DO you procrastinate? If you said no, I don’t believe you. Everyone has something they procrastinate on, be it a project, a report, a difficult conversation or the washing up.

Procrastination has been called the thief of time but actually I believe it’s much worse than that. I think that procrastination steals away our own good opinion of ourselves. Time and time again I've heard the guilt in the voice of a client who is in full throttle Beat Self Up mode as a result of an eleventh hour or missed deadline. And it causes us all such stress, so why do we do it?

Some reasons for procrastination are about not wanting to do something –the washing up might come under this. Most of us can get over ourselves on that one enough to stop the sink from over flowing, or at least invest in a dishwasher.

But for work-related projects the single biggest reason that most people procrastinate seems to be a desire to “get it right”. If you don’t start something you can’t fail and we all have that perfectionist instinct to some degree that compels us to be perfect, and never fail.

Logically,this is nonsense because we risk even bigger failure. Mostly our bad habits do defy logic –they are simply ingrained and conditioned into us.

So here’s what I suggest. Let go of the need to be perfect. Settle for excellence instead.

Excellence comes from making a start, doing your best and learning as you go. Without all the stress of your eleventh-hour strategies, the chances are you’ll be a whole lot more relaxed and creative anyway so you're more likely to “get it right” Excellence lets you build your good opinion of yourself and pat yourself on the back for being proactive.

Excellence allows you to get support from others whilst you still have time to do that, rather than realising at 3am the morning of a deadline that you are missing apiece of the informational jigsaw that is held by someone lazing on a beach somewhere, well out of range or access of mobile or email.

Excellence is the goal, perfectionism is the curse. Don’t procrastinate –start being excellent right now!