Life is a whirlwind of activities, with each one pulling at us, begging for attention. We have work that we must do but feel an internal pain because another activity looks much more appealing. In some cases, any activity is better than the one we perceive as a painful and a time stealer.
Imagine if you needed to do a solid 6 to 8 hours of work, which would help you towards your dream. But, your friend wants to play tennis, the backyard is calling your name or the bed you left just a while ago, seems so inviting. It’s during these moments that your procrastination may be more than just, “I’d rather have fun.” You need to stop and look at your world of procrastination and determine what causes it and how to knock it down to a respectable size.
One cause of procrastination is a lack of organizing skills. You have a career, a family and plenty of hobbies. The work you need to do, has to take the lead and then prioritize what else is essential. Scheduling everything will help, including family time. This will stop you from flitting from one thing to another and not really accomplishing a great deal.
Start making lists of what needs to be done and get that cleaned up, so you can move on to the fun stuff. As you cross off a task, you will feel a sense of accomplishment.
Lists help you in a number of ways, from being organized to not missing a key task because your focus was elsewhere.
Busy people often have a fear of failure. They have much to accomplish and their minds tell them that a particular task is difficult and they may fail. When that fear hits, they put off doing the task, telling themselves they will tackle it when they feel, “organized, in the right frame of mind…full of energy.” The longer the task is put off, the greater the fear. Meditation and visualization can work in the background, to convince your brain the task can be done and there will be massive rewards. When you visualize, seeing the task and feeling wonderful about completing the steps to the finish line, your procrastination will melt.
Another root cause for procrastination is shiny object syndrome. People who work from home suffer from this frequently. As they work on a project, they see something else and tell themselves that it will be easier to do and make them more money. Switching from one income stream, they jump on new ones as they crop up, spending a lot of money in the process and procrastinating on building the blog, Facebook or YouTube channel they started.
Shiny object syndrome is a distraction issue and it can appear in any work area. People who work in an office may easily get distracted by the outgoing person on the other side of the room. They drop what they are doing and invite that person for a quick coffee that turns into an hour long gabfest.
Procrastination distractions are everywhere. People will check their phones for important texts, open Facebook to “quickly check,” on what’s happening in the world. These are simply ways to procrastinate on doing the important tasks that require focus. To cure this, it is essential to write down all the distractions that occur in a day, and then write out an action plan for eliminating the distraction. It can be as easy as leaving the cellphone in their locker or wearing noise reduction headphones to block out the appealing folks on the other side of the office.
Take the time to find out why you procrastinate and make an action plan to eliminate it. Set up a reward system for those days when you totally stick to the plan and do not procrastinate. Killing procrastination, takes practice and time to master.
