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Overcoming Procrastination can seem like a mind-bending effort; however, it is actually very simple. Would you also believe that overcoming procrastination can even be fun? Well, it’s true and I’m going to tell you exactly how I did it.
I have always been very motivated when it comes to the things that I am passionate about. However, when it comes to the more pedantic things in life, I can engage in a variety of avoidance behaviors subconsciously designed to not have to deal with them. Also known as procrastination.
Mine is basically the life of a modern professional. 1,001 things to do in a day, deadlines looming, integrating organizational systems, analysis paralysis while trying to stay focused and keep a positive attitude! Life at its most hectic is living life by a checklist!!! “Get it done, get it off the list!” would be my mantra.
I created my own checklist system which works really efficiently for me; I stayed organized and systematized to the point of relative OCD. However, it just wasn’t enough!!! That is, until I found this secret . . . ok, I’m just teasing! It is actually a book I found while taking a break, having a coffee in a bookstore one day. It’s such a neat example of the Law of Attraction in action. There it was, gently perched on the shelf, its title beaming its message of freedom directly to me: Overcoming Procrastination: Practice the Now-Habit and Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore. Wow!
I’m going to share a few ideas of his that have worked wonders for me. I would encourage you to purchase a copy of this book and read it in its entirety. Disclaimer: I do not have any affiliate relationship with the author, publisher, or book in any way. This book worked for me because I already had a foundation as an organized professional, it built upon my own foundation and added an amazingly new capstone component to it.
In the introduction, Dr. Fiore describes the perils of procrastination: “The cycle starts with the pressure of being overwhelmed and ends with an attempt to escape through procrastination” (xii). How very true! He goes on to describe the use of rewards as a motivator to further entrench us in this cycle: “… procrastination is immediately followed by some reward. Procrastination reduces tension by taking us away from something we view as painful or threatening” (13).
I was procrastinating without even knowing it felt good! I procrastinated and then rewarded myself with some activity (watching TV, going to eat lunch, trolling through the internet) all as some compensatory mechanism to sidestep my responsibilities because I had built those things I had to do up so much that I psyched myself out from actually doing them. Sound familiar? “I’ll get to my emails later, there’s probably 100 of them! It can get done after I have a snack!”
*Action (procrastinated) => reward
The trick to overcoming procrastination is to use the same action => reward system, but modified to our advantage. While tackling all those emails you have sounds daunting, it always gets portrayed in a bit more of a dramatic role than actually called for! We think it’s going to take 2 hours, when in fact it might only take 45 minutes. Drama!!!
Action (30 minutes) => reward
WORK IN 30 MINUTE SPURTS. Yes, that’s right, work in 30 minute chunks. Then, reward yourself! If all those emails take 45 minutes, then just work through as many as you can reasonably do in 30 minutes, then take a short break and have that snack. Go back and finish the rest when you are done. Easy! If the emails actually do take 2 hours, then break that single task up into four 30-minute sections. Make sure you reward yourself with something small when you are finished. It really does feel good!
It sounds very simple but it is amazingly effective. It totally cured me of my procrastination habits and increased my productivity in many areas of my life – not just my professional life, although that’s why I originally bought the book.
I’m not a trained clinician like Dr. Fiore so I would recommend his book and all of the insights that he has to offer within the wonderfully lucid pages he has written. His insights into human psychology are amazing and the clarity he casts on how and why we procrastinate are worth 10x what you will pay for the book. You can use this technique in isolation as I have described it but you will lose out on the total perspective that he has to offer. It’s like describing football merely as having “100 yards on a field” or marriage simply as “buying a ring!”
I hope this article has benefited you! Thank you for reading this article and being a part of NOW-Power!
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