am going to call other people to see if they are going. Seems like there will be a lot of people going, it will be a good to see some old friends. I walk over to Long’s room to tell him to book the tickets.
- I want to book the tickets as soon as possible so I am going to tell Long book the tickets tonight. When I got to Long’s room he is playing his mindless computer game again. I tell him to stop playing and book the flights. He say he is at a critical point in the game and will book it later. I told him I am going to write the flight information down and keep reminding him to book the flight tonight.
- The next morning, right before I have to leave for work, I ask Long if he book my tickets. He told me he is doing it right now. I believe him and left for work, two minutes later my phone is ring. It is Long, and he is telling me that the price for the ticket just jumped almost $100. I knew he was going to forget when I saw him playing the game. Nonetheless, since I told people I was going to go to the wedding, I have to book the ticket now.
- The two management concept that can be applied to my situation are Planning and Communication. Planning by definition is “a decision-making process that focuses on the future of an organization and how it will achieve its goals” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., p.113). Planning can also be applied to achieving non-organizational goals. People are planning everyday of their lives. It can range from when to eat lunch during a busy day, to how to acquire a dream job. The other management concept is Communication. Communication is “the process of transferring information, meaning, and understanding from sender to receiver” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., p. 303). Accurate communication is the foundation of any business, communication is necessary for every part of business. It ranges from the starting of a business to daily operations.
- The first concept of planning that is applied to my situation is priorities. Priorities is evaluating the importance, valuing different objectives and choosing the most important objective and focusing on it. It is critical for organizations to prioritize objectives clearly. Having a clear prioritized objective allows the employees to know what they need to focus on, in order to achieve the goals. Also management can allocate funds based on the most important objectives. In my situation I had two objectives, first one is to win the game I was playing. The other is book a plane ticket. During the time, I prioritized winning my game as more important than booking a plane ticket. Therefore I continue playing until it was over, instead of stopping the game and booking the ticket first.
- The other concept of planning that is applied to my situation is time bound. Time bound is “a specific time span within which goals are to be achieved by” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., p. 126) . Timing is essential in management and every part of life. For example, if a company wants to create a new software, having a short time bound is important. This is because other companies could be working on a similar software, the demand for the original company could decrease dramatically if the second company release the new software first. In my situation, my objective was to book the ticket as soon as possible. My original time bound was that night. However since I had forgotten and decided not to book the ticket until the morning, I ended up with a high rate.
- Oral communication is a type of verbal communication, it is communication through the use of the mouth. Oral communication is the most common way of communication among human. It has advantages and disadvantages, one of the disadvantages is transitory. This is the problem in my situation. When my mom told me to book the tickets, she didn’t write it down for me (written communication). Therefore it was up to me remember what she had said. If she had written a note for me, I would have seen it after I was finished with my game.
- Downward communication is “message sent from higher organizational levels to lower levels” (Hitt, Black, and Porter, 3rd ed., p. 308). This means people with higher authority talking to people with lower authority. It can be apply to situations other than business. In my case it was my mom sending me a message. She told me to book a plane ticket.
- I learned that I am a procrastinator. I put off tasks until it is due and I do not prioritize so I can work on the more important objective first. My nonchalant personality is the reason I don’t prioritize well. I assume everything will work out one way or another.
- I learned that procrastinating can have pricy consequences. In the future I need to write down tasks, prioritize them and tackle the most important ones first.
- After doing this project, I noticed that there were several ways to prevent the situation from happening. Also sometimes personal entertainment will have to wait until the more important tasks are accomplished.
- This experience will help me be a better manager of healthy and productive relationship because I learned a lesson the hard way. I need to stop procrastinating. If I remember that I had forgotten to do something I need to do it then, instead of waiting even longer to finish the task. I have started writing tasks down on my phone and checking them off as I accomplish them. Also instead of waiting till the last minute to submit homework, I have been trying to work ahead of the schedule.