Some of us, in a world where every day presents a fresh opportunity to put things off until tomorrow, are amateur crastinators. Some of us are pro. Here’s an expert’s guide to conquering the most pressing of all work habits, right now, and not a moment later
For a while, one of the descriptors I used for myself on Twitter was Procrastininja™. I bandied it about like a badge of honour, proud of my ability to work under pressure and to need the pressure of a deadline to be productive.
But one day a friend gave me a shiny silver notebook with one word emblazoned across the front: PROCRASTINATOR, and something shifted.
Every time I took that notebook out, it accused me (although I know she didn’t mean it like that). It made me uncomfortable enough so that I only used it in the office, not when I was out at meetings. And I started to think about my penchant for procrastination, and what might be behind it.
We all procrastinate in various ways. We start the diet on Monday (even though it’s Tuesday now). We put off that uncomfortable conversation.
We promise ourselves ‘just five more minutes on social media’ before we get up to wash the dishes, study for a test, clean out the fridge, or do our taxes. And then suddenly it’s so last minute, you don’t have time to joke about working at lastminute.com.
You’re frantically trying to finish, you’re yelling at your co-workers, kicking the dog and barking at your significant other when you get home, and all you really had to do was get up, and do the thing.
You lose sleep, your jaw and neck are like concrete, but you finish in the nick of time. And then, bizarrely, you congratulate yourself for finishing under such enormous – but entirely unnecessary – pressure.
When I thought about it – and especially as it related to my work – it made no sense at all. So I made it my mission this year, to procrastinate less. I did a few simple things.
- Visual reminders
I typed up a simple sentence and stuck it onto the top corner of my laptop. It read: “Procrastination does not earn you any money.” It sounds stupid, but it really did serve as a reminder. Nothing fancy, no big motivational insight – just that simple, logical statement. I put another sign up on the notice board with three words under each other: Professional, Proactive, Productive – because those are the three things I strive to be.
- Take one step
One of the best principles I’ve picked up from both coaching and being coached, is that often, starting is the hardest part. We procrastinate for a lot of reasons – boredom is one of mine – but one of the biggest reasons is fear.
So you take the scary thing, break it up into tiny steps and just do the first one. That’s all. Once you’ve taken the first step, the next one seems less scary, and anyway, you’re likely to do it while you’re there. I promised myself that if a task landed in my inbox I would put it on my MS Outlook task list immediately and do whatever the first step was – make a call, send an email, do some research – it just gets the ball rolling.
This is a good approach for all change, actually. If you want to do 100 push-ups a day, you always have to start with one. And then while you’re down there, you might do another one. Slowly you’ll build up and eventually you’ll be doing 100 without even thinking about it.
But you have to start with the first one – every time – and then build on that. It’s the old eating the elephant metaphor – but all you’re doing is taking the first bite – and not worrying about the subsequent ones at all.
- White-knuckle it
Sometimes you just have to take yourself by the scruff of the neck, parent yourself, and get on with it. I remember watching motivational speaker Mel Robbins’ TED talk where she said the problem was that no one tells you that once you’re 18 you have to parent yourself – and she’s quite right.
So, when your inner recalcitrant teenager kicks in, treat yourself like you’d treat that kid. Because there are just some things in life you have to do, whether you like it or not. And procrastination just prolongs the agony.
- Be realistic
The thing with the tasks we put off, is that we often build them up into much bigger jobs than they are in reality. I have always hated doing my tax – it feels like this mammoth task.
In reality it usually takes me about 60 to 90 minutes to go through my file, add up all the slips and type up a list for my accountant. In my mind beforehand, however, it feels like days and days worth of boring slog. (Yes, I do have a tendency to be dramatic.)
Every year – and I’ve been doing my taxes for more than 20 years – I am pleasantly surprised by how little time it takes once I get going. You’d think I’d have learnt by now!
- Progress, not perfection
This is rapidly becoming my life philosophy. Breaking a lifelong habit of procrastination is going to take more than a week or two. As I write this piece, I have some very boring insurance forms I need to fill in. They’ve been languishing on my to-do list for about six weeks now – clearly I have not yet conquered my procrastination problem!
But on the work front, at least, I can report that I am doing much better. And that has made an enormous difference to my productivity as well as my stress levels – the first has gone up tremendously, and the second has gone down. And that, I think, is something we could all benefit from.
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