It’s a Good Year to be a Precrastinator (Plus a New Release!)

by Kassandra Lamb ~ No, that is not a typo in the title. Rather than a procrastinator, I am a precrastinator. I like to get things done waaay in advance.

And with supply chain issues and delivery delays, this is a good year for people like me to exercise our precrastination skills!

I’ve blogged about precrastination before, specifically how I like to get my Christmas shopping finished no later than November 30th (about when everyone else is getting rolling).

Well, this year I’ve carried that to the extreme! I had my shopping done by October 30th. (Please, don’t hate me.) This was partly due to a trip last week, to visit a friend who lives near some interesting stores.

And she and I both love to shop.

One place we shopped is a pretty cool flea market near her. (The same flea market I patterned the setting of Lord of the Fleas after, and yes, she’s the friend who came up with the idea for that setting!)

But I digress…

Back to precrastination—what is it exactly?

Both procrastination and precrastination are products of anxiety. In the former, the person is anxious about a task—will they be able to do it well?—so they avoid the anxiety by postponing the task.

If they postpone it too long, so that they end up in a rush to get it done, that often makes the anxiety worse. They know this intellectually, but still the human tendency is to avoid that anxiety-provoking task again, next time it needs to be done.

In precrastination, the anxiety is more about getting the task done on time—making that reservation, finding the right present, getting it wrapped in time, etc. So precrastinators do things well in advance if they can, to avoid that anxiety.

Both strategies are rewarded by short-term anxiety relief, but with precrastination, that relief is long-term as well. There is one repercussion of precrastination, however.

We tend to annoy other people when we’re asking them what they want for Christmas in August!! 😉

And heaven forbid that a precrastinator and procrastinator try to live together. That can get ugly.

This year, I’m happy that I’m a precrastinator. While a few items have not yet arrived, everything is ordered. (Some I have sent directly to my son’s house, since we will be spending the holidays with him and his family.)

Now I can start obsessing about which presents we’ll be carrying in which suitcases… hmmm…

Which are you, a procrastinator or a precrastinator? Or somewhere in between?

Kirsten Weiss is definitely a precrastinator like me. She released her Christmas book, Gnome Alone, on Halloween!! Check it out…

Gnome Alone, A Doyle Cozy Mystery, #5

It’s holiday season in small-town Doyle, and the town is pivoting from UFO tourism to Bigfoot Days. For Susan Witsend, the owner of a UFO-themed B&B, this presents a branding conundrum.

But when Bigfoot is blamed for a mass garden gnome theft, control-freak Susan is drafted to track down the kidnapped gnomes. And then the holiday season hits another sour note with the murder of a member of her caroling group. Are Susan’s organization skills up to juggling missing gnomes and tracking down a killer in time to ring in the festivities?

Because as Susan unwraps motives and alibis, she finds herself adding more names to the naughty list. She may have to face some hard truths about her own limits and about just how far a not-so-jolly killer will go…

Gnome Alone is a fast-paced and funny cozy mystery, packed with quirky characters, pets, and murder! It’s perfect for fans of Jana DeLeon, Janet Evanovich, and Donna Andrews. (Susan’s Bigfoot Investigation Protocol at the back of the book!)

Available at: AMAZON ~ NOOK ~ APPLE ~ KOBO ~ GOOGLE PLAY

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Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kassandra is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She is the author of the Kate Huntington psychological mysteries, set in her native Maryland, and the Marcia Banks and Buddy cozy mysteries, set in Central Florida. She also writes romantic suspense under the pen name of Jessica Dale.

Misterio press produces an array of quality crime fiction. We post here twice a month, usually on Tuesdays, to alert you to new releases, to entertain, and to inform.

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