Procrastinate No More

Taking Action for Better Results!

“I’ll take care of it later”.  Do you often find yourself making that statement?  Do you often put off important tasks knowing that you really need to get them done?  Mostly everyone on the planet procrastinates at some time or another, but many people procrastinate so often that it stops them from achieving their life goals and business goals.  In other words, the habit of procrastination prevents many people from reaching their full potential!

Understanding What Procrastination Is

Procrastination is the process of delaying or putting off things that you should be doing and usually putting your focus on other things that you enjoy more at the time.  For example, have you ever found yourself working on a project and then getting up from it to use the restroom or get a snack only to find yourself reading a book, cleaning up or watching TV?  After about 30 minutes you ask yourself, “how did I get here and what was I working on?”  This often happens when the task that you were working on was possibly overwhelming and somewhat complex or maybe you were not focused on how to complete the task or maybe you will need the help of others to complete it.

So, how can one get a grip on procrastination?  The first thing is to get a better understanding of why you procrastinate.  There can be many reasons, but some more common ones include:

·         Not having a daily operations system in place to handle tasks

·         Doing too many of the little things instead of delegating them

·         Feeling overwhelmed

·         Organization skills need improvement

·         Lack of focus and prioritization

·         Tired; lacking energy

·         Fear of being successful

It is important to know what your reasons are so you can start working on eliminating them in order to have better focus and productivity.  Start by keeping a simple journal using a spiral bound notebook.  Date each new journal entry.  Jot down a few notes at the end of each day about your work habit and whether or not you completed the tasks you set out to do for the day.  Note whether you were late for a meeting or whether you found yourself doing another activity rather than the one you were suppose to be working on.  Your journal will allow you to see your habits objectively and know what you need to work on to rid yourself of procrastinating.  Once you have identified a pattern, it’s time to start evaluating why you are procrastinating and practicing effective productive habits to overcome it.

Identifying Your Procrastination Habits

Now that you know what procrastination is, it is important to know when you are procrastinating and how to work your way out of it.  In order to do that you must be able to identify the signs of procrastination, which you probably are already aware of.  

Some common procrastination signs include:

• Daydreaming; becoming sleepy all of a sudden
• Ignoring your daily schedule and working on things that are low priority
• Browsing the Internet and not sure why you are doing it
• Putting a task in front of yourself to work on and staring at it
• Your tasks list has gotten longer and difficult to manage, because you haven’t worked on anything
• Working all day on a task that should have taken a couple of hours
• Allowing others to interrupt you instead of getting back with them later