Procrastina --- wait, I need to do something before I finish this title

I am the world's greatest procrastinator. Seriously, if you wanted to learn how to procrastinate, come find me. I'll teach you how. First you'll have to get me to sit down and focus though. Ah, therein lies the rub.

I can waste more time at work than any other human being alive. I am truly amazed that I managed to graduate high school, graduate college, and then convince a law school to let me attend, nevermind the fact that they gave me some money for doing so. Then, I passed the bar exam too. On my first try.

See, here's the thing. I procrastinate to no end, but when the shit starts hitting the fan, I put my tail in gear and come through. Luckily, I've been smart enough and clever enough to get by on last minute preparation. I have a feeling this streak won't last forever.

How do you break the habit of being a procrastinator? Telling me to get my ass moving on a miserable assignment is like trying to tell a heroin addict to take that silly needle out of his vein. It ain't happening. But in the end, putting things off just stresses me out more, and I know this. If I'd started working on an assignment earlier, I would have seen the problems ahead of time and they could have been worked out. Now, because I waited so long, common problems become "emergencies." It sucks and it's illogical.

Is it just laziness on my part, or is there something else behind procrastination? We all do it to some extent (okay, not the Italian, but he has a freakish energy level), and I wonder if it's about control. You can't control so many things in your environment, but you can control when YOU choose to start an assignment given to you by a boss or a client. Of course, like all ill-formed logic, this reasonsing doesn't pass the common sense test. Because by procrastinating, you're assuring you WON'T have control at the end when all hell breaks loose because you decided to procrastinate. Hey, at least it was YOUR pile of shit, right?

I procrastinate drying the dishes each and every night. I hate it. Tonight, after the Italian finishing washing the pots and pans (for the smartasses out there, YES, we do have a dishwasher, but we have nice pans so we wash those by hand), he asked me to dry them. This happens every night, and I usually wait until they air dry and put them up. This gets on his nerves to no end. I was called out: "why are you trying to get out of drying the dishes again?" I admitted my problem, and I picked up the towel.

You know what, it felt a lot better to put those dishes away at 7:45 and be done with them. Usually, I'm still worrying about them come bedtime. As the Italian constantly reminds me, there is not a little dish fairy that comes through and puts all the pots and pans up. Well, there is, but it's him and he prefers I don't call him a fairy. Fairies don't usually have hair on their chests.

So what's YOUR biggest character flaw? And how do I get past mine?