Have you ever wondered, with all the information available to us both online and off, why procrastination is still such a widespread phenomenon? Have you ever wondered why your procrastination problem keeps interfering with the best plans you have for yourself?
Current resources about time and task management seem to lack explanations for why procrastination takes a hold of us and why it's so hard to break away from it. To reduce our reliance on procrastination, we need to take a closer look at our thoughts and feelings about our work and ourselves. Without this crucial step, old patterns of delay and avoidance will return as soon as we attempt to change our behavior.
So…where do we begin?
First, check to see if you struggle with any of the factors listed below:
1) You assume your procrastination problem is unchangeable and here to stay. Many of us have been procrastinating since early high school, so it seems difficult to realize we're capable of working without stressing ourselves out, missing deadlines, and doing our most important work at the last minute. You can change your work style. It will take patience, practice, and perseverance, but you are capable of all three.
2) You avoid difficult tasks that might cause painful feelings. It is completely understandable that you might gravitate towards the short-term pleasure of avoiding your work or making difficult decisions rather than doing your work and grappling with what you have to decide. However, what is unfortunate about routinely taking the more pleasurable route is we end up missing opportunities to learn, to grow, and to master what we try. You can endure the work you choose to do. Start doing your work by taking small steps so that you can start to feel relieved and rewarded by it.
3) You have a negative outlook and/or low self-esteem. There are so many factors that can cause us to feel less than “good enough.” What’s most important is that you heal from the hurt that forces you to feel bad about yourself and your future. Consult with a mentor or a therapist if you feel you're not able to recover on your own from the thoughts and feelings that hold you back from reaching your potential. There is no need for you to be saddled with the feeling that things won’t go your way. There is no need to expect criticism every time you’ve made your best effort. You have so much more capacity for action. Move past your own doubts and see how much can happen.
4) You feel chronically overscheduled and overwhelmed. Procrastinators get behind on tasks and then those tasks start to pile up. It’s harder to do good work when we are constantly thinking about how overwhelmed and behind we are. Start fixing this difficult cycle right away. Take a look at your schedule and get rid of everything that is non-essential: the errands, the binge TV watching, the getting into everyone else’s business. You’ll be surprised at how much time you can rescue from a single week when you are more mindful of how you spend your time. Once you've “created” more space in your schedule, start to attack your to-do list, getting rid of each task one by one. Maintain your progress by saying “no” to all but the most essential requests that others might make of you. This process might take months to complete, but it will be worth your time and effort.
5) You are socially isolated. Procrastinators, even the extroverted ones, tend to suffer from a relatively limited social life because they feel they cannot have fun with other people until they get their own act together. Ironically, this social isolation makes the procrastination worse. We become disconnected from the reasons we do our work when we become disconnected from other people. We don’t have feedback, we don’t get encouragement, and we don’t get advice when we work in isolation. We do get stuck though. Make sure you start re-establishing the connections you had before your procrastination problem started to take over. Don’t forget to make brand new connections too.
6) You haven’t gotten around to it. This may be the biggest reason why people don’t do things they want to do. There is no urgent reason to act, and so no action happens. For example, we may stare at ugly carpeting for years without ever ripping it up, even though that could be done in a weekend. Identify the most important situation for you to address and keep that in your focus until it is addressed fully. You will feel relief and pride when you experience the benefits of sticking to what you've chosen to focus on.
Now use this remedy for your procrastination problem: find your priority and then take the required action steps
Act like a manager in your own life and determine what is the one major area in your life that needs urgent attention. Might it be your finances? Your health? Your relationship? The clutter in your apartment? Once you determine the area, then determine the next three doable action steps you need to take in order to make a dent. That is all we are going for right now — a dent. Write those three actions steps down and give yourself a total of three days to get all of them done.
In going through this process, you give yourself the benefit of having a doable action, a time limit, and a noticeable positive result. You will see the power of small, consistent, planned action which is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful tool against procrastination there is. Avoid feeling overwhelmed as that feeling is the trigger that might thrust you back into the cycle of procrastination.
Don’t just act like a manager — be the manager. You are the manager of your own life. Take care of even the smallest details in your day to get rid of your procrastination problem and to feel at your best. You are capable of that responsibility and nothing can shake you from that powerful role once you learn how to own it. Your procrastination problem won’t stand a chance.
Interested in getting a free download with detailed information on how to get back into action post-procrastination? Get your S.M.A.C.K. Solution Guide to Procrastination Recovery immediately when you click this link –>THE S.M.A.C.K. Solution Guide
