OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION

OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination - habit of putting tasks off to the last possible minute, can be a major problem in both your career and your personal life. 

Side effects include missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, stress, overwhelm, resentment, and guilt. 

1. Stress. 

a.When you feel stressed, worried, or anxious, it's hard to work productively. In certain situations procrastination works as a coping mechanism to keep your stress levels under control. 

b. A wise solution is to reduce the amount of stress in your life when possible, such that you can spend more time working because you want to, not because you have to. One of the simplest ways to reduce stress is to take more time for play. 

2. Overwhelm 

a. Sometimes you may have more items on your to-do list than you can reasonably complete.

b. In this case the message is that you need to stop, reassess your true priorities, and simplify.Options for reducing schedule overwhelm include elimination, delegation, and negotiation. First, review your to-dos and cut as much as you can. Cut everything that isn't truly important and TV drains them.

3. Laziness 

a. Often we procrastinate because we feel too physically and/or emotionally drained to work. Once we fall into this pattern, it's easy to get stuck due to inertia because an object at rest tends to remain at rest.Feeling weak and unmotivated shouldn't be your norm, so it's important to disrupt this pattern as soon as you become aware of it. 

b. The solution is straightforward: get off your butt and physically move your body. Exercise helps to raise your energy levels. When your energy is high, tasks will seem to get easier, and you'll be less resistant to taking action. A fit person can handle more activity than an unfit person, even though the difficulty of the tasks remains the same. 

4. Lack of Motivation

a.If you suffer from chronically low motivation and just can't seem to get anything going, then it's time for you to let go of immature thought patterns, to embrace life as a mature adult, and to discover your true purpose in life. 

b.Until you identify an inspiring purpose, you'll never come close to achieving your potential, and your motivation will always remain weak. 

c. Center your work around an inspiring purpose, and you'll greatly reduce your tendency to procrastinate. Finding your purpose is a powerful way to defeat procrastination problems because you won't procrastinate on what you love to do. Chronic procrastination is actually a big warning sign that tells us, "You're going the wrong way. Take a different path!" 

5. Lack of Discipline 

a. Even when motivation is high, you may still encounter tasks you don't want to do. In these situations self-discipline works like a motivational backup system. If your self-discipline is weak, however, procrastinating will be too tempting to resist. 

b. If you really want to overcome procrastination, you must release any attachment to the fantasy of a quick fix, and commit to making real progress. 

6. Poor Time Management Habits 

a. Do you ever find yourself falling behind because you overslept, because you were too disorganized, or because certain tasks just fell through the cracks? Bad habits like these often lead to procrastination, often unintentionally. 

b. The solution in this case is to diagnose the bad habit that's hurting you and devise a new habit to replace it. 

For tasks you've been putting off for a while, I recommend using the timeboxing method to get started. Here's how it works: First, select a small piece of the task you can work on for just 30 minutes. Then choose a reward you will give yourself immediately afterwards. The reward is guaranteed if you simply put in the time; it doesn't depend on any meaningful accomplishment. 

7. Lack of Skill 

a. If you lack sufficient skill to complete a task at a reasonable level of quality, you may procrastinate to avoid a failure experience. 

b. You then have two viable options to overcome this type of pattern: educate and delegate. 

- First, you can acquire the skill level you need by training up. If you can't do something, don't whine about it. Educate yourself to gain skill until you become proficient. 

- A second option is to delegate tasks you lack the skill to do. There are far too many interesting skills for you to master, so you must rely on others for help.