Procrastination - The Art Of Putting Things Off

We all have a tendency to put things off for various reasons. How often have you made yourself ‘busy’ just because you’re putting off doing something you’re resisting?

The longer you leave it, the harder it becomes. If you leave it too long it gets to the point where it can no longer be ignored. Now you HAVE to get it done – somehow you now manage to find the time to do it, so what was stopping you in the first place?

When the pain of not doing something becomes greater than the pain of doing it, resistance will magically disappear and more often than not we find that it wasn’t as bad as we thought after all.

Here are a few tips to help reduce procrastination:

Break a larger task down into smaller tasks so it doesn’t seem quite so onerous. For instance, if you need to write a report that you think is going to take days to write – take five minutes just to get a few ideas on paper. Next time – add a bit more, refine it, put in a bit more content. Schedule time to come back to it later, either in a few hours or the next day and complete a bit more. Once you get started it’s surprising how much easier it can be to keep going.

Another easy way I have found to tackle many things, is by spending just 5 or 10 minutes on a task. You’ll increase your productivity when you give yourself a time limit and it’s less daunting than needing to spend an hour or more on it and less excuse to procrastinate.

Putting off that pile of filing? Spend 10 minutes tackling the top of the pile or start to reduce the pile by sorting out all the papers that go into the same file or relate to the same subject. Repeat this at regular intervals throughout the day or find 10 minutes every day.

Make a difference this week and follow the 10 minute rule.