Many studies have been done on this topic of procrastination over the years. One school of thought says that the main reason people procrastinate is because they fear failure so much they don’t even want to start. Other studies conclude that people put off doing things as an act of rebellion, because they feel the task is boring or unpleasant, or because there is no immediate reward as a result of doing it. If you can identify which of these fits you most closely and watch out for it happening, your days of blind procrastination are nearing an end.

Then there are the people who are good at starting things but get easily distracted so they procrastinate finishing them. A hilarious version of getting distracted is ‘yak shaving’, made famous by blogger, Seth Godin.

Yak shaving is defined as, “Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on." He gives an example of wanting to wax his car, but to get to this he first has to buy a new hose, but to do this he first needs to borrowing his neighbour’s EZpass to cross a toll bridge to get to Home Depot, but to do this he first needs to restuff the mooshi pillow his son borrowed from the neighbour. Hence ending up at the zoo shaving a yak!

Here’s an example that nearly happened to me while writing the updated and revised new version of my 'Clear Your Clutter' book at my home in Bali:

“I want to finish writing this chapter. To do this, I need to search the internet for Seth’s blog, Don’t Shave That Yak! so that I can quote his example.”

“Ah, but my broadband is not working today, so I’ll need to use dial-up.”

“Hmmm… the phone line is dead. The mice must have nibbled through the wires again.”

“Oh dear, the bamboo ladder I need to climb my garden wall to check the wires is broken.”

And the next thing I know I’ve left my computer, loaded the broken bamboo ladder into my car, and spent the whole morning at the ladder repair shop having it fixed.

Being wise to the perils of yak shaving, of course, I didn’t do this. I used my neighbour’s phone to call the broadband and phone companies to repair their services, sent my gardener to the repair shop with the ladder, skipped this paragraph until later, and continued writing.

Extract from the new updated and revised version of 'Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui' to be published by Piatkus in Nov 2008. Copyright © Karen Kingston, 2008. All rights reserved.

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