A co-worker recently shared Tim Urban great TED talk on procrastination. Funny and down-to-earth, Tim takes a light-hearted but challenging look at how we manage to put off the things we really should be doing.

As Tim points out, tackling concrete deadline-based projects at work, school or home are one thing, but much more difficult are the things in life that are more abstract or don’t carry with them the threat of impending end date.

And while he illustrates his talk with some respectable stick-figure drawing, the image below was the one I found most challenging:

Each box represents one week in a 90-year-long life. As he points out, “that’s not a lot of boxes!”

The question, then is, how do we want to fill those boxes? What are the long-term, abstract goals that don’t have a sense of immediacy, that really should be acted on today?

One of my long-term fuzzy goals has to do with communicating ideas, that’s why recently I’ve started taking a little more seriously the practice of writing. I’m not sure where it will lead, but I want to take small steps in that direction.

Is there a step you need to take towards one of your goals?

Ok, maybe the first step is to watch the talk, it’s worth it: