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Overcoming
Procrastination
Procrastination, the habit of putting tasks off to
the last possible
minute, can be a major problem in both your career
and your personal
life. Missed opportunities, frenzied work hours,
stress, overwhelm,
resentment, and guilt are just some of the
symptoms. This article
will explore the root causes of procrastination
and give you several
practical tools to overcome it.
Replace "Have To" With "Want
To"
First, thinking that you absolutely have to do
something is a major
reason for procrastination. When you tell yourself
that you have to
do something, you're implying that you're being
forced to do it, so
you'll automatically feel a sense of resentment
and rebellion.
Procrastination kicks in as a defense mechanism to
keep you away
from this pain. If the task you are putting off
has a real deadline,
then when the deadline gets very close, the sense
of pain associated
with the task becomes overridden by the much
greater sense of pain
if you don't get started immediately.
The solution to this first mental block is to
realize and accept
that you don't have to do anything you don't want
to do. Even though
there may be serious consequences, you are always
free to choose. No
one is forcing you to run your business the way
you do. All the
decisions you've made along the way have brought
you to where you
are today. If you don't like where you've ended
up, you're free to
start making different decisions, and new results
will follow. Also
be aware that you don't procrastinate in every
area of your life.
Even the worst procrastinators have areas where
they never
procrastinate. Perhaps you never miss your
favorite TV show, or you
always manage to check your favorite online forums
each day. In each
situation the freedom of choice is yours. So if
you're putting off
starting that new project you feel you "have
to" do this year,
realize that you're choosing to do it of your own
free will.
Procrastination becomes less likely on tasks that
you openly and
freely choose to undertake.
Replace "Finish It" With "Begin
It"
Secondly, thinking of a task as one big whole that
you have to
complete will virtually ensure that you put it
off. When you focus
on the idea of finishing a task where you can't
even clearly
envision all the steps that will lead to
completion, you create a
feeling of overwhelm. You then associate this
painful feeling to the
task and delay as long as possible. If you say to
yourself, "I've
got to do my taxes today," or "I must
complete this report," you're
very likely to feel overwhelmed and put the task
off.
The solution is to think of starting one small
piece of the task
instead of mentally feeling that you must finish
the whole thing.
Replace, "How am I going to finish
this?" with "What small step can
I start on right now?" If you simply start a
task enough times, you
will eventually finish it. If one of the projects
you want to
complete is to clean out your garage, thinking
that you have to
finish this big project in one fell swoop can make
you feel
overwhelmed, and you'll put it off. Ask yourself
how you can get
started on just one small part of the project. For
example, go to
your garage with a notepad, and simply write down
a few ideas for
quick 10-minute tasks you could do to make a dent
in the piles of
junk. Maybe move one or two obvious pieces of junk
to the trash can
while you're there. Don't worry about finishing
anything
significant. Just focus on what you can do right
now. If you do this
enough times, you'll eventually be starting on the
final piece of
the task, and that will lead to finishing.
Replace Perfectionism With Permission To Be Human
A third type of erroneous thinking that leads to
procrastination is
perfectionism. Thinking that you must do the job
perfectly the first
try will likely prevent you from ever getting
started. Believing
that you must do something perfectly is a recipe
for stress, and
you'll associate that stress with the task and
thus condition
yourself to avoid it. You then end up putting the
task off to the
last possible minute, so that you finally have a
way out of this
trap. Now there isn't enough time to do the job
perfectly, so you're
off the hook because you can tell yourself that
you could have been
perfect if you only had more time. But if you have
no specific
deadline for a task, perfectionism can cause you
to delay
indefinitely. If you've never even started that
project you always
wanted to do really well, could perfectionism be
holding you back?
The solution to perfectionism is to give yourself
permission to be
human. Have you ever used a piece of software that
you consider to
be perfect in every way? I doubt it. Realize that
an imperfect job
completed today is always superior to the perfect
job delayed
indefinitely. Perfectionism is also closely
connected to thinking of
the task as one big whole. Replace that one big
perfectly completed
task in your mind with one small imperfect first
step. Your first
draft can be very, very rough. You are always free
to revise it
again and again. For example, if you want to write
a 5000-word
article, feel free let your first draft be only
100 words if it
helps you get started. That's less than the length
of this paragraph.
Replace Deprivation With Guaranteed Fun
A fourth mental block is associating deprivation
with a task. This
means you believe that undertaking a project will
offset much of the
pleasure in your life. In order to complete this
project, will you
have to put the rest of your life on hold? Do you
tell yourself that
you will have to go into seclusion, work long
hours, never see your
family, and have no time for fun? That's not
likely to be very
motivating, yet this is what many people do when
trying to push
themselves into action. Picturing an extended
period of working long
hours in solitude with no time for fun is a great
way to guarantee
procrastination.
The solution to the deprivation mindset is to do
the exact opposite.
Guarantee the fun parts of your life first, and
then schedule your
work around them. This may sound
counterproductive, but this reverse
psychology works extremely well. Decide in advance
what times you
will allocate each week to family time,
entertainment, exercise,
social activities, and personal hobbies. Guarantee
an abundance of
all your favorite leisure activities. Then limit
the amount of
working hours each week to whatever is left. The
peak performers in
any field tend to take more vacation time and work
shorter hours
than the workaholics. By treating your working
time as a scarce
resource rather than an uncontrollable monster
that can gobble up
every other area of your life, you'll begin to
feel much more
balanced, and you'll be far more focused and
effective in using your
working time. It's been shown that the optimal
work week for most
people is 40-45 hours. Working longer hours than
this actually has
such an adverse effect on productivity and
motivation that less real
work is done in the long run. What would happen if
you only allowed
yourself a certain number of hours a week to work?
What if I came to
you and said, "You are only allowed to work
10 hours this week?"
Your feeling of deprivation would be reversed,
wouldn't it? Instead
of feeling that work was depriving you of leisure
time, you'd feel
you were being deprived of work. You'd replace,
"I want to play"
with "I want to work," your motivation
for work would skyrocket, and
all traces of procrastination would vanish.
I also strongly recommend that you take at least
one full day off
each week with no work whatsoever. This will
really recharge you and
make you eager to start the coming week. Having a
guaranteed work-
free day will increase your motivation for work
and make you less
likely to procrastinate. If you know that the next
day is your day
off, you'll be less likely to put off tasks, since
you won't allow
yourself the luxury of allowing them to spill over
into your day
off. When you think that every day is a work day,
however, work
seems never-ending, and you always tell yourself,
"I should be
working." Thus, your brain will use
procrastination as a way to
guarantee that you get some form of pleasure in
your life.
Use Timeboxing
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. Examples
include watching
your favorite TV show, seeing a movie, enjoying a
meal or snack,
going out with friends, going for a walk, or doing
anything you find
pleasurable. Because the amount of time you'll be
working on the
task is so short, your focus will shift to the
impending pleasure of
the reward instead of the difficulty of the task.
No matter how
unpleasant the task, there's virtually nothing you
can't endure for
just 30 minutes if you have a big enough reward
waiting for you.
When you timebox your tasks, you may discover that
something very
interesting happens. You will probably find that
you continue
working much longer than 30 minutes. You will
often get so involved
in a task, even a difficult one, that you actually
want to keep
working on it. Before you know it, you've put in
an hour or even
several hours. The certainty of your reward is
still there, so you
know you can enjoy it whenever you're ready to
stop. Once you begin
taking action, your focus shifts away from
worrying about the
difficulty of the task and towards finishing the
current piece of
the task which now has your full attention.
When you do decide to stop working, claim your
reward, and enjoy it.
Then schedule another 30-minute period to work on
the task with
another reward. This will help you associate more
and more pleasure
to the task, knowing that you will always be
immediately rewarded
for your efforts. Working towards distant and
uncertain long-term
rewards is not nearly as motivating as immediate
short-term rewards.
By rewarding yourself for simply putting in the
time, instead of for
any specific achievements, you'll be eager to
return to work on your
task again and again, and you'll ultimately finish
it.
The writing of this article serves as a good
example of applying the
above techniques. I could have said to myself,
"I have to finish
this 2000-word article, and it has to be
perfect." So first I
remember that I don't have to write anything; I
freely choose to
write articles. Then I realize that I have plenty
of time to do a
good job, and that I don't need to be perfect
because if I start
early enough, I have plenty of time to make
revisions. I also tell
myself that if I just keep starting, I will
eventually be done.
Before I started this article, I didn't have a
topic selected, so I
used the timeboxing method to get that done.
Having dinner was my
reward. I knew that at the end of 30 minutes of
working on the task,
I could eat, and I was hungry at the time, so that
was good
motivation for me. It took me a few minutes to
pick the topic of
overcoming procrastination, and I spent the rest
of the time writing
down some ideas and making a very rough outline.
When the time was
up, I stopped working and had dinner, and it
really felt like I'd
earned that meal.
The next morning I used the same 30-minute
timeboxing method, making
breakfast my reward. However, I got so involved in
the task that I'm
still writing 90 minutes later. I know I'm free to
stop at any time
and that my reward is waiting for me, but having
overcome the
inertia of getting started, the natural tendency
is to continue
working. In essence I've reversed the problem of
procrastination by
staying with the task and delaying gratification.
The net result is
that I finish my article early and have a
rewarding breakfast.
I hope this article has helped you gain a greater
insight into the
causes of procrastination and how you can overcome
it. Realize that
procrastination is caused by associating some form
of pain or
unpleasantness to the task you are contemplating.
The way to
overcome procrastination is simply to reduce the
pain and increase
the pleasure you associate with beginning a task,
thus allowing you
to overcome inertia and build positive forward
momentum. And if you
begin any task again and again, you will
ultimately finish it.
Author Byline
-------------
Steve Pavlina is founder of StevePavlina.com, a
personal development
site focused on time management, motivation,
problem solving, and
personal productivity. He is the editor of
Personal Development
Insights Newsletter and has written dozens of
published articles on
personal growth. His top-down approach to
life begins with
discovering one's purpose and systematically
managing goals,
projects, and tasks to live that purpose every
day. He shares his
best insights through his popular blog at www.stevepavlina.com/blog.
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