Overcome Procrastination with Easy Self Discipline Tricks

Easy Self Discipline Tricks

By: Steve Gillman

What is self discipline? It is the ability to control your behavior, to motivate yourself to do the things you should be doing and not do things you shouldn't be doing. Willpower may be considered an element of it, but sometimes trying to "force" yourself to do something just makes things worse. Learn to associate negative feelings with an activity, and it just gets more difficult to do, and less likely that you will do it.

Is there an easier route to self discipline? Actually, there are many. Here are some of the most effective self discipline tricks and techniques. Why not try them today?

1. Start the process. Suppose you are procrastinating about doing your taxes. You feel stressed when you think about doing your tax return. Then don't think about it! Once sufficient thought has been given to any project, more thought just creates more stress. The negative feelings that develop make it harder and harder to force yourself to do what needs to be done. You feel like you have no self discipline.

Action is the cure for this. In the case of the tax return, just lay out the forms where you can work on them later. Later, just gather all the materials and put them with the forms. The next day, do just one form, and then another. Whatever the task is, you can find enough motivation for some small step. Training your mind to take that first step as soon as you think of it. The next steps, and so the whole project become easier once you start.

2. Enjoy what you are doing. If you have ever stayed up all night talking about something interesting, you know what power the mind has over the body. How easily we put off sleep when we are motivated by a passionate discussion. It doesn't take much willpower to keep doing something when you are enjoying it, and that gives us another key to self discipline.
When you enjoy what you are doing you are energized. Willpower goes up and down with energy levels, so play energetic music, move around, laugh, and look for ways to enjoy whatever project you are working on. The more you associate good feelings with a task, the easier it is to discipline yourself to do it.

3. Reward yourself. Break a task into s few steps, and give yourself a reward when you complete each step. This could be a bowl of ice cream, watching your favorite movie, or just relaxing for a few minutes. Reward yourself with a pat on the back too. When you recognize your successes, large and small, the possibilities become more real to you, and more likely to be repeated.

4. Become more aware of how you work. Suppose that piece of cake calls to you, or that television takes your attention away from your more important work. It can be hard to resist temptation, right? Stronger willpower is a nice theory, but here is a simpler solution: stop standing in front of the cake! Turn off that television!

This is an easy lesson to understand, but try to train yourself to apply it habitually. You shouldn't keep beer in the house if you don't want to drink it. You shouldn't go alone to the single's bars if you want to maintain a faithful marriage. You should just stay away from people that lead you to trouble.

Self discipline doesn't mean being immune to temptation. Develop the willpower to say no, if you wish. While you are doing that, though, why not also have the wisdom to avoid temptation? Learn where your resistance is low, and don't put yourself in those situations. Doesn't this make more sense than fighting useless battles with yourself?

Fighting with yourself is no way to develop self discipline. It's better to learn about yourself. How are you energized? What motivates you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Why not learn about yourself, and start using what you learn to make the behaviors you want easier. That's smarter self discipline.

Steve Gillman has been studying brainpower and related topics for years. For more on How To Increase Brain Power, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit: www.IncreaseBrainPower.com

Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

Goal Setting to Overcome Procrastination

10 Ways to Actually Achieve the Goals You Set

By: T Young

Goals. You know you have them. Everyone has areas in his or her life that they would like to change. Whether your goals are written neatly in bound journals or just drifting around in your head, you can achieve those goals. Just how, though, can you make them a reality?

1. If you haven't done it yet, get those goals down on paper. Try to write them in a way that is measurable and objective. This means that you will have proof positive when they have been met. Nebulous subjective wording, like "I hope to be a better person," doesn't work for a goal. What exactly do you mean? "I will visit lonely old people once a month this year," is a better goal. At the end of the year, you can say, "Did I do it?" and have a definite answer.

2. Keep the written goals before you often. I like to have my New Year's resolutions written on the inside back cover of my journal and refer to them often. Maybe you'd like to post your goals on a bulletin board or your bathroom mirror. Read over them occasionally. Otherwise you might forget what you had planned to accomplish.

3. Break the goal down into manageable bites. Big goals can't be achieved in a day. You must figure out the most logical first step you can take today.

4. Make daily "to do" lists that include items that will bring the goal closer to reality. If the goal is to lose weight, today's list might include "take a 30 minute walk" and "buy salad greens."

5. Related to the above admonition is this one - start today. Procrastination is the biggest killer of goals known to man.

6. Keep track. It may seem childish, but keeping a chart and giving yourself stickers can be a great motivator. Put a star on the calendar on each day that you call five potential customers or practice your visualization techniques. Whatever the stepping stones are toward your goal, a chart will make it seem more tangible, and you can actually see the progress you're making.

7. Reward yourself for little victories along the way. If you made it through two days without a cigarette, for example, celebrate with a new CD or free time with a good magazine.

8. Don't be so hard on yourself when you fail that you give up all together. In fact, just simply refuse to give up! If the goal is worth achieving, it's worth persevering. Little failures always litter the way to success. Failures and defeats teach you. They are essential to ultimate victory.

9. Believe in yourself, your potential, your dreams, and your goals. It's close to the end of the list because it is so important! Without a positive belief that you can achieve your goals, you probably won't ever see them come to pass.

10. Finally, take action. Do something. Don't worry that you are doing the wrong first step. If you fail, you at least learned it wasn't the right first step! Learn and keep going.

For more personal growth articles visit: www.personalgrowthunlimited.com

Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

Self Help for Setting Goals

Self Help for Setting Goals
By: Peter H. Thomas


Success, whether it's about personal happiness or career achievement, usually begins with setting goals. Unfortunately, self-help goals quickly set are often left unmet. So what goal-setting strategies move goals from creation to reality?

Setting goals is fairly easy. Setting goals that actually come to pass is harder, and requires forethought. After setting a goal, one of the greatest challenges is integrating it into daily life, making sure it aligns with what you really value in life - a crucial step to seeing a goal through. Here are three useful steps and proven strategies for setting goals and making them stick.

Goals: Write them down

Putting pen to paper makes the goal-setting process concrete. Write them down and create action steps to make them happen. These action steps may be daily to-do lists and reminders that should always be planned out the day before for the following day.

Now you have something that you can hold in your hand, and refer to as a reminder and a motivator. Not only are you creating your own accountability system, writing down your goals and action steps will help you clarify your objectives and remain focused on them. And it provides you another tool important to your self-help goals--visualization.

Prioritize your Goals

As you set your goals and focus on them, reflect upon your life and remember your values -- the past you’ve led and the future you envision. What moments have been rewarding? Or disappointing? What has remained important over time, and what is most important to you now? Who are the people who you care about the most? Of all the things that you have now, which could you give up? Which items, experiences and relationships could you not live without?

According to the self-help program LifeManual, the best goals--whether they're related to work, family, academic achievement or personal life--are the ones that align themselves with a person's core values.

Michael R. Ellison, CEO of TRIVITA, Inc., agrees. Since incorporating the LifeManual goal-setting tools in the workplace, the workplace has changed. "Now, the discussions at our meetings concern not only the care of customers, but also the specific values and goals that impacted each member of our team personally."

Set goals that parallel and honor your priorities--the things that you value. Explore everything that you have now or have had in the past, to discover why you valued it, and how you can continue to value it.

Share your goals

Goal setting doesn’t take place in a vacuum. Successful goals are usually visualized--and carried out--through feedback from trusted friends, family members and co-workers. Listen to feedback from others. Are you making goals that are really aligned with your values and priorities?

People in your home, work and community are also there to applaud your accomplishments. They can also give you a friendly reminder when you slide off track. Sharing your goals with people you trust also makes you more accountable to your goals.
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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

Self Confidence, Fear and the Inevitable Procrastination

Self Confidence, Fear and the Inevitable Procrastination

By: The Self Improvement Gym

One of the major reasons why most people avoid the very tasks that can free them from mediocrity is their lack of self confidence. Mediocrity is nothing but failing to live up to your true potential. What you can do is absolutely incredible. What you will do is often disappointing. Most people have been conditioned to only do what they ‘can’ do or to only do what they have been told they ‘can’ do or what they’ve successfully done before.

A lack of confidence in yourself will automatically keep you from going for it because you lack that sense of certainty that comes from being confident. Self confidence is nothing but a gut level belief in yourself and in you capabilities – even if you haven’t done it before. Procrastination is not just a device for avoiding mundane tasks but on a much higher level it is avoiding the ‘big’ decisions and the ‘big’ actions that can make the real difference in your life.

This is a huge issue because the only way you can get your life to consistently move forward is to consistently take action. When you fail to move forward you fail to grow and without growth there is ‘death’. If not physically, then certainly emotionally and spiritually. To get from where you are to where you ultimately want to be you would have to do things that feel uncomfortable; things that are unfamiliar to you. Without a sense of certainty and confidence in yourself you will most probably never do it. Your doubt will keep you from even attempting it.

On the other hand, if you are filled with confidence, you are confident and certain in yourself and in your abilities to produce a specific result – regardless of past performance or whether you’ve done it before. Self confidence is what creates a sense of certainty within you. This sense of certainty is nothing but a feeling that is created by you. When you’ve done it before it is relatively easy to re-create the feeling and thus feel certain. It is not something that you have to confront afresh. As human beings we tend to avoid uncertainty and that which is unfamiliar. It is because of this that procrastination can steal your future for procrastination will keep you from taking the actions that will create the future you desire. Confident people are people who are action minded. They are people who know that action and confidence goes hand in hand as the one creates the other.

With a lack of confidence comes a certain level of fear. Confidence is not an absence of fear, but a presence of courage to face the fear and do it regardless. The doing; the action is what drives the fear away. Failure to take action, not only accommodates fear, but actually creates it and out of a fear of failure you will find a ‘good reason’ to not take action and procrastinate.

Taking action is the ultimate cure for a lack of confidence and a wavering sense of certainty can be anchored by using your personal power to take action. When you use your mind and your emotions to engage your nervous system into action, you quite literally drive uncertainty away for uncertainty and a lack of confidence s nothing but a ‘mental condition.’ Whether you think of yourself as confident or not; either way you will be right. Confidence starts and ends with the image you hold of yourself. It’s as simple as that. The image you have of yourself; your self-esteem, will reinforce or take away from your level of confidence. Right now you can decide to start focusing on a different image of yourself. Start to direct your thoughts towards how you want yourself to be, instead of what you fear you might become. As you do this you will start to feel confident. Remember that confidence is nothing but a feeling and as you dwell on these feelings the results will surely follow.

So many people today wake up in their midlife only to realize that they haven’t done anything they always wanted to do. They realized that they’ve spent 30 years procrastinating – putting off doing what they should have done. This is a major cause for depression and what is generally referred to as a ‘mid-life-crises’. The ‘cure’ however lies in eliminating procrastination and taking action and to act on your dreams and your desires. It is never too late to have a happy childhood. It is never too late to take action on your dreams and desires. It is your actions that will shape your life more than anything else. What you do and what you fail to do will be the creators of your life and you (and only you) have full control over that.

When you take responsibility for your life and realize that it’s all up to you, you empower yourself to make it the way you ‘see’ it. No one else is responsible. When you assume responsibility, you assume your ability to respond and to take action. The minute you do this you unlock a level of confidence within yourself that can empower you to take action. Confidence comes not from any physical proof, but from an inner knowing that you can. You create a sense of certainty by starting to doubt the doubts you had in yourself previously. Ultimately procrastination can not survive in the mind of a confident and action minded person.
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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

How to Overcome Procrastination and Achieve The Success & Wealth You Want

How to Overcome Procrastination and Achieve The Success & Wealth You Want by Philippe Bon

Procrastination stops people from becoming successful and wealthy. Procrastination stifles your personal and financial development.

There are a lot of people who dream of being wealthy and successful; but most people do not follow through on their dreams simply because of laziness and procrastinating. Procrastination is very common, yet it can be easily eradicated.

Do you procrastinate and avoid doing the things that can actually help you become successful and wealthy? Do you keep on putting off money-making projects or business ideas? Can you imagine the opportunities for creating wealth which you may be missing by procrastinating?

Everyone battles with procrastination at some stage. In order to overcome procrastination, you need to know exactly what level of wealth you want to achieve, and stay on course with your goals. By keeping your mind focused on the goals you want to achieve and the benefits you will enjoy after you have achieved these goals, you can overcome procrastination and you will keep on working towards your goals. If you are thinking about starting a business, what amount of wealth will this business potentially give you? By focusing on the wealth you will get, you can easily overcome procrastinating.

So, what are the various ways through which you can beat procrastination and achieve the success and wealth you want?

1. Keep your 'big picture' goals in mind. Stay focused on what you want to achieve. Visualize your completed goals and targets at all times, and believe that these goals are going to happen; that you are going to get the success and wealth you want.

2. Make a commitment to do the things you have been avoiding doing. Be as realistic as you can and schedule your 'to do' activities in your diary, and start working on them today.

3. Review your goals, and ensure that they are realistic and achievable. If they are not realistic, you will probably postpone taking action. Make sure your goals are broken down into small and manageable bits by dividing large projects into 'mini projects'. By reviewing your progress towards your goals, you can see how far you have come, which will motivate you to keep on working hard, or help you redefine the goals if necessary.

4. Prioritize your daily activities in order for you have enough time to do the tasks that you have to do to achieve your goals. Eliminate time-wasting and non-productive activities. It is also important that you take on the hardest parts of your project first and other subsequent tasks will be much easier.

5. Be ready for some challenges. You will come across some obstacles, and if you start thinking your way around potential hurdles, then you will not have any reason to procrastinate and you will continue moving ahead with your project.

6. Have a contingency plan by listing what could go wrong; and develop ways of managing these potential setbacks. When or if they do happen, then you already know how to get around them without falling into the procrastinating trap.

7. Reward yourself when you have achieved a certain milestone. This will keep you motivated and encourage you to keep on working on your goals of becoming wealthy.

It is very easy to overcome procrastination. Just get on with it and do what you have to do to become successful and wealthy. Procrastination can keep you away from achieving your goals, and all you need to do is to follow the various ways presented above in order for you to stop procrastinating and achieve your goals and become successful and wealthy.

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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

Beat Procrastination With Your GPS (Goal Positioning System)

Beat Procrastination With Your GPS (Goal Positioning System) by Angela Booth

Researchers estimate we only use around two to ten per cent of our brainpower each day.

This means that much of the mental processing power you've got is rusting away, unused. This is literally true, because when your brain cells die they aren't replaced. If you could find ways to access more of your fantastic brainpower, what could you achieve? Could you double or triple your current income?

The first article on your GPS (Goal Positioning System) outlined how you use it. Here's the process in a nutshell: you set clear, time-limited goals, you visualize yourself successfully completing tasks and achieving your goals every day, you use your intuition, you write ABOUT what you want, and why you want it, and you create and use a daily task list.

The key to accessing more of your brainpower lies in the tasks that you procrastinate on. When you resist something, the resistance uses up more energy than completing the task. Your resistance also leads to feelings of guilt and unworthiness, and these feelings lower your overall effectiveness, which means you use even less of your total brainpower.

Here's how to use your GPS to tackle your procrastination:

=> Write down where you are, exactly what you want to do, and how you want to feel while you're doing it

"But I already know what I want to do," you protest.

Yes, that's true. But part of you is weaseling out. Your left brain might want to complete the task, but if you're procrastinating, it's a sign that your right brain and your unconscious mind have other ideas. For whatever reason, they want no part of the task and will do their best to ensure that you don't do it.

Procrastination's insidious. If you're procrastinating, you'll find any number of super-logical reasons NOT to do the task. You'll suddenly remember those phone calls you have to make. Or that you haven't called your mother all week. Or that you really need to check on how your online auctions are doing.

Let's imagine a scenario. Let's say you're procrastinating on mowing the lawn. The grass is almost to your knees and your house-proud neighbors are so peeved that they turn away when they see you.

Take out a pen and paper and write down where you are, what you want to do, and how you want to feel while you're doing it.

You'll find that as you're writing, the other parts of your brain will start to kick in. As you write: "It's Tuesday, almost 4pm, and I'm sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. I want to go and check the mower, and mow the lawn. It will only take me half an hour, and I'll feel energetic and pleased with myself while I'm doing it. The lawn will look great."

Mowing the lawn is a simple enough task, and once you've written it down, chances are that you'll march right out and do it, because the unconscious resistance you have to the task just melted away. I have no real idea why writing things down --- where you are, what you want to do, and how you want to feel while you're doing it --- works so well in combating procrastination, but it does. Try it.

On the other hand, you may get real feelings of conflict when you write down what you want to do. If that happens, keep writing. Ask yourself (in writing) what the problem is. Maybe you'll write: "I haven't got time to mow the lawn. I should be working on that presentation I'm giving next week."

Aha! Now you're getting to the nitty-gritty. Your procrastination about the lawn-mowing and subsequent frustration with yourself is masking your real problem, which is anxiety about your upcoming presentation.

You can deal with that, now you know what it is. You could write: "I will mow the lawn and feel great while I'm doing it, and then I will work on the presentation for an hour. I will feel relaxed and calm and confident while I work on the presentation."

You'll be amazed that once you've written down the real problem, it's no longer such a big deal.

Keep writing, until you feel an emotional shift. You'll soon get ideas on how to solve the problem, and then you'll hustle right out and get your lawn mowed. And oddly enough, you will also work on your presentation, and you'll enjoy it.

=> Trick yourself

Nine times out of ten, the above process will work like the proverbial charm.

But what happens if you can't even force yourself to write? This happens because when you procrastinate, you procrastinate for a reason. If that reason is powerful enough to stop you doing the task, and it may also be powerful enough to prevent you using this simple writing process.

All is not lost. Trick yourself. Tell yourself that you're going to list ten places you could go on vacation. Or that you're going to write a shopping list. Begin writing your list, and after you've written a couple of items, start using the GPS process.

Write about where you are, exactly what you want to do, and how you want to feel while you're doing it. You'll be amazed and pleased that you've conquered your procrastinaton.

A benefit of this process is that once you've used it a couple of times, because you know you can eliminate your procrastination anytime you want to, you'll procrastinate less.

If procrastination is a problem for you, use your GPS. The process works.

About the Author
Writer, author and journalist Angela Booth has been writing successfully for print and online venues for 25 years. She also writes for business. On her Web site http://www.digital-e.biz/ she conducts workshops and courses for writers.
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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

How Often You Postpone the Task for Tomorrow Which You Can Do Today?

How Often You Postpone the Task for Tomorrow Which You Can Do Today? by Mitch Johnson

How many times we feel that we are too lazy to do particular things because we think that we do not have time for that. But postponing them is never been a good idea. The same issue will keep coming up and one day it will come up as a disease to us. This article will give us more understanding on how important it is not to delay the things which we can do today.

The interesting thing about procrastination is that we tend to put of only those tasks that seem unappealing to us. If the task is boring, or monotonous, or involves too much hard work, then it stands a very good chance of getting postponed. It is not because of the lack of time that we do not do the task. On the contrary, we might have plenty of time to do it but we tend to postpone it and justify ourselves saying that we do not have the time for it.

Take for example a visit to the dentist. How many of us go for monthly checkups to the dentist. The answer would be almost none. Over here the reason is pretty simple. Since childhood, dentists have been associated with physical discomfort. It is not just the physical pain that we associate with a dentist clinic.

There is also a lot of stress involved. It certainly is an uncomfortable experience to spread oneself in a completely vulnerable position on the dentist chair with ones mouth open too as if one is resigned to ones fate. The dentist, at such moments seems to have a sneer on his face as he approaches you in his spotless, white attire and contemplates on which of his shiny pointed instruments displayed before you he should use first to prod and poke.

As a result, a visit to the dentist, as far as I am concerned, is something that sends a shiver down my spine. It is because of this that I keep avoiding visits to the dentist clinic. Even if I start having a truth problem I would rather depend on forces like voodoo and witch craft than go to my dentist.

That is something that I and I think a lot of others as well tend to procrastinate. Let see if we can think of some things that are likely to get procrastinated in our professional lives. I know that for most people, cleaning up clutter is an unpleasant task. Over time, a lot of clutter gets collected in our workstations. Our drawers get stuffed with a lot of odds and ends. There will be piles of papers on our desks or perhaps under our desks so that no body sees it.

Some people even have a difficulty in clearing their mailboxes until a warning message pops up on the screen. Visiting card holders are another such area that gets neglected. Over, we stash so many cards into our card holders, most of the cards belonging to people who may have migrated to another planet for all we know. And though we know that it is a good thing to dump half these cards every now and then we never get down to doing it until the card holder literally starts bursting in the seams.

These are some of the jobs that we put off for tomorrow, a tomorrow that never comes. Now, there are some problems that arise out of procrastination that are detrimental to time Management.

We need to know and understand that some small-small things in life can be better if we can do at the earliest.
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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the guaranteed methods that will immediately eliminate procrastination from your life.

How To Effectively Eliminate Your Procrastination

How To Effectively Eliminate Your Procrastination - Familyvision Column by Daryl D Green

Tammy Loss is the world's biggest procrastinator. She makes promises to everyone but lacks the personal fortitude to see anything through. Her employer offers Ms. Loss a new career opportunity. Ms. Loss responds, "I just can't leave. My boss needs me." Ms. Loss always hesitates to make any decisions. She never takes any risks. Sadly, she never fulfills her personal goals. She's disgusted with her life. She's disgusted with herself. Ms. Loss wants more. As she waits to talk with a psychiatrist, Pam wonders why she can't be happy.

The Unproductive Climate

What are you waiting for now? Why aren't you pursuing your dreams? You sit around complaining about your unhappy life. That's your procrastinating ways. You don't want to make a change because you feel you may make a mistake. It causes you to cheat yourself out of happiness. At some point, we have all procrastinated, not wanting to move on an action. You say, "Now is not the right time." You take no action.

People have different motivations for taking action. Taking action means taking risk. Taking risk may cause you fear. This process creates self-doubt. Self-limiting beliefs are doubts that you create about your abilities. They cause you to feel inferior. You feel like you don't deserve the best. You allow others to set your expectations. When you think like this, there is no way to win. You create negative ideas that you aren't smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, connected enough, creative enough, or powerful enough. "I can't" becomes your motto.

The Impending Landslide

Armed with these beliefs, you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, until--life passes you by. The more you repeat these self-limiting thoughts, the more you become trapped in your ways. Remember the definition of insanity: "doing the same thing that you always do and expecting something different to happen." That's a crazy way for anyone to live. Some people get caught up in this vicious circle.

For example, look at the vicious cycle of New Year's resolutions. Are you one of these procrastinators? Most people want to accomplish something in life. A new year could spark a new beginning; however, it gives most people time to make excuses for unfulfilled dreams. Doesn't this sound like a little bit of procrastination?

Stop generating self-doubt. Take action. Samuel Johnson said almost two centuries ago, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, he concentrates his mind wonderfully." You need to wake up. Procrastinators try to put off until tomorrow what they should do today. However, you can change and move in a new direction. Use the following steps to move toward action:

Identify where the task is in terms of your priorities. Create a motivation for taking action. Develop a plan for seeing your task through. Set a deadline for completion. Break the activity down into smaller components. Reward yourself after each task.

A Happy Ending

Success begins when you take charge of your life. Don't wait any longer. Tomorrow is not promised to you. Now is the time for action. All it takes is a little act of courage on your part. Stand tall and have faith. "But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

We need to stop waiting and move. One speaker said, "There's a fork at the end of the road. What do you do? Take one." You have now approached the busy highway of life. What are you going to do? Don't worry about making mistakes. Don't worry about failing. That's a part of life. Get help when you need it. Don't fall into the same trap of thinking you can do it all by yourself. You don't have to cheat yourself. Take action today on your dreams.
About the Author

Daryl and Estraletta Green, decision-making coaches, have been quoted in USA Today, AP, and Ebony Magazine. FamilyVision is a dynamic column that explores the changing family dynamics in the 21st century. For one free session ($50), you can email them at http://www.darylandestraletta.com.
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Eliminate Procrastination Now - Here's How! Discover the winning Strategies That You Can Use immediately to Eliminate Procrastination and Indecision from your life.

Eliminate Procrastination - Git 'Er Done!

How to Stop Procrastinating and Get Things Done! by M. Clement

A LITTLE INSPIRATION TO GET YOU STARTED- Think differently about time:

"O that I might believe that time / Is just a measure thrown on things / That hold existence in a sphere / Intense alone, and always felt / In full reality! For then / I could evade despondency / By magnifying to my frame / The ecstatic beat that night and day / Pulses within the milk-white walls / Of mental sloth, eager to break / Into the radiant release / Of vision divine and precise"

From one of my favourite poems, "TIME" by Herbert Read

A SYTEMATIC APPROACH TO BEATING PROCRASTINATION

Need-to, Ought-to, Can-do, (Can't Do)

Say it a few times to yourself: "Need-to, Ought-to, Can-do, Can't Do." Everything that you are currently capable of falls within one of the first 3 categories. Now STOP mulling over anything that falls into the fourth category. If you are spending any time thinkng about what you cannot do, you are not only mismanaging your time -you're throwing it away!)

So that leaves you with:

NEED-TO: This is everything that must be done in a given day or week, the absence of which would lead to a significant negative result. Showing up to work, feeding the dog, bathing- these fall clearly within this category.

OUGHT-TO: Includes all activities that, if completed, would likely create a positive overall result. Returning phone calls on time, getting adequate sleep, and keeping your car maintained are such examples.

CAN-DO: Everything else you are actually capable of. Activities within this category have either been previously judged as not worth doing, or have yet to be judged at all. In other words, you have not, as of yet, determined it reasonable to place such an activity within the Ought-to or Need-to categories.

An example may help illustrate the concept: Suppose I've just discovered that my friend is looking for a place to stay for the week while he's in town. I do live in a home, so this prospective activity is a Can-do, simply because it exists as a possibility. He then tells me that he is bringing several expensive bottles of wine as gifts for whomever he ends up staying with. Assuming I like wine, and all else being equal, this activity is now an Ought-to. At some point before he arrives in town, I confirm with him that I would like him to stay for the week. The event is now a Need-to; as to back out of the arrangement would cause a loss of friendship.

Feel free to use your own examples-you'll find that everything possible does, in fact, meet one of these three criteria. This thereby sets a foundation for the prioritization of your daily and weekly activities. And yet, this article is on the topic of procrastination, prioritization's nasty cousin, so we're not done yet.

FOCUSING IN:

The Need-to's must, without question, be completed. These have never really been a problem-there's simply no room to procrastinate. At the other end, the Can-do's are not relevant here because you can only procrastinate what has been judged as worth doing. What we are left with, therefore, are the Ought-to's. And you'll find quite consistently that the Ought-to's are giving you all of your problems when it comes to putting things off. These are the things that you know you should do, and yet, they often do not have a strict deadline, nor would failing to complete them lead to any immediate or significant detriment. What is noteworthy, however, is that over time, their combined significance does indeed lead to great significance. In the end, the direction of that significance (positive or negative) all rests on your ability to handle them timely and effectively.

A SOLUTION:

Detailed prioritization is vital. If you are unwilling to accept that, you must not truly want to improve. Here is how...

#1 Schedule your Need-to's - they are almost always time sensitive.

#2 Address your Ought-to's, and they will fall within one of three sub-categories: (a) Do Now! (b) Do Later, strategically! (c) Eliminate!

Ought-to's should always be done immediately, unless doing so at a later time would be strategically more valuable and more efficient, or unless the activity has been inaccurately defined as an Ought-to in the first place. Frequently, we categorize activities as Ought-to's for reasons that do not logically support the claim. When you have isolated instances where your rationale was incorrect, don't belabor the issue; just eliminate the task from your consideration! Of those that are rationally based, it is worth repeating that the only reason you choose to complete an activity at a later date is because it makes more sense to do it at that time than to do it now. Perhaps the task has a prerequisite that needs to be addressed first. In any case, if you cannot find reasonable grounds for doing it later, you should do it now or not at all.

Such a policy is uncomfortable at first. It requires judgment, which a procrastinating mind loathes. And while the very nature of procrastinating is to avoid judgment at all cost, if you will apply this model to your daily activities, you will find that judgment is actually quite liberating, and that prioritization of your activities will shift from a challenge to second-nature.

If you found the above article helpful but want more information on eliminating procrastination for good, click here.