Procrastination. We all do it. Put things off until later. Then later, we realize just how many things we’ve been putting off and just how big that “to do list” has become. Sound even remotely familiar? Well, today’s the day to quit procrastinating and take control of your life again.
Why do we procrastinate?
We procrastinate when tasks come up that we:
- don’t enjoy,
- find complicated,
- aren’t very good at,
- think will take a long time,
- or, my personal favorite, just don’t feel like doing right now.
That’s right, I, Susan Baroncini-Moe, Guinness World Records titleholder and author with a massive 96% average productivity rate, have been known to procrastinate. And it’s almost always because “I don’t wanna right now.”
How do we stop procrastination?
Google “stop procrastinating” and you’ll find no shortage of articles on how to stop procrastinating (as you’d expect).
There are tips and strategies and systems, but here’s the deal: procrastination is our inner children coming out to play. It’s when we regress back to a time when we just might’ve gotten out of something by saying, “I don’t wanna,” and a really nice lady named Mom would sigh and do the thing we said we didn’t want to do.
As adults, we don’t have the luxury of not fulfilling our responsibilities. We simply have to do certain things. So here’s the step-by-step strategy that I’ve used to conquer my own procrastination:
- Analyze the thing I’m putting off. Is it something I have to do, or is it work I’ve created for myself that doesn’t actually need to be done at all?
- If it’s something that needs to be done, why am I putting it off?
- If it’s too complicated or I don’t know how to do it, I schedule a time to learn or I find someone who already knows how to do it and I outsource.
- If it’s something I don’t like to do, I outsource.
- If it’s something that will take a long time, I make the time to take on that task and I visualize myself doing it at that time (and I do this visualization all the way up to and including the start point).
- If it’s something that I “just don’t wanna” do, I suck it up and I do it.
So, if you put it in acronym format, it would pretty much be “AWSOOMS” and that’s the best acronym ever.
Seriously, do you see a pattern here? Analyze whether you need to do the task. Figure out why you’re putting it off, then schedule it or outsource it, and then just put on your “grownup face” and do it.
As much as I just know you’re dying for the real answer to life, the universe, and everything here (it’s 42, in case you hadn’t heard), the fact is, looking for systems and strategies for ending procrastination is just one more type of procrastination!
Often, when it comes to procrastination, the answer is just as simple as making a decision and taking action.
Just make the decision to start the task, and often that’s enough to get you going. And once you get going, you’ll find it’s easier to keep going than to stop. Before you know it, that task you’ve been putting off will be done.
This article was originally published by Susan Baroncini-Moe
Published: September 11, 2013
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