Are you one of those people who continually shift your tasks around doing the things you enjoy most first and putting off the ones you don’t enjoy until later…much later?
Do you avoid completing certain projects until the last minute when your back is up against the wall? Do you keep seeing the same items turning up on your “To Do List” day after day after day?
Are you one of those people who insists you work better under pressure? Then you are probably one of the millions of people in this country who suffer from procrastination and I do mean “suffer”.
Procrastination has many negative side effects:
* It eats up valuable time
* It reduces productivity
* It sabotages others
* It lowers self-esteem
* It causes an enormous amount of stress…just to name a few.
Now you may be asking yourself, “If procrastination is so bad, why do so many people do it?”
Some of the reasons are:
* I don’t like doing that particular task
* I don’t know how to complete the task
* I don’t like the person who assigned me the task
* I don’t feel confident in my skill level at that particular task
* The task appears too large to tackle.
* There’s too much work involved
* ETC.etc.etc
Regardless of the reasons for procrastinating, the results are still the same. The task does not get completed in a timely fashion.
Our Information Management program at ChaosOver, Inc. is designed to facilitate you in eliminating FOREVER the habits and patterns that have not served you. Procrastination is one of those behaviors. So how do you eliminate it?
You do it by processing the tasks or projects you have been avoiding, one at a time. Let’s use an example to illustrate the process:
Let’s say you have to write a report on a topic that doesn’t particularly excite you and is going to involve a lot of research and a lot of your time. The report was assigned to you on March 1st and is to be completed by March 15th. Today is March 6th and you still haven’t started it. You know you are procrastinating.
First step in the process is to go through a series of questions:
* Do I still need to complete this task? If the answer is yes go to question 2. If it is no, toss it.
* Can this task be delegated to someone else? If the answer is yes, delegate it. If the answer is no, go to question 3.
* What are the benefits of completing this task? In our example above the benefits may be :
o My boss will be happy with me
o The client will be happy and we may get more business from them
o Our company will make money on this
o I may get a raise, promotion, accolades
o I will get it off of my plate and stop stressing over it.
* What are the consequences of not doing it? Again using our example:
o My boss will be very unhappy with me
o I could get fired or, at least, reprimanded
o I could miss out on a promotion
o I could be sabotaging a co-worker
o We could lose a client
o Our company could lose money
o I will continue to stress over it and feel badly
Now that you have answered these questions, the task has taken on some life, some emotion, and has the ability to motivate you to action. So what do you do next?
You break the task down into its various parts. In our example above that may look like:
* I do an outline of what the report is to cover
* I identify whether I have all the information needed
* I identify resources for obtaining the information I am missing
* I do my research
* I create a first draft with completed information
* I re-write until I am happy with the end report
Now determine how long it will take to complete the first step ONLY. Let’s say you decide it will take an hour. Go to your calendar, whether it be a paper organizer or a computer program such as Outlook, and book yourself an hour to complete this first step.
NOTE- You must treat this appointment as a sacred commitment the same as you would if it was an appointment with a client. (Knowing that you have a deadline for this project and it is going to take several hours to complete, be sure to book that hour as soon as you can into your schedule.)
When you have completed step one, do the same with the next step and so on until the task/project is completed.
If you use this process with ALL of the things where you would normally procrastinate over, whether they are business or personal, you will find yourself eliminating the problem of procrastination FOREVER as you create the new habit of getting things done in a timely fashion.
The result… you will be happy, productive, effective, self-confident, and far less stressed. So go get started….NOW!
Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.
1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com
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About Me
- Len Merson
- San Diego, CA, United States
- Len Merson is the Founder/CEO of Chaos Over, Inc. His career began in sales and marketing consulting. Invariably, the companies that contracted for his services were so disorganized that it was hard to see how they attained, and maintained, the success they had achieved. This mismanagement of information was, for the most part, under the surface. Merson taught them methods to become far more organized.
For more information about Len Merson click on 'Our Team' on our Home Page.
1 comment:
Len,
Great article on the tactical ways to break through procrastination to get a task done. One of the things i've learned, that is vital for everyone to understand about procrastination, is that the bottom line is FEAR.
I've coached hundreds of business leaders, who amazingly procrastinate on things that have literally cost them and their companies millions of dollars, and continue to be amazed at the lengths they will go to avoid taking the action on things to the detriment of themselves, their employees, their customers, their vendors and their companies.
I just wrote about this in my blog and you and your readers may want to read more on this topic at this link:
http://tinyurl.com/leadershipindecision
Thanks for letting me share my take. Keep up the good work because I believe procrastination (although sometimes useful to evaluate a situation before making a decision or taking action on a significant issue) is an epidemic that kills hopes and dreams, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth and we can use all the soldiers we can to help people breakthrough this challenge.
I invite you and your readers to join me on my "End Procrastination NOW! Facebook Fan Page at
http://bit.ly/dhwuH where I will be posting a link to this blog post as a resource for our members.
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