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Procrastination

Avoiding something? … Learning how to limit procrastination can save your life and your future.

Have you realized that avoiding the job often takes up more time.

If you are always leaving work pile up on your desk into a mountain, there’s a really good chance you could simply be on the avoidance treadmill.

Procrastination shouldn’t be a long term strategy, but some of the times we all treat it as though it is.

It happens to the best of us. And we excuse our action, or lack of action in so many different ways.

The real thing is that procrastination is just a nice way of saying avoidance.

Why do we avoid things?

Simply – because we don’t enjoy them, or because they take us out of our comfort zone.

So rather than yielding to the dreaded beast – try these tips for overcoming procrastination:

1. Be honest about why you are avoiding the activity.

Is it fear, is it that you don’t get on with someone, is it because you have to deliver bad news and you’re not sure how to go about it?

2. Commit to doing it at a certain time.

I usually do the things I’d prefer to avoid in the morning, so they are out of the way.

3. Prepare for the job

If you need to write yourself a script, do it. If you need to have absolute quiet, switch off the phones for a couple of hours. Whatever it takes – set yourself up for success.

4. Just do it!

5. Reward yourself when you are finished.

So when you are finished treat yourself. Go out for coffee afterwards, just take a break, or whatever rocks your boat .

6. Appreciate the feeling.

Be grateful for the feeling – see how good it feels to get something done that would normally sit in your in-tray, or on your to-do list for ages.

7. Ask yourself should I actually be doing this job?.

There are some things that we just aren’t suited to, or that we don’t have the expertise for.
If the things you avoid fall into this category, consider outsourcing them to an expert.

Delegate rather than Procrastinate.

Enjoy

Chris

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Motivation, Self Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.