How To Kill Procrastination For Good – No Kidding!
December 11, 2007Procrastination, my friends, is the enemy of our success.
We tend to put off what we consider to be important, and we put it off because we think of it as a daunting task. The root of procrastination, hence, I believe lies in the fear of not being able to complete the important task.
Let’s suppose the most daunting task for you everyday is to produce a blog post. Chances are, you put off writing the post to the last possible moment. And sometimes you don’t even write it.
The worse thing about procrastination is that when you put off a task to a later time, you can’t do anything else in the mean time either!
Why does it happen?
Quite simply, your mind remains occupied by the thoughts of the delayed task, and you give yourself continuous mental torture until you complete the task.
I’ve written about overcoming laziness before, and the best way I could find to do it was “Just do it”.
This, indeed, kills procrastination. But the question still remains: How do you do it? Because when you are procrastinating, you simply can’t “do it”. This is the problem!
I hear you my friends. And here is a good news: you can pull off this feat with only a bit of discipline!
Do the task you’re likely to put off first every morning
Why do we procrastinate? Because we allow ourselves to immerse in other worthless activities and slowly withdraw into a passive mode, where we can not do physical or mental hard work.
The trick to overcome such a condition is to not let this condition overcome you.
Our habits are even more deeply engraved in our minds than the temporary condition of laziness, so it’s just a matter of forming such a habit that can redeem us from the curse of procrastination.
Try this recipe: Do your most important task first every morning, and discipline yourself to do so every morning for at least couple of months.
Ingredients: Discipline, Determination, and a deep desire to succeed.
Since you are a blogger, and I am supposed to be talking to you, here is what you should do: Write a post everyday right after turning on the computer, even before checking your email and stats. If you need some inspiration, OK go check your feed reader. But remember, you are checking your feeds for inspiration, so don’t click away. You’ll be lost in the blogosphere before you realize.
Do it for a couple of months, and I assure you, you’ll develop a habit of writing a post the first thing after turning on your computer. You won’t even remember you used to procrastinate!
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A few years ago, I decided to stop procrastinating.
I’ve found that every day is a fresh battle where I have to renew my commitment to not procrastinate. I have a variety of strategies, but the key is to drop whatever I’m doing so I can address whatever I’m avoiding.
When I realize I’m procrastinating, but don’t change gears immediately, my mind is using successful creating more excuses to continue procrastinating.
It’s very difficult for me to drop doing what’s causing me to slack, because I literally withdraw into a passive mode. And my mind lazily, yet happily, accepts this condition.
The only way that works for me is what I have already suggested in the post. I start doing my high priority task without giving much attention to the thoughts of procrastination, and only pop my head when I’m finished.
Most of the important tasks we fear we’ll fail at are actually paper monsters.
I definitely get caught up with procrastination more often than not. I will give this a try.
Thank you, Mohsin! This is so obvious, so easy, so simple… Still I know so many people who just haven’t been able to think about it. *points at herself*
I’m going to try it and then I’ll report the results… hopefully by writing a post right after turning on my computer.
“Procrastination, my friends, is the enemy of our success.” I often have this problem and I have adjusted(mostly) since I try to keep up with daily posts, my work and a lot more stuff.
I’m a bad procrastinator. Especially when it comes to school.. I set hour goals (”at 1PM I’ll do my homework”) and then I keep extending them until I convince myself that I can do it tomorrow.
One way that I beat being a procrastinator, and has worked for me is, I have a big white board hanging in my office. Each day I make a list of what needs to be done, and I am able to accomplish those tasks knowing that I can scratch it off my board. I don’t like leaving any unfinished tasks on my board knowing that family/friends can see what a slacker I am.
So far it has worked for me.
This is interesting timing for me. I recently started blogging in the morning instead of at night and the posts have been much easier to write and I find myself getting so much more done during the day.
I think some of it is that morning is a more productive time for me to write. What would take an hour after dinner takes half the time after breakfast.
Karen, that’s excellent! Let us know how you manage it all.
Robert, involving friends and family is a very clever way of getting things done.
I’ll give this one a try.
Steven, hmm.. I tend to be more creative around evening. So I don’t write a post the first thing in the morning, but instead do it first thing in my evening session at computer.
In the morning, I do some other less creative but still more daunting tasks.
nickycakes and Teejay, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hey, your method works, but checking stats comes always first
lmao, i came across this page and said “i’ll read it later…”
Excellent post.
The biggest thing I procrastinate about is adding comments to blogs – I always tell myself that I should become more involved with what I read, but after reading each great post I convince myself I don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute and move onto the next post in my feed reader.
So, thanks to your post, I’m going to get off my butt and become more social.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Keeping an agenda is a helful way to organize oneself, write things down, (the day before),. how you want to do, what ever you have to do, and in what order you need to do them, and stick to it. The idea of involving family or friends is a good one as well!!!
Thanks for the post
I was brewing up a similar post for my own blog this morning. I had reminded myself of a 3 part recipe that was…”Decision, Desire, Deed Accomplished”
That is, rather than focus on how you are feeling about accomplishing something, simply make a decision. Desire follows action, so then the desire to accomplish said decision will soon follow. And finally, the deed will be accomplished.
I tend to get overwhelmed with all that is in front of me. I am a middle aged mom of 3. I homeschool them, run a home and hold down the fort while hubby is doing his duty in the Air Force. He is gone all the time. Essentially, I am a single mom of three for the next two years. In addition, I have launched my blog and have high hopes for success.
On top of this, I am planning a small business in music instruction for the future. Needless to say, I have a lot to do.
When I think of the magnitude of the task, I crumble. I have learned however to keep my focus very narrow and that includes right in front of me in day tight compartments. Anything outside of that and I’m sunk.
Magnoila, you indeed have a lot to do. But as you said, thinking about the formidableness of the task is not what really helps, rather it’s your willingness to take most immediate step is what gets it done.
When I have many projects going on at the same time, I try to forget about the other projects while I concentrate on the task at hand, thus blocking out distractions and keeping myself interested in the most immediate outcome.
I, as a severe procrastinator, am trying to get out of this state of non existence.
Problem is , I keep on delaying what is deeply lurking in my mind waiting to pop up : tomorrow.
The real me (the one with real good intentions) was covered up by this monster of lazyness… I as an intelligent monkey shall overcome my fear of myself and let my true nature shine, and free myself of these dark force holding me back! FREEDOM my friend. Chains of procastination ARE futile,pointless, ridiculous, ludicrous !FIGHT !
cheers from Paris
LOL!
You are like… trying to invent self-help. Haha,
sorry, dont take me the wrong way, it is good that you are thinking and sharing it with the world, its just a little funny because there are like heavy frameworks, books, strategies, techniques, people are making money of this, they create trainings, they write books, they help others. There are motivational strategies, trance techniques, there are people trying to explain how the humans work all down to TOTE models and shit, there are ones that make techniques 100steps long to overcome the procrastination. There is like a whole industry of this, and you are just saying “Just do whatever you have to do, and thatll fix all your problems”. haha.
“do it directly after you wake up!!” – LOL
Like if that was that easy. I guess all the people in the self help industry are just idiots then.
and again, no offence man, i just thought this was funny, and.. well wrote what i thought. Thats is what you do too, right?
No, self help industry are not idiots and neither is Mohsin. 99% of anything that is accomplished is accomplished by what he is sharing here.
Having read more self-help books than you are old I’m sure, I can attest that there is nothing new under the sun. Everyone is saying the same thing, just in a different way most of the time.
Self-help people have been capitalizing on simple, obvious and “horse sense” type principles for hundreds of years, literally.
So, if Mohsin is guilty of anything that is “funny”, it’s that he’s simply restating what everybody is restating as well.
Wow….I needed to hear those words of encouragement. Stop procrastinating!
I always put off the most important tasks until it’s almost too late. I must change
this harmful habit before I simply quit trying to be creatively successful.
This literally makes me hate myself and I would give almost anything to change.
Thanks so much; I will try to stay tuned to you and your blog.
Whats really ironic is that I’m procastinating right now in the fact that I have three stacks of papers I should analyse and memorize…and I went online to…truthfully….get away from it..or delay it..so that it’ll disappear. It didn’t work!!!!!!!
I guess everyone has procastinating issues.
I find it helpful when I face myself..in that I ask: “why don’t I want to do it?”
And then I break down the daunting tasks into smaller more edible pieces….and it really helps!
Hmm well i don’t know if i can resist my morning bowl of cereal along with a half hour of television every morning. and i definitely can’t put off brushing my teeth. So i will try it lets see how it goes but first i have to finish studying for a very big test. I am the queen of procastination, and it’s not fun. >_<.
I can’t site it right now, but I read some research recently that indicated procrastination does actually have a place in our make up and little to do with will-power or laziness.
The two causal factors in procrastination are:
1) Conceiving of the task in the abstract or general rather than the concrete and specific.
Those who don’t have concrete mental image of the steps that need to be taken and how each will unfold are more likely to procrastinate.
(Bosses take note: give your directs vague instructions and you will encourage procrastination.)
2) Being anxious about the consequence of the action.
This is more in keeping with actual behaviour. Think of the common example of someone with a persistent serious symptom such as a subcutaneous lump that’s growing, rectal bleeding or frequent blackouts.
To attribute this to laziness or lack of discipline makes no sense. Rather, and irrationally, we avoid actions that may lead us towards unpleasant outcomes.
This also fits withe fact that risk tolerant alpha-types procrastinate less. (But still talk about how they ‘master’ procrastination, when what they really mean is they can effectively triage a large list of things to do.)
The way to defeat procrastination is to recognise that it is a specific form of anxiety.
When you are procrastinating, try and define you task as concretely as possible. Don’t think ‘initiate a project to increase sales by 10% in the next quarter’. Rather think: Find four case studies of how organisations like mine have increased their sales.
If you can plan the whole task down into clearly defined concrete steps you will be much less likely to procrastinate.
Secondly identify what your scared of, and talk to someone with more knowledge that you about the risk of you concern coming true, and about concrete mitigation strategies. If you know in advance what you will do if the worst happens you are less likely to be inhibited from acting – even if the probability of it happening remains high.
So don’t think “what if I only increase sales by 5%”, think “When I present the project plan for approval I will include a “likelihood of success” recommendation with contingencies for shortfalls” so ensuring I know my report has already thought about and indicated the ‘fail-response’.
Procrastination is a natural human response to the environment. Like aggression, or inquisitiveness. And like these characteristics will be stronger and more pronounced in some people than others.
But simply trying to tough it out and override the impulse with mental discipline, while possible, is the hard way around.
Understanding what it is: a natural level of inhibition to act in the face of being unsure what to do, and anxious about the consequences, can help anyone manage down its intensity to the point where we can get on with it.
This was very well written and some of the comments are hilarious!!
“Procrastination, my friends, is the enemy of our success.”
I could really relate to this post very well.
In real life, I find myself procrastinating almost half of the time, be it on paperworks, assignment, projects, invoices and stuff. And then there comes a time that you would want to get an organizer to plan ahead of time.
Sure, at first it works, and then the next thing you know, you’re back to the old habit again.
“Discipline, Determination, and a deep desire to succeed”
Hard to attain at first, but then as they say: Try and try until you hit the mark!
Great post!
“Procrastination, my friends, is the enemy of our success.”
I could really relate to this post very well.
In real life, I find myself procrastinating almost half of the time, be it on paperworks, assignment, projects, invoices and stuff. And then there comes a time that you would want to get an organizer to plan ahead of time.
Sure, at first it works, and then the next thing you know, you’re back to the old habit again.
“Discipline, Determination, and a deep desire to succeed”
Hard to attain at first, but then as they say: Try and try until you hit the mark!
Great post!
Good idea! On the other hand I think procrastinating is a sign that we run a life we not really want to have. For example if someone has problems to blog it could be a sign she/he is not really want to be a blogger.
I am so sick being a procrastinator. I have been having very tough time to study to pass a professional license exam for many years. Even though I know a lot about theories why I am procrastinating, I am not able to get out the rot. I think I may need a personal coach or peers who study for the exam too.
After I tackle my problems, I hopefully will help and support others. May be that is why God allow me to go through this valley of death. I don’t need to move the mountain. I Just need to climb over it and reach the promise land.
help me i leave my imp task undone
“The worse thing about procrastination is that when you put off a task to a later time, you can’t do anything else in the mean time either!”
This is one of the most astute comments on procrastination I’ve ever read, and I’ve read most everything. Moshin also said in a comment, “I literally withdraw into a passive mode. And my mind lazily, yet happily, accepts this condition.”
He hits the nail on the head in both instances! It’s like I become a sort of zombie. I don’t want to do something, so I do something else, something passive like browse the internet, look for stuff on eBay, busy stuff that doesn’t accomplish anything. I can’t actually to commit to some other worthwhile task, because I know that I should be doing the task that I am procrastinating on. So I really don’t accomplish anything.
I’d be better off to just say, “OK, I’m not gonna do the most important thing on my list, but I’ll do some other important things instead.” But we don’t do that. We just go “passive” and we don’t actually accomplish anything.