Early bird or procrastinator: Which is better?

People often ask me if it's better to be an early bird or a procrastinator. An early bird aims to do things well in advance -- whether it's pay bills before they're due, book flights, complete a project weeks before the deadline, and so forth. A procrastinator, on the other hand, habitually leaves everything for the last minute.

Many might say the answer is obvious -- that being an early bird is more favorable in that you get things done early.

My answer to them is that either extreme is bad.

All the way through high school, I was the king of procrastination, sometimes waiting until the day before a paper was due to write it. Once I got to college, I did a 180 degree turn and aimed to finish projects days, if not weeks, ahead of time. This seeped into my personal life as well; for example, it became the norm to pay bills the very day I received them in the mail.

The problem with being too much of an early bird -- much like being a procrastinator -- is that it tends to put one in a state of anxiety. An early bird may become so preoccupied with finishing something early that if they're unable to do it right away -- say, because of a medical emergency -- they simply panic. A chronic procrastinator experiences a different form of angst -- racing against the clock to get the job done.

A happy medium would be to set a reasonable timetable every month for doing things. For example, I pay all my bills on the 23rd of every month. It's not super early, nor is it so close to the end of the month that I risk being slapped with late fees.

If I had to pick between the two, I would take the early bird route. I actually did this before going on vacation earlier this month; I paid all my bills right away so that I wouldn't have to worry about them when I got back.

Procrastinating works for some people, but I would advise against it. Murphy's law says that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If you do things at the eleventh hour, you risk not being able to do something because of another unforeseen circumstance, e.g., the power goes out at 11:57 p.m., three minutes before your assignment is due.

As with anything else in life, balance is key. You should kick any habit that puts you at edge unnecessarily. Life is simply too short for that.

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