procrastination - motivation - overcome procrastination

Sunday, September 30, 2007

10 simple motivation tips

1) Set realistic goals that will be challenging but achievable.
2) Make a list of reasons that you'll benefit when you achieve your goal.
3) Make a commitment as to when you're going to work on your task - schedule the time into your diary.
4) Break large challenging tasks into smaller incremental tasks that are easier to manage.
5) It's sometimes easier to start a large task by getting the shorter, easier task done first.
6) Ask for help if you need it - don't wallow and procrastinate if you get stuck!
7) Try looking at your task in terms of the long term benefits to your life, or the role of the task in the big picture.
8) Try to minimize the personal problems which distract you from your important goals.
9) Relish your successes and don't beat yourself up about your failures - instead learn from them so you don't repeat your own mistakes!
10) Reward yourself when you finish something difficult or achieve a goal, no matter how small - and relax and have the occasional blowout after you've accomplished something major!

Overcoming procrastination by choosing realistic goals

Anyone who has ever read a book about motivation or procrastination will know how important it is to set goals. As the saying goes, "You can't win the race if you can't see the finish line." Moreover, you have to have the right type of goals - it is essential that they are concrete and that they have a deadline.

If the goals you set don't have a deadline, then there's no impetus pushing you forward to get you to act. It's much easier to procrastinate if you don't have a set deadline looming over you. It's also much easier to procrastinate if you don't have any set goal you want to accomplish! Obviously the first step in taking action is deciding what that action should be - which means breaking down your overall goal into manageable steps, and then working out how you're going to accomplish each step and your time frame for doing it. If you can make a good plan like this, then you'll find that the work pretty much falls into place. Especially if every day you're going to be doing this, then this, then this, then it's much easier to just get your materials together and get going, rather than mucking around all day and procrastinating because you don't even really know what you're supposed to be doing. It's also a really great feeling to just focus on doing the work you've set for yourself today, and know that if you do this stuff today, you're building on what you did yesterday, and setting yourself up for success tomorrow. With a good plan and good goals you know that you can achieve your aim in the time required, doing a good a job and not getting too stressed out about it or working long hours - because you made your plan and got to it without fluffing around.

Coping with self sabotage

All procrastination is a form of self sabotage. Most of the time, if you actually just do the things that you’re putting off, your life would be measurably improved, both from having the tangible end result achieved and the release of the stress and pressure you’ve accumulated from not doing the task. The ever-increasing stress of NOT doing your work can grow to totally dominate your life and be very debilitating if left unchecked. The thing is that no one actually sets out to sabotage their own lives - it’s just the accumulation of habits, decisions and micro-actions that cause you to leave things undone.

It’s especially difficult to force yourself to do something you don’t really want to be doing when there’s no one breathing down your neck. It’s a sunny day outside and you can’t really be bothered writing that boring report, and you’ve got one more day to do it, or you could do it tonight - so you put it off and go to the beach. All that time you’re at the beach, however, you can’t really seem to relax - because you know you’ve got work to do and that you don’t really have a firm plan for doing it.

Here are some strategies to help you both relax and get your stuff done in these kinds of situations:

1) Make a plan
Even if you do end up going to the beach (and you might have a good reason to), make a detailed, concrete plan of how you’re going to get the rest of your project done in the time you have - for example, by working on it tonight and the following day. Just whack out a reasonable plan, make sure you haven’t left anything out, then store it on top of your notes in your work area or stick it to the front of the fridge. The plan will be processing in the back of your mind throughout the day, so when you actually start working you’ll have a real head start. Knowing that you have a decent plan for getting everything done means you can relax at the beach and not consciously stress about it all day. Perhaps after you made your plan you will see that you actually have more work than you thought, and that you can’t actually afford to take the day off today - if this is the case, then good! Realism is your friend, and seeing that you have a tight deadline will help motivate you to get started right away. Sometimes you just have to do what you’ve got to do.

2) Pretend you have an external boss
Sometimes you sabotage yourself by not deciding on a concrete plan of action and you just meander around, flitting from task to task and never really getting anything substantial done. One way around this is to pretend that you have a boss. Not the kind of boss you hate, but a boss who is strict but fair, and who wants to get the job done but for everyone to be happy while they work. Ask yourself, what would the boss want me to do if I had one? A good manager would determine what the concrete desired end outcome is and create a fixed goal, and a set of requirements to determine when the goal is met, along with a deadline for achieving it. Then he’d break down the goal into step by step components along with deadlines and requirements for each step, and motivate the troops to get going. For the planning process, it’s useful to pretend that you are the boss and that you have to present a concrete plan to your superiors in the morning. This forces you create a realistic plan with concrete goals and deadlines - not just waffle that would only be half way to accomplishing the task at hand. Then when you come to actually work your plan, pretend you have this tough-but-fair boss telling you what needs to be done, and what your next task is. If you have a good plan, you can just get down to it and focus on that small component of the overall job, without thinking too much about the size or complexity of the plan as a whole.

Preparing to get your work done

Here are three things you can do which will help you overcome the inertia of just getting started:

1) Clear the calculator
Motivation expert Brian Tracy talks about “clearing the calculator” before you start. This means taking a moment to clear everything extraneous off your desk, and sitting back in your chair, closing your eyes, and just focusing on the task at hand. Run through the steps you need to take in your mind, focusing on the benefits of completing the task and how great you’re going to feel once you’ve got it off your plate. Get everything out of your mind except for the task at hand. It’s like pressing the “Clear All” button on a calculator - all that messy stuff from the day up until now just slides away, and you’re clear, focused and ready to go.

2) Make a list
If you’re like me, sometimes you just flounder around with no direction when you’re trying to work, doing a little on this thing, a little on something else, and by the end of the day you feel like you’ve got nothing done. The solution is to make and work from a good list. Make a list of all the main jobs you have to do today, or in this work session, then make bullet points of all the subtasks to complete each job. Once you start, you whack through them start to finish, always building on the work you’ve just done and getting everything done in a fraction of the time, with no wasted energy. Your productivity will soar once you start consistently working from a list, and you’ll feel fantastic about the way you’re churning through your to-do list.

3) Prepare everything you need before you start
Before you start, assemble everything you need in one place - all your notes, resource materials, pens and scrap paper, water bottle etc. Make sure your desk is clear and organized, with only the stuff you need laid out exactly where you need it. This means you can just come in, sit down and get started. This one works even better if you do it the night before, and especially well if you write your to-do list the night before too - your brain will be working subconsciously on the list over night, and you’ll find yourself just nailing that to-do list like never before.

5 Ways to Instantly Get Yourself Into Action

For starters, here are five simple techniques you can try to get yourself going:

1) Make a list and just start
This is one of my favourites. Often all you have to do is get going at a task and the you’ll get so caught up in it that you’ll finish the job. So just start! Make a short list of simple, concrete steps that you can work on right now. Don’t bother about planning out the whole day’s work, or mapping what you’re doing right now into the project as a whole - just a few quick notes, organize your materials and start. Chances are that if you can actually just physically start the task, you’ll get into it and manage to get a significant chunk done before you stop again.

2) Get Organized
If you just can’t start writing that difficult report, make it easier on yourself. Organize your workspace, your notes, all the materials you need to get started, so when you DO actually start, everything you need is right there at your fingertips. This removes a lot of the psychological weight against starting. Now all you have to do is open your notebook/ word processor/ browser etc and get going!

3) Focus on what you’ll gain once you complete the task
Often you procastinate because all you can focus on is the pain of actually doing the task, rather than the rewards of having completed it. Realise that the next 30 minutes or an hour is going to pass anyway, regardless of whether you do the task or not, and that there is a very high probability that the task isn’t as bad as you think it is! You might as well have the satisfaction of having completed the task - get it off your plate so you can stop stressing about it! Vividly imagine how good it’s going to feel to have this job DONE - the release of stress from having it completed, that A grade, the money you’re going to get from having done it - then get started right away!

4) Try the (10+2)*5 Technique
This is a great strategy if you feel overwhelmed by the task, or if you have trouble focusing for long periods of time. Using a timer, try working for just 10 minutes, then take a break for two - you can do something fun that you normally use to procrastinate, like surfing the web, checking email etc - just make sure you get back to work once the two minutes are up! Do this five times back to back and you’ve just accomplished a solid hour of good work.

5) Try a Procrastination Dash
Don’t stop yourself from starting by focusing on the magnitude of work you going to do. Just decide that you’re going to do a small, set amount of work, then you can stop and go and do something fun. Set a small concrete goal, like writing 100 word, reading 10 pages, or just work for 10 minutes on your task. Once you’ve reached your target, you can either stop and feel good for being that bit further towards your goal, or if you’re feeling motivated and in the zone, you can keep going - perhaps try to do another 100 words, then evaluate whether you want to keep going or not.

So next you’re having trouble starting, give one or more of these anti-procrastination techniques a try - and just get started!

Welcome to the Anti-Procrastination Strategies Blog!

Welcome to my new blog! I’m going to be updating regularly with various methods that you can use to snap yourself out of procastination and into action in an instant. Everyone suffers from procrastination from time to time, and for some people it’s a serious issue that leaves them constantly stressed out and stops them feeling fulfilled. I’ll be giving you easy, simple, step by step procedures you can use to motivate yourself to get things done. So let’s get going!
beat procrastination - end procrastination now