Slaying The Procrastination Giant

Procrastination or delaying tasks that are supposed to do now is one of the greatest thieves of time and the enemy of productivity. Millions of hours are lost daily (not to mention personal productivity) due to procrastination.

I once read that everybody procrastinates. The issue is whether we procrastinate 'productively or not'. If we procrastinate or delaying doing things that are not productive such as gossiping, updating our facebook or other similar tasks, then we are practicing productive procrastination. The opposite is also true.

What strategies can we use to slay this giant called procrastination? Maybe the next time you stare at your 'To-do List' and start to think of delaying completing them, try some suggestions below;

1. Just Do It. Most of us procrastinate because we want to get 'that feeling' or sudden rush of motivation to complete our tasks. Unfortunately, most of the time, it will not happen. It's like waiting for a bus that never comes. Rather than waiting to get the right feeling, why not start doing it first regardless of how we feel? Normally, after we complete 1 or 2 tasks, that feeling of wanting to complete more tasks start to kick in. Psychologists called this feeling 'flow'. Once we are in 'flow', we will be on an automatic mode to complete them so much so that we forget about time and maybe that cup of coffee too.

2. Eat That Elephant. How to eat a 1-ton elephant? One bite at a time. A great way to beat procrastination is to divide our tasks into smaller ones and tackle them 'one bite at a time'. Usually, we get motivated or excited after we completed smaller tasks and crossed them from out 'to-do list'.

3. Make Them Visible. Use visual boards, white board or personal calendar to list down all the tasks that we want to complete. Better still if we can write them in bold red letters. This will unconsciously create a sense of urgency to complete the tasks on time.

4. Make Them Easy & Within Reach. Say you have been procrastinating to exercise. One way to beat this, according to experts, is to make it easy for you to decide to exercise. How to do this? Well, for a start, you can put your exercise attire, shoes etc on your living room table. The moment you reach home, it is much easier for you to decide to exercise than if you were to look for your attire in your closet and your shoes in the shoe rack. The same goes for other tasks either at home or in the office.

5. Use Your Reminder. Set your smartphone alarm or other apps to remind you to start doing your tasks. Like most others, I made lots of excuses not to make cold calls to prospects. However, I beat this problem by setting my phone alarm at a certain time on weekdays to remind me to call my prospects. After a while, it has become a habit.

So the next time the giant 'procrastination' stares you on the face and tempts you to postpone completing  your tasks, remember to apply the above strategies to beat him and you are well on your way to a more productive team player in your organization.