Do not procrastinate

Even though I make it a point not procrastinate things, once in a while either I get lazy, or I dont look down the timeline to see what is in future, which leads to procrastination of few things. And sure, these things come back to bite me in the ass :). A while ago, I had to write a test code which required me to install a plethora of tools, compilers etc just for a small test code. I figured out if I just use some machine which has all these I can get away with it and avoid the delays in installing all the unnecessary tools that will eat away my PC's memory. So I went to a friend who had all these tools installed and got the work done. What I overlooked is the fact that once you write a piece of code, it will forever be yours and you would be help responsible for it. Sure enough a few days later I got a call asking to change this and that in that small piece of code. Again, I had to scramble again to find the friend who helped me earlier. This time he was in a hurry which basically meant he is hinting you at getting your own tools. I was like, yeah, just this time. Well that just this time was just another time. Now I am at a position where I cannot live without installing those tool set. So, I am going to install all those tools which if I had installed the first time would have saved time, a bit of humiliation and given me an opportunity to learn more.
My passport is about to expire in February next year. I thought I have plenty of time to get it renewed when I realized it in August. So I procrastinated it. Before I realized it is October without me following up on it. And then suddenly one day I realized we have holidays coming up. We planned to go out of US, may be to Europe, Mexico or New Zealand. In the process I realized I cannot go out of US unless I get my passport renewed. Even then by the time we figured out expenses, we kinda said no to a trip outside US. And hence I procrastinated again. But later on, we thought we can go to Mexico for cheap, just to realize my passport needs renewal. So now I am scrambling to get all the documents together and get it done.
Procrastination is never good. It might save you time in the short run, but in the longer run is always a hassle. By far procrastination is the main negative point in me that I need to work on. Unfortunately it will always come back in the most wrong time.
I wondered about ways to get over procrastination. Here are few that I came up with. Please leave a comment if you have more on this.

• Make sure you always look at long term before you decide to procrastinate a thing
• Know the consequences of not doing it now
• Find out the time it would take to do it now, compare it with the amount of time you mgiht be spending later on if you dont do it
• Make a list of things to do and keep track of them regularly. You may use any of the things to do software, if you like, for example tracks (written in Ruby on Rails)
• Clear up your things to do once in a while, so that pile is maintainable