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What's the meaning of procrastinate and errands?

03 04 07 - 08:48 - Bookmark this post

I'm not a native english speaker, I'm dutch actually. And last night I had a discussion on Twitter (oooohhh....the famous T-word) with some fellow GTD-ers from the Netherlands about the dutch meaning of two words. Since 99% of my audience is not dutch-speaking I'm going to ask the question different here. Perhaps anyone can help us out.

In GTD, The Dave talks about a list called "Errands". I never gave it much thought and just use the word. But what does it actually mean? Is it the same as "Doing groceries"? Or more something like "Shopping"? Another famous word in productivity-management is "procrastination". Now how does this translate? I know what it is and I know when I'm doing it. But it's hard to describe. Is it something like "slacking"? "Avoiding work"? Or more "Putting work behind"? I try to come with a dutch equivalent for it, in just one word.

Hope anyone can help us out here!

“Doing errands” is inderdaad ‘boodschappen doen’, maar dan in de brede zin des woords: Niet alleen spruitjes kopen, maar ook de loodgieter bellen en het glas naar de glasbak brengen.

Procrastineren is een woord dat we in het nederlands officieel niet hebben. Helaas, want het is een prachtwoord. De betekenis is ongeveer ‘de kunst van het tot morgen uitstellen wat je vandaag had kunnen doen’.

ps. die externe javascript van cocomments.com maakt je site beretraag..
Bob - 03 04 07 - 09:02

Ik gebruik zelf geen Nederladstalige labels, maar mijn versie van ‘Errands’ is te vertalen met ‘In de stad’.

Een goede vertaling voor ‘procrastination’ bestaat helaas nog niet. ‘Uitstel’ dekt de lading van het engels woord niet helemaal, dus ik ben het met Bob eens dat we gewoon het woord procrastineren moeten invoeren.
Jeroen Sangers - 03 04 07 - 12:10

an errand is a short jouney undertaken to deliver or collect something. going to the store to buy food is an errand. ‘shopping’ is not really an errand, but in the right context would be understood to mean going somewhere to buy something, which is an errand.

procrastination is a verb. ironically, the ACT of putting off ACTION
scott brooks - 03 04 07 - 13:26

Dan zou ik zeggen: ‘errands’ = klusjes in mijn vocabulaire
erwin blom - 03 04 07 - 15:39

Ever just thought of looking it up in a dictionary??
jot - 03 04 07 - 18:54

Jot: did you? And what did the dictionary say?
erwin blom - 03 04 07 - 18:58

To correct scott brooks, procrastination is a noun (procrastinate is the verb). I don’t know if it helps, but in German you could use the euphemism “Aufschieberitis” to describe it approximately. It is simply the state of avoiding to do necessary tasks.

Errands are simply the collection of (usually) minor tasks that you take care of away from home. Examples would be taking things to the dry cleaners, shopping, taking videos back, etc. An approximate word for it in German is “Besorgung.”
mark - 03 04 07 - 21:21

I agree with Mark and Scott – procrastinate means to put off an action.

As for the Errands, I had the same problem (I’m not English native as well) but then I came across the phrase “I’ve got to run some errands” in many US series… and it simply means… what Mark wrote above ;-)
Michael - 03 04 07 - 23:22

Errand is actually rather similar in swedish, (arende, with umlaut or the two dots above the first a). Though in finnish its different called (asia) which is also the same word as THINGS, so basically things you have to do. In swedish the word also could mean mission,. Actually the japanese word SHIMEI which is close to what you would call an errand also has the meaning mission.
riyota - 04 04 07 - 02:24

All, thank you for your input. I still don’t have a good dutch word(one word) for procrastinate, since our dutch language is too poor for it. I think it has to do with our history of hard working men. We simply didn’t know how to procrastinate since we were always at work, conquering the oceans and building dikes to hold the sea back :-)
Errands, I think I have to go with the dutch word “klusjes”. Little, minor tasks. It is somthing different than going shopping.

Thank you all! And thanks to Pascal who send me via email an extensive definition of the wordsin old-english! Excellent!
Frank Meeuwsen - 04 04 07 - 08:14

Ik vertaal procrastination gewoon als “piekeren”. En ik denk dat ik er niet zo ver van af zit.
mich.l - 04 04 07 - 20:47

I see that boodschappen doen has already been mentioned. Just want to say that when I was a kid in Dublin, long before supermarkets, the expression was “getting the messages” or, if a shop had a messenger boy, “delivering the messages”. I always thought this was a very odd expression and was amused to find a parellel in Dutch.

As for the suggestion that the Dutch are incapable of procrastination, this reminds me of an old joke. A Spaniard is boasting to an Irishman about how relaxed Spain is and he mentions “manyana” (sorry about the spelling I can’t put an enya on the n). The Irishman listens for a while and he says “You know, in our language we have no word that conveys anything like that degree of urgency”.

Trivia: The word rabbit is the same in Irish and Dutch(though spelled differently). Why is a mystery, since the languages have nothing else in common.
Paul - 06 04 07 - 13:56

“I still don’t have a good dutch word(one word) for procrastinate, since our dutch language is too poor for it.”
Please don’t feel that way about it — every language has at least one word that every other language needs a sentence to describe. “Procrastinate” is one of English’s contributions.

And I used to explain ‘errand’ to my students (English as a Second Language) as a companion to ‘chore’. A chore is a little job around the house, while an errand is a little job away from the house.
Lori - 09 04 07 - 23:16

Procrastinate from the Latin: Pro (to) + cras (tomorrow) + (stuff)

Errands = Context: Out of the house; Status: Action; Project: Various
Phil Bowman - 11 04 07 - 00:50

voor ‘procrastination’ gebruik ik ‘uitstelgedrag’

voor errands denk ik aan het westvlaams ‘commissies doen’,
waarschijnlijk van het franse ‘commissions’ – boodschappen. Hier zit inderdaad ‘missio’ in (zending)

my 2 cents

cu

Moonlander
moonlander - 12 04 07 - 23:22

I think “procrastination” is what we call “werk/studie ontwijkend gedrag” (work/study-avoiding behaviour)
Bob - 02 01 08 - 21:51

procastinate is m.i. vooruitschuiven, voor zich uit schuiven, uitstelgedrag, werk laten liggen
"Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill." – Christopher Parker
Robert - 05 02 08 - 07:45