Overcoming Procrastination

By Terry Orr 

I suspect all of us are guilty of procrastinating from time to time - myself included, more often than I’d like to admit. It is really a very bad habit and we seem to find all sorts of excuses for putting things off. So lets take a look at some ways to help us overcome procrastination.

According to Steve Pavlina - 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. Side effects include missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, stress, overwhelm, resentment, and guilt. This article will explore the root causes of procrastination and give you several practical tools to overcome it.

Lifehack article “Overcome Procrastination Once and For All” recommends:

• Know your most important goals and values.
• Only do tasks that contribute to those goals and values.
• Mentally link tasks to the pleasurable outcomes you seek.
• Plan your day & week.
• Do, but don’t overdo. Rest when needed.
• Break down big tasks.
• Get help making decisions.
• Believe in yourself!
• Trick & Treat!

The University at Buffalo offers these tips:

• Recognize self-defeating problems such as; fear and anxiety, difficulty concentrating, poor time management, indecisiveness and perfectionism.
• Identify your own goals, strengths and weaknesses, values and priorities.
• Compare your actions with the values you feel you have. Are your values consistent with your actions?
• Discipline yourself to use time wisely: Set priorities.
• Study in small blocks instead of long time periods. For example, you will accomplish more if you study/work in 60 minute blocks and take frequent 10 minute breaks in between, than if you study/work for 2-3 hours straight, with no breaks. Reward yourself after you complete a task.
• Motivate yourself to study: Dwell on success, not on failure. Try to study in small groups. Break large assignments into small tasks. Keep a reminder schedule and checklist.
• Set realistic goals.
• Modify your environment: Eliminate or minimize noise/ distraction. Ensure adequate lighting. Have necessary equipment at hand. Don't waste time going back and forth to get things. Don't get too comfortable when studying. A desk and straight-backed chair is usually best (a bed is no place to study). Be neat! Take a few minutes to straighten your desk. This can help to reduce day-dreaming.

Here are the primary tips to overcome procrastination that I use regarding this blog site:

• Planning is my essential first step - What must be done and when
• Prioritizing - my weekly and daily tasks
• Creativity and Productive - Knowing when my peak periods are and capitalizing on them
• Getting it Done - in my case, Hyper-focusing when my ADD/ADHD is running amuck 
• Taking a breaks when I need them - just walking about the house helps at times - others might require walking around the block a couple times.

How do you deal with procrastination?

References and Links:

http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/?page_id=111

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_96.htm 

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/overcoming-procrastination.htm 

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/overcome-procrastination-once-and-for-all.html 

[All images from Google] 

PROCRASTINATION

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By Akindman

If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.  ~Olin Miller

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority or important actions with tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off important tasks to a later time.

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.  ~Spanish Proverb

Yep!  I am guilty as most of us of procrastination and clearly know better – but still seems to find a way of putting off things that really should be done sooner.  Case in point – purchased a wireless router thinking we would need it during home automation project. Discovered that it was not needed and I should return it for my refund.  Well last week (six weeks later) I attempted to return said router only to be told – “sorry sir, but your 30 days has already expired! Ugh.

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The best way to get something done is to begin.  ~Author Unknown

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Here are some other quotes you might enjoy:

• Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.  ~William James
• Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.  ~Don Marquis
• Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday.  ~Author Unknown
• Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.  ~Charles Kingsley
• Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.  ~Robert Benchley
• There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.  ~Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
• It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.  ~Earl of Chesterfield
• The two rules of procrastination:  1) Do it today.  2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.  ~Author Unknown
• One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.  ~Vincent T. Foss
• You may delay, but time will not.  ~Benjamin Franklin
• Someday is not a day of the week.  ~Author Unknown
• To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.  ~Eva Young
• Don't fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
• Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.  ~C. Northcote Parkinson, 1958
• Procrastination is opportunity's assassin.  ~Victor Kiam
• What may be done at any time will be done at no time.  ~Scottish Proverb
• There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house.  ~Joe Ryan
• Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow.  ~Gerald Vaughan
• I've been looking over the list of spring chores I made up last fall, and darned if they aren't fall chores, after all.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
• You know you are getting old when it takes too much effort to procrastinate.  ~Author Unknown
• I do my work at the same time each day - the last minute.  ~Author Unknown
• The time to begin most things is ten years ago.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
• Eventually, time takes care of everything.  The trouble with procrastination is that people give up on it too soon.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com
• Putting off an easy thing makes it hard.  Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.  ~George Claude Lorimer
• Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform.  ~Edward Young
• Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.  ~Mark Twain

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