Beating Procrastination

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) September 17, 2009 -- Think over the last three days; have you procrastinated at all?

• maybe you put a difficult work matter on hold for a while?
• maybe you didn’t go to the gym?
• maybe you didn’t quite get around to ringing your mother?

If you said yes to any one of the above, you’re not alone. Many people procrastinate to some degree however when procrastination starts to effect your day to day life, work and relationships, it’s time to do something about it.

What is procrastination? A dictionary term for procrastination is:

“to postpone doing something, especially as a regular practice”.

Procrastination is putting something off that should be done immediately and opting to do something that is easier; something that generally doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone and you already know you are capable of doing.

In a work setting, procrastinators often work as many hours per day as other people but tend to invest their time in the wrong tasks. This is often due to lack of organisation and time management or insight into the difference between important and unimportant tasks. Procrastinators fill their day with low priority tasks which often lead to ineffective outcomes.

Other causes of procrastination include:
• waiting to be in the exact frame of mind until you take action
• lack of organisational skills
• indecisiveness
• waiting for the perfect time
• laziness
• lack of motivation caused by a large array of reasons including bad diet, sleep
or abuse of alcohol and/or drugs.
• feeling overwhelmed.

If you procrastinate, it is important to figure out why you do so you can significantly reduce the frequency or at least make it manageable.

Once you have pinpointed the main reasons behind your procrastination, the pointers below will give you some ideas for dealing with procrastination:

• Prioritise your work in order of most important task to least important task and
undertake tasks in that order.
• Interrupt old and disempowering habits that lead to procrastination. For example,
if you’re habit is to arrive at work right on 9.00am, make a coffee and then chat
to colleagues for fifteen minutes, try coming in ten minutes earlier and start
doing some work straight away to gain momentum. Have your cup of coffee after
doing at least 15 minutes of work.

• Identify the unpleasant consequences of not doing the task.
• Make yourself some rewards for completing tasks to motivate yourself further.
• Break large projects into smaller components so your work is more manageable
• Just Do It! Get over it and apply yourself.

William James has quoted:

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task”

Still here reading this article? Don’t procrastinate – get on with things now!

More information can be found online at http://www.teamaspirations.com.au

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