(Last edited March 2, 2008)

This is part three of the Procrastination series. Check out Part 1 if you haven’t read it yet. I will be going through the list of ten procrastination causes that I’ve discussed in Part 1 and listing possible solutions.

Reason # 1: Avoidance of something we don’t enjoy doing

Perspective IS EVERYTHING. I don’t want to sound cliché but how we perceive everything has a lot to do with the outcome. If we start associating a negative feeling towards a situation, our experience will be negative as well. Why? We’ve already associated a negative feeling towards it and our brain will subconsciously block all other feelings from coming in. Again, this comes back to the “good” and “bad” feelings idea that I’ve discussed in Part 1 and how we can associate to more “good” feelings, even with tasks we normally don’t enjoy doing. Remember, our mind is very powerful and we can convince ourselves to think differently.

Try this simple exercise. Try something that seems somewhat challenging like shooting a basketball in a hoop, throwing a ball in a basket or target, or something that somewhat takes skill and coordination, etc. Think negatively about your chances of making the target (ie. you’ll miss, it’s too hard, etc) and try making the target. Most likely, you’ll miss.

Now, at your second attempt, think the opposite. Think very positively about your chances of making the target. Keep your eye on the target the whole time as you’re making the throw. Concentrate on the task at hand and how you can make the target. You may be surprised that you made the target. It’s quite possible that you may still miss but this second attempt may have much better results.

Positive thinking goes a long way. When we think positively about anything, we will be better focused and have better concentration figuring out how to be successful. That is what positive thinking will do for us, make us focus 100% on doing something, rather than just half heartedly going through the motions.

Now, back to the topic of associating the “good” feeling with what you want to accomplish so that you can procrastinate less. So rather than associating the negative feeling about that “dreaded” task, which would normally persuade you to avoid it (procrastinate), try to perceive it in a different way. Think about how much better it would be (good) when the task is completed and that you no longer have to worry about it (bad) coming back, nagging at you. This may sound like a silly idea, but it works for me. If you can make bad feelings so much stronger that it compells you to avoid it and go for the good feeling then, you are one step closer to procrastinate less.

Reason #2: Short term focus aids procrastination

As we’ve discussed how our short term focus tends to cloud our judgement and leads to procrastination, the obvious solution to this is to take a step back. Take a broader view of the whole situation. Examine the pros and cons of the choices available. What happens if I make choice A, choice B, choice C, etc? What are the consequences of making these choices? If you find it’s easier and clearer to write them down, write them down on a half folded piece of paper, with the “advantages” on one side of the paper and “disadvantages” on the other side. Make a different folded sheet for each choice. This may help you visually see and help you decide which choice you should make.

If you take the time to examine the whole picture and the consequences, hopefully you’ll find that procrastination is not a good choice and the pros outweigh the cons.

Just as in an assembly line of any kind of mass production facility. If you only focus on a specific area of the assembly line, you won’t be able to see that slowing down a specific area will impact the overall production, and efficiency of the whole process. If the slow down or bottleneck of the assembly line doesn’t get fixed or attended to, eventually, it will get so bad that it shuts down the entire plant.

That’s why broadening a focus can be very important.

Reason #3 : Fear

We have discussed how we tend to fear the unknown or things we’ve never experienced in the previous parts of this series. Unless we get “used to” or experience more of new challenges, tasks, ideas, etc, we will still “fear” and avoid trying something new.

One way to somewhat be less “fearful” is to approach the new idea, task, with a different approach. Rather than think that I can’t do this, or this is too hard, or associate all those negative feelings before you even attempt it, try to think positively.

Think about how you will have the opportunity to learn something new. Regardless of the outcome, you will mostly come out of this relatively unscathed (there are exceptions of course). Maybe you’ve failed at your first attempt, but you’ve gained a lot more experience about this new challenge that if presented with the same situation in the future, you’ll do much better. Think about how much more you’ve learned compared to most people, because you actually “did” it, rather than avoided it.

We tend to forget how as babies and toddlers we tried to do everything. We were fearless. We wanted to learn new things all the time and getting ourselves in a lot of trouble. If we fell down when trying to walk, we may cry, but that doesn’t stop us from trying again later. That’s what makes us so amazing, especially when we’re young. But unfortunately, as we get older, we lose that “fearlessness”.

Lose that fearfulness and see the world in the eyes of a child and you will discover a whole world of opportunities to learn and grow.

Reason #4: Avoiding confrontation

When we procrastinate to discuss what’s bothering us, especially socially with those we are having difficulty with, what usually happens is that we eventually blow up, as I’ve discussed previously.

A solution to this is to deal with what’s making you stressed out, angry, irritable. Find out what aspects of the situation, personality, etc that is making you angry. Prepare yourself in truthfully discussing this problem with whomever is making you angry. Of course, don’t start a conversation with “You are making me crazy! Your…..” With such a statement to anyone, the person that’s receiving it will obviously not be in a positive mood to receive such criticism. Rather, consider starting with something like “I’ve been getting a bit too stressed out lately. I’ve been finding that…..” It’s very important to NOT point the finger at the other person as the cause of the problem, even though you may think otherwise. Most times, it’s all due to a lack of communication. Nobody really wants to live his/her life trying to make someone else’s life as miserable as possible. Or at least, don’t assume so. Assumption is always a bad thing and usually gets us in a lot of trouble, as most times our assumptions are wrong.

I won’t get too much more into this because this could end up with more stuff to discuss. I’d suggest checking out this book Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen for more ideas. Also check out the audio book (Audible) version of Difficult Conversations.

All I’m trying to say is to not put off dealing with a problem when you discover it, especially on a social level. Ignoring something will usually end up in a worse confrontation later than if you dealt with it now.

Reason #5 : Failure to plan or organize

I think this is quite an obvious point. Of course, many people aren’t aware of this, but failing to plan for anything usually ends up wasting time, either because we weren’t properly prepared, or we forgot specific information or tools, etc. As well, the end result may turn out to be less than desired. This ends up being wasted time that was did not result in productivity. Rather than getting things done, we have instead wasted time because we weren’t prepared. As a result, another meeting has to be set up.

The solution to this problem is to plan or get organized. This usually is much harder for someone who has never planned or gotten organized before. The first step is usually the hardest.

What you first need to do, is get a pad of paper or notebook, a pen or pencil and a block of free time. Depending on what you’re trying to plan or organize, you have to identify what it is first. That means, writing down your objective whether it be to organize your work area, your daily timetable or schedule, a work project, etc. Next, start to break it down into smaller pieces. Think about what are the tasks or things you need to do to get the task, etc done.

For example, to organize your work area, you would need to first clean out the desk area. That means, taking everything out of the way, whether it be paper, files, folders, etc and put it aside somewhere else so that you first “clean up” the area. Next, you have to go through all the stuff and clutter and sort out things that you still need and throw out things that you don’t need. Then, you have to find a place to file or put the sorted things into an organized fashion so that you can easily find it should you need to refer to it. If getting a desk organizer that contains a pencil holder, letter holders, etc can help you get rid of the clutter, by all means, do so. Assign specific places and areas to store and hold specific things so that you can easily them. Once all the things are sorted and put into their new places, it’s time to take a mental note of the whole process, where everything is located and periodically keep up and make the effort to stay organized by putting things where they belong rather than letting it pile up again. This is one example.

What I’m trying to do is provide you with an idea of how to organize or plan. In the beginning, it’s very important to “write” things down. Writing them down allows you to put your thoughts down on paper, in hard copy, and once it’s written, free up your brain to concentrate on something else, in most cases, organization of other aspects of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Reason #6: Failure to allocate adequate time for completing a task

Experience is often a solution to this problem. Most people usually don’t allocate enough time which limits their ability to get everything done on time. If you’ve never experienced or attempted a major project, it’s hard to allocate adequate time for its completion. In that case, consult for some help or input from your co-workers. Or, allocate as much time as you can to complete it. That will mean that you will have to spend more time on it, until you find out that you may have to re-adjust the time once you’re near completion.

Experience usually will provide you with an idea of how to allocate time wisely and accurately. This will come with time and experience. Always try to give yourself extra time for unexpected hiccups (ie.the printer is down, graphics are not completed, etc) so that you can use up the extra time to catch up. It’s always better to miscalculate and allocate too much time for something rather than allocate not enough and fail to meet the deadline. The worst thing about allocating too much time is that you have all that extra time to fiddle around with your thumbs. Just kidding.

Reason #7 : Failure to break things down into small, simple, parts and do them one at a time

Again, as discussed in Part 2, please refer back to it as I’ve discussed at length on breaking complicated tasks into something smaller and easier to handle. In order to tackle a seemingly complicated, difficult task, or project, etc, you need to break it down into smaller, simple, manageable parts. Only when they’re broken down into much simpler, smaller components can you start to work at it.

For example, when you first start to finally tackle your procrastination problem and deal with all the mounting tasks, projects, etc that you need to do, it’s impossible to do everything all at once. You have to decide on how to organize everything, break the tasks down and then do them individually.

Rather than tackle everything all at once, decide on one specific thing you want to focus 100% on. If it’s balancing the chequebook, then, focus only on that task. Forget all the other things you want to do (statements, bills, etc) to do for the time being. You want to give it the 100% so that you are mentally prepared and can focus on finishing it. If you allow yourself to be distracted by partly doing this, and that, and everything else, you will end up with many partially started but not completed tasks. In other words, nothing has been done or completed.

To start, make sure you have everything ready and at your disposal. Sort everything into manageable piles or folders or whatever. Then, select a pile, or folder and start to go through it and work on it whether it be to sort and throw things out, complete the task, etc. Once that pile is done, go and do the next pile, and the next until you’ve finished. Then, go on with the next set of tasks until everything is done.

It can make you feel much better when you discover that you are working towards finishing the task, even if you are slowing working towards it. You can see all the tasks that are completed and that you are slowly making a dent in what originally seems enormous. That can give you quite a boost.

If you first break things down into manageable portions and work on them rather than trying to tackle everything or the whole thing all at once, you can slowly but surely accomplish the task.

Reason #8 : Failure to focus on what’s important and needs to be done now

Prioritizing is very important when it comes to accomplishing tasks that have a deadline. This also is something that can be gained or obtained from experience. Knowing and learning to be able to prioritize (setting a system whereby you determine the level of urgency and importance to each task and working on those that require immediate attention) is essential to preventing procrastination. Remember that procrastination is the avoidance or the act of ignoring something needlessly. If we attend to a task immediately, we are not procrastinating.

Let’s say you have a stack of bills, your house is a mess, you haven’t balanced your chequebook. First, you have to figure out what needs to be done immediately. Go through all the things you need to do and place a priority number for each one. A good idea is to list them down on a piece of paper. Give those of utmost importance “1″. Those that are not very important “5″. Assign a number for those of urgency, again “1″ for most urgent and “5″ for least urgent. Go through the list and round up all the ones that have both “1″ for importance and “1″ for urgency. These are the tasks you must do now. Then, go down the list to “1″ importance and “2″ for urgency and so on.

That usually comes down to bills that are quickly becoming due. Sort through your bills and find all the ones that are coming up soon. Deal with them immediately, which usually means paying them off. If you pay bills via the internet, bill them off. Sort the bills into according to their due dates and file them with index cards or put them in a letter holder. If some bills can be set up with automatic withdrawals from your bank account or charged to your credit card, set them up. Then, every month, you won’t have to worry about paying the bills anymore as it gets automatically paid. If you can discover something that can help you do less, by all means, do it.

I make a point of paying my bills as soon as I get the statement so that I get rid of it right away. As far as I’m concerned, the “interest” I’m giving up isn’t going to amount to much anyway. Most likely, they amount to very little money and certainly not worth the hassle of penalties should I forget to pay the bills on time. Saving mere pennies for interest can easily be offset by hefty penalties or interest if the bills missed the payment deadline. It’s not worth it for me.

Reason #9: Inaction or not changing our strategy leads to procrastination

We have a tendency to just let things just happen, and not try to control our own destiny, situation. It seems to be out of reach, useless since “whatever will be, will be”. Not really. Of course, we can’t control when we die or circumstances beyond our control, but we can control a lot of the things we do, the choices we make in our lives that can have a very important impact on our future.

Take a moment to think about this idea. Your current history and state is a direct result of your past choices, actions. This sounds like an idea coming out of the movie, Back to the Future but if you really start to think about it, it is very true.

Would you think that you would be the person you are today if you didn’t go to a certain school, have certain friends, experienced what you experienced, etc? Let’s say if you made the high school basketball team or football team, how would your life be like? Our experiences good or bad will shape how we turn out in the future, based on our reaction to it. It seems quite unbelievable but just take a moment to consider that possiblity, of how things could turn out differently if you took a different path, made different choices and I hope you will agree.

Now, try and think about how your future will be if you continue the same path you have taken all your life. Most likely, it won’t be much different from what you are experiencing now, especially if you don’t make an effort to change anything.

Rather than continue the direction you’ve been going all your life, if you start making changes to daily activites (wake up earlier, become better productive, decrease procrastination, get more things done, set up long term goals, etc), your future will start going on a different direction. But, only time will tell and show you of the changes (especially if you keep a diary or some kind of daily note). Doing so can show you how far you’ve come, so that you can “see” your progress and change in a different direction. That’s why many gurus will insist that you document your daily activities, feelings down on something concrete, like a notebook, or diary. We usually fail to notice the subtle and small changes that happen from day to day, but if we document it (eg. take a picture), we can see the changes very clearly.

Think also about the homeless people who you may see out there. Do you think that these people choose to live that way? Circumstances change. Maybe they lost their jobs, their house, family, etc and went down the wrong road. Once they went down that road, it’s very hard to go on a different road to a better life. Yes, in a certain way, they choose to live their lives that way. But what I surmise is wrong is that they “got used to” their new environment, way of living and now, they don’t know how to get out. They fail to “act” to try to get themselves on a different track or road, mainly because it’s easier to not do anything. In this example, inaction leads to a bad road. Until something happens to trigger them to change and work towards a better life, what’s unfortunate is that they will continue down that unpleasant road. It may be unpleasant, but it’s all they know. This is when getting “used to” something can be very bad for you. You forget and tend to ignore the pain of your current environment and become “numb” to it. That is very unfortunate. Even if people around them try to help them, unless they make the change themselves, they will most likely go back to what they know. Remember. You have to make the change yourself, believe in what you’re doing. No one else can do it for you. As I’ve discussed already, making changes is very hard work and most people are not willing to do the work to make the changes.

That’s what inaction or procrastination will do for you, keep you stuck in a “rut” that you seemingly can’t get out of. Take a good look around you. Make sure that you’re not in a “rut” or at a dead end job that you hate and can’t seemingly leave. Why live yourself this way? Are you doing what you want to do and heading in the direction you want? Make the decision to make the change and stick with it. Inaction leads very much to procrastination and can have dire consequences.

Reason #10: Fear of failure

We all fear of failure. We don’t want to ruin our reputation, our pride, etc by making an attempt at something that we’re not sure we will succeed. We all want to win and succeed. What we fail to understand is that success only comes from failure. It’s very rare that we will be successful the first time at anything, unless we’re very lucky. If we don’t have the background knowledge, the expertise, experience, most likely, we will fail. And we will fail many times. Rather than get discouraged by our failures, if we can turn it around into a positive perspective, we can learn from our mistakes. By learning what we did wrong, we can refine our approach so that the next attempt, we will be one step closer to achieving success.

As an example, Colonel Sanders, the old guy who created KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) retired and found that his pension wasn’t going to be enough at all. He didn’t know much or had anything, except his old family fried chicken recipe. So, he went around from door to door at the various restaurants and tried to sell his recipe. Of course, most places weren’t interested. He didn’t get discouraged and started refining his approach until one day, someone was willing to take up on his idea, and then KFC was born. If Colonel Sanders gave up, KFC would never have existed. Everyone who is successful today has to start somewhere and became successful after years of hard work and refining their skills, regardless of who they are. If they were afraid of failure, they would never have become famous. That is the truth.

To help you conquer your fear of failure, try to associate failure in a positive way. Think about it as being one step closer to success, because you will analyze what mistakes were made and refine your approach or skills so that the next attempt will produce better results. Try to do some research on your target or situation so that you have a better background and understanding so that it can help you. Focus on how to make your attempt as successful as you can, noting them down somewhere if you think it can help you the next time. You can easily refer back to it in the future and make revisions, refinements so that you are better able to understand how to be successful.

Another different approach to conquering fear of failure is try to think of the world in the eyes of a child. Be excited about a new discovery. Think of the challenges and new ideas, concepts, projects in a positive way. Rather than thinking that you won’t be able to do it, convince yourself that this is one excellent opportunity to learn something new. You may not succeed at the first try, but you certainly have gained much knowledge and the next time it will be much better and easier. Try to find the positive in everything you do and focus on the positive. Keep yourself focused on the task at hand, but stay aware of what you’re doing to prevent making mistakes. There’s something to be said about staying positive, but you must also not “blind” yourself to your surroundings or situation.

The only way to combat procrastination and open your mind to a world of opportunities is to re-wire your brain to at least lessen your fear of the unknown, the possibility of failure. Learn from your mistakes and refine it until you achieve success.

Although if you have gotten yourself back on track and lessen procrastination, if you don’t continually do the work to stay on top of things and all the little maintenance to keep everything manageable, you can easily get back on to the old road of procrastination and being overwhelmed with work, tasks, etc. You have to consistently work on staying organized to keep yourself in control of your life. Don’t let yourself slip back.

With all the ideas I’ve discussed in this and previous postings, I want to stress that if you plan to try to control the mess you may currently be in, you must make some time, a block of time to get yourself organized.

By that I mean, you have to take away all the distractions in your life (ie. kids, husband, TV, etc). Set yourself in a place where you won’t be distracted. If you must, get out of the house and at a local library and start listing out all the things you want to get done, organize them so that you will go through them in a systematic order that is based on their priority or urgency. You must break out of your current “habit” and make some changes to organize yourself, your life, how you do things, etc. But you must shut out the rest of the world so that you can get the work done. By that I mean, if you have set up yourself a block of time in the morning, when you get to work to check for emails, close the door to your office. If you’re at a cubicle, try getting to the office a bit earlier when your co-workers aren’t there yet to distract you. You must find the way to get things done, or else things will take over your life. Again, you hold the key to how to change your life around.

Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is guilty of copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.

: archives, categories, procrastination, procrastinationsolutions

Try or Buy NoviiRemote (Mac)

Buy OmniPen Pro, a multifunction stylus, laser pointer