6 Tips to Help Overcome Procrastination
I was planning to write this post last week, but I put it off. 
Okay, now that the obligatory bad joke is out of the way, we can look at another internal time waster, procrastination.
We all put things off. We hope to avoid tasks that are boring, difficult, unpleasant, etc. When faced with something we don’t want to do, we can find a dozen tasks of no consequence to fill our time.
We secretly hope that, by procrastinating, the unpleasant task will shrink and go away. Unfortunately, the reverse is often true; the deferred job just gets bigger and more difficult.
Overcoming procrastination requires strategy. The next time you’re tempted to put off something you don’t want to do, try some of these tips:
- Set a deadline – a task without a deadline can be put off indefinitely. Set a date and stick to it.
- Set up a reward system – make it commensurate with the task. An afternoon cleaning out the garage is worth dinner out, while a 14 month software roll-out might warrant a tropical vacation.
- Arrange for a follow-up – assign someone to be a “nag-buddy”. Give them permission to check in periodically to make sure you’re staying on track.
- Do it first – tackle difficult jobs early in the day, when you have the most energy.
- Break the task into small pieces – if the whole seems too big to tackle, break it into manageable sub-tasks.
- Do it now – don’t put if off any longer. Sometimes you just have to jump in and get it done.
Procrastination Quotations
- Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. ~William James
- Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. ~Don Marquis
- There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back. ~Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
- You may delay, but time will not. ~Benjamin Franklin
- Someday is not a day of the week. ~Author Unknown
- Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
- Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin. ~Victor Kiam
- The best way to get something done is to begin. ~Author Unknown
- Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. ~Spanish Proverb
- Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible. ~George Claude Lorimer
- Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man. ~Jimmy Lyons
- A year from now you may wish you had started today. ~Karen Lamb
- Procrastination is the thief of time. ~Edward Young
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Comments
Breaking the task in to small pieces really works for me. It also reduces the expectation in finishing the job. If it weren’t broken in to small pieces, it would be overwhelming and I just end up whining about how long it will going to take.
Hello, I’ve seen your posts about these 8 common time wasters and i really like them. As you know, there are many Chinese who don’t understand English, and I feel that it’s a pity if they can’t read these great articles. I really do hope I can translate these articles into Chinese so that other my Chinese readers have a chance to share these great articles with me.
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Best wishes!
I am the world’s worst procrastinator, but I like to look at it as that we procrastinators are excellent at handling time crunches. 
(That’s assuming deadlines are met, of course.)
I’ll say one thing–nagging (nag buddies) is the fastest way to make me shut down. It’s the things I NEED to do (i.e. renew the car registration–ack!) that stall out on me. There’s always a reason (excuse) for not doing those things. I have a feeling that’s probably the case with a lot of us.
Distractions! That’s a constant problem when working on the web. There’s always *something* to save to del.icio.us (like your procrastination articles), which inevitably lead to wandering off in a completely different direction. Sometimes I curse the existence of hyperlinks–I think I’d get more done if I had to actually type in the urls I need!
I love it! This is great stuff. Whoever doesn’t listen to this is absolutely shooting themselves in the foot.
good stuff..I’ve been procastinatin wit puttin my music out..I’ve got over 300 tracks..and I even have the copyright forms in my home..I’m sittin on money that I could b enjoyin if I would just get it done..lol..Like I’m typin this when I could be mixin down my songs to send to the copyright office..Life Is Wild..I need to get on the ball..an the only one that can do it is me=) It’s almost theraputic just typin this..lol..I may have it done before I know it=)
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Since we are avoiding the boring, difficult and unpleasant task, why not assign someone to do the task for us? This way, we can save time and energy. Our performance will be affected if we keep on complaining about those tasks.