Copyright 2006-2011
Henrik Edberg
Procrastination is the practice of
carrying out less urgent tasks in preference to more urgent ones, or doing more
pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones, and thus putting off
impending tasks to a later time. According to Freud, the pleasure principle may
be responsible for procrastination; humans prefer to avoid negative emotions,
and to delay stressful tasks.
Procrastination may result in stress,
a sense of guilt and crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as
social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments.
"How soon 'not now' becomes
'never'."
Martin Luther
"A year from now you may wish you
had started today."
Karen Lamb
Procrastination is probably one of the
most common problems people have in their day to day life. So find a
procrastination solution that works for you.
Here are five of them. Try them out
and see which one or ones that fit you the best.
1.
Do the hardest thing first.
What this means is simply to do the
hardest and most important task of the day first thing in the morning. A good
start in the morning lifts your spirits and creates a positive momentum for the
rest of the day. That often creates a pretty productive day.
2.
How do you eat an elephant?
Don't try to take it all in one big
bite. It becomes overwhelming which leads to procrastination. Split a task into
small actionable steps. Then just focus on the first step and nothing else. Just
do that one until it's done. Then move on to the next step.
3.
Recognize that there is more pain in procrastinating than not.
If you have procrastinated a lot you
might have discovered that you procrastinate to avoid doing something that is
boring, hard etc. You want to avoid that pain. But after having some experience
with procrastination you'll probably realise that procrastination itself causes
your more pain than actually just doing what you were supposed to. Realising
the true amount of pain in the two choices will make it easier to get things
done.
4.
Make a small deal with yourself.
Promise yourself that you'll work on
something for just 5 minutes. After those 5 minutes you can do something else
if you want to. But make a note in your schedule for when you will come back to
the task and work another 5 minutes on it. No matter how unpleasant a task may
be, you can often talk yourself into working 5 minutes on it.
I've found this one to be effective to
make a dent in those tasks you have put off for a longer while. Because many
times you will just continue working after those 5 minutes have passed. It is
the first few minutes of getting started that is the hardest part.
5.
Use my three step method for doing something even when you don't feel like it.
Mundane or routine tasks can be a bit
boring. Maybe you have a lot or emails to reply to or phone calls to make.
Batch them - do them all in row - to get them done quicker.
If you feel inner resistance and just
can't get started try this three step method to be able to reduce that
resistance, up your motivation and get going.
Step
1: Accept it.
When you feel resistance within
towards doing something the natural instinct may be to try to push that feeling
away. To brush it off. I have found that doing the opposite and just accepting
that it is there can do wonders.
Tell yourself: "This is how I
feel right now and I accept it".
This sounds counterintuitive and
perhaps like you're giving up. However by accepting how you feel instead of
resisting it you reduce the emotional energy that you are feeding into this
problem. It then tends to just kinda lose speed like a car that runs out of
fuel. And oftentimes it becomes so weak after while that it moves out of your
inner focus and disappears.
This step may be all you need to
reduce the negative feelings enough to be able to start taking action. If not,
move on to the next step.
Step
2: List the positives.
After you have accepted how you feel
list the positives of getting this thing done. Do it on paper, on your computer
or just in your head.
When you don't feel like doing
something it's very easy to get stuck and just focus on the negative aspects
such as it being hard work or the risk of pain or failure.
So you need to change what you are
focusing on to motivate yourself to take action. Making a list of positives
like benefits and possible opportunities can be very effective for turning your
focus around.
If you have problems getting started
ask yourself questions that will empower you. Questions like:
·
What
is awesome about this situation?
·
What
is the hidden opportunity in this situation?
You can pretty much always find
positives about anything. There are lessons to be learned about yourself and
your world and opportunities to be found if you look at things the right way.
Step
3: Just do it.
You should now have reduced much of
the resistance within and feel more motivated to start taking action and
getting your thing done
It is at this point tempting to start
thinking again. To reconsider and ponder. But I have found that if you do that
then it easy to fall back into the same place where you began. You start to
question doing this. Your focus starts to turn back to the negative aspects
again.
So when I am at this point I usually
just stop thinking and get my butt out of the chair. I get moving and I just do
it.
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