Combat Procrastination

I have to be honest with you… I have been procrastinating on writing this post about procrastination. I find that a bit ironic, but it is true – recently I have been talking with students a lot about procrastination and felt it would be an important topic to address, but taking the time to write up some ideas has taken longer than I had planned.

The reality is that procrastination doesn’t mean you are lazy or incapable, but it does often result in increased stress levels. There are no quick fixes and, as with most things in life, what works for one person will not necessarily work for someone else so it is important to find a strategy that will work effectively for you.

I doubt that any of these suggestions will be ideas that you have never heard of before, but it comes down to deciding that you want to try to make a change. So, reward yourself for progress made because it does take time to improve.

Some ideas to help combat procrastination:

Plan ahead.

Break your big projects, assignments, or responsibilities down into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Commit to spending at least 15 minutes working on something that you have been avoiding.

Remind yourself that there is not going to be a better time – not tomorrow, not next weekend, or next month – something else will always come up that continues to contribute to the procrastination.

Ask for help.

Focus on the desired outcome – rather than your fear or inaction.

Be realistic – most tasks take far longer than you expect.

Minimize Distractions… and take care of whatever is distracting you.

Let go of perfectionism. (And, for those of you who are perfectionists, I know that this is a hard one, but the reality is that many things aren’t worth doing perfectly, so just start and do your best – it will still be better than not doing it at all.)

Recruit a friend to help keep you accountable. (If you tell someone else about your goal or plan to battle your typical procrastination blocks, you are more likely to follow through, but please make sure it is a friend who will help you stay accountable not convince you that it is OK to put off starting your paper for a few more days.)

Do the hard part first… or… do the easy part first. (Whichever is more motivating to you is the one you should choose.)

Keep track of your progress so you don't lose sight of how much you've accomplished.

The bottom line is that if you get it done when you need to instead of procrastinating, you’ll feel better about yourself and have less stress… so get to work. :-)

The following article gives additional ideas for tips to beat procrastination: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/tips-to-beat-procrastination/