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Procrastination
Managing Your Time and Your Procrastination
Ideas from my new book, Careers for Dummies.
Posted February 15, 2018
Articles on time management and procrastination too quickly move to tactics. Often, foundational issues must be addressed. The following prerequisites and tactics derive from my new book, Careers for Dummies.
Psychological issues
Making it worth the effort. For example, if your life is the crapper, you may not feel it's worth the effort to manage your time well. So, can you take a baby step to fix your career, relationships, health, whatever, so you care enough to use time-management tactics?
Excessive fear of failure. Other people manage time poorly because they excessively fear failure. Yes, sometimes, the cost of a failure is so great as to justify your not doing the task but usually not. Even a failure that makes you unhappy may be worth having tried. The experience may motivate you to gain a new skill, change careers, whatever.
More often, trying yields a more positive outcome. You may succeed, which makes you feel good and productive and may abet your career or personal life. And if you fail, it may not be a total failure. Even if it is, you may learn enough from it to have justified the effort. Not trying guarantees failure and that you don't get useful feedback. Sure, don't tackle tasks you know you'll fail at or where the risk-reward ratio of trying is poor. For example, I wouldn't try boxing because I know I'd get my head bashed in.
Excessive avoiding of being uncomfortable. Other people avoid tasks so they can avoid being uncomfortable. Successful people, even those in enjoyable careers, recognize that they must get comfortable being uncomfortable. A person will suffer far greater long-term consequences if they too often escape to some pleasurable activity when faced with something onerous, for example, doing tax returns, writing a laborious report, or making a touchy phone call, Get comfortable being uncomfortable and you'll find the short-term pain more than compensated by long-term gain.
Tactics
Now to tactics.
Ritualize. Take choice out of the matter: When a task needs be done, don't even entertain the idea of not doing it. And if it's a task that must be done regularly, consider calendaring it at a particular time and pairing it with a fun activity afterwards. For example, a client hated doing the bookkeeping for her business. She scheduled it for 9 to 9:45 AM on the last Friday of every month and scheduled her enjoyable yoga class for 10:00. I have to prepare my income tax return so I'm devoting an hour a day to it starting 9:00 AM sharp.
One-minute task. It's easier to get started if you begin with just an easy one-minute task. Succeed on that and you're more motivated to try a second one-minute task, and hopefully, you've become an object that in motion that tends to stay in motion.
One-minute struggle. Usually, if you're to conquer a roadblock, it's in the first minute of struggle. After that, rather than torturing yourself more, probably without coming up with a solution, ask yourself whether you should keep struggling, come back to the problem later with fresh eyes, try to complete the task without solving that problem, or asking for help. Using the one-minute struggle makes task completion more pleasant. If you spend lots of time struggling, it can be tempting to give up on the task completely. Of course, if you're routinely finding work tasks too filled with roadblocks, is it time to upgrade your skills or even change careers?
The Pomodoro Technique. It got its name from those tomato-shaped kitchen timers but you can use any timer, for example, the one on your phone. Set it for 20 minutes, work until it chimes, then take a 5-minute break. Repeat that twice more and you've completed a "pomodoro."
Sponging. Your days include bits of time that can be sponged up into productive activity. For example, in the car or waiting room, listen to an audiobook, perhaps an enjoyable one related to your career. Of course, there are times you'll want to veg, I write this merely to encourage you to make the productive vs veg choice consciously.
The takeaway
Managing your time well and avoiding procrastination usually requires a combination of the psychological and tactical. Are any of the approaches in this article worth a try?
I offer a 13-minute talk on this topic on YouTube.
This article is part of a series of simple career tips drawn from my new book, Careers for Dummies. The others are:
14 Careers to Consider and 5 Overrated Ones
Tips for Succeeding on the Job
Stress Reduction for the Stress-Prone
