Procrastination is the deferment or avoidance of an action or task which requires completion by focusing on some other action or task. For the person procrastinating, this can result in a loss of productivity, stress and a sense of guilt. While it is normal for individuals to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological or physiological disorder. (source: www.wikipedia.org)
This article describes different techniques proposed to fight procrastination and improve your productivity and satisfaction. It's goal is to help you choose the best method that will work for you.
If you have tried any of the methods described here or know of other resources worth mentioning, please add them in the comments section.
Facts about procrastination from Psychologytoday
• Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators
• US as a culture don't take procrastination as a problem – it seems normal
• Procrastination is not a problem of time management or of planning
• Procrastinators are made not born
• Procrastination predicts higher levels of consumption of alcohol among those people who drink
• Procrastinators tell lies to themselves
• Procrastinators actively look for distractions
• There are different types: Thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush. Avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or success. Decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision.
•There are big costs to procrastination in health and economy
• Procrastinators can change their behavior—but doing so consumes a lot of psychic energy
Solutions to procrastination
Paul takes the approach that procrastination cannot be cured. The question is how to procrastinate well.
• Procrastinators put off small stuff to work on big stuff (like the absentminded professor)
• Big stuff = your Noble price research or the novel you're working on
• Small stuff = shaving, cleaning the house or taking the dog out
• Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work
• Performing errands synchronously hurts productivity
• You need to work on a big problem. Perhaps the biggest problem in your field and focus only on that.
Overcoming Procrastination-Steve Pavnila
• Replace "Have To" With "Want To" – remove mental blocks by thinking positively about your tasks
• Replace "Finish It" With "Begin It" - Think of starting one small piece of the task instead of mentally feeling that you must finish the whole thing
• Replace Perfectionism With Permission To Be Human – Realize that an imperfect job completed today is always superior to the perfect job delayed indefinitely
• Replace Deprivation With Guaranteed Fun Guarantee the fun parts of your life first, and then schedule your work around them
• Use Timeboxing – choose tasks that you can do in limited amount of time and reward yourself for completing them.
From the online book Psychological self-help
This chapter relies on psychology study. It divides proscrastinators to 3 types:
• The tense-afraid type
• The relaxed, pleasure seeking
• The Anxiety based proscrastinators
• Make a To-Do list
• Trick yourself by thinking "I'll do it in 5 minutes" then continue until you finish the task
• Keep a journal of your thoughts to help cope with your anxieties
• Build self esteem to reduce your dislike of the task.
• Take control and don't rely on excuses.
• Reduce fear of failing by separating your self esteem from the task.
• Keep record of your avoidance
• Change procrastinating ways of thinking by changing your vocabulary
• Avoid the tendency to live entirely in the future
• Turn worries and self-doubts into assets by using them to promote the desired outcome
• Schedule your fixed hours (classes, meetings, meals, etc.) and your play time. That's all, no work.
• Set your browser home page to be blank. If you hate the blank page, set your home page to a search engine's home page or to a default webserver's home page - which, should, in theory, be classier than just a blank page
• Disable any new mail notifications, and close your email client
• Disable all instant messaging
• Use a news aggregator to remove idle web surfing and "subscribe" to important websites instead of randomly browsing them to find updates
• Disable "automatic updating" on your news aggregator (a program that polls website feeds in RSS, XML, Atom, et al.) or close your aggregator when not in use
• Create a separate user without a web browser or instant messaging or email client and use that as your 'work' user
• Set small tasks and goals with relatively short durations, then reward yourself once the task is completed
• Time yourself. Keep track of what you do, to the minute. Write ":00" - ":59" on a sheet of paper, every hour, and keep track of what you are doing, to the minute. This includes reading web pages that you aren't supposed to. When you see where your time goes, it can be quite a shocker, and move you to right action.
See also: Kick procrastination's ass: Run a dash.
Procrrastination happens because you don't enjoy doing the task:
• Find out what's bothering you about the task and handle it
• Perfectionism – learn to accept a task that's not perfect.
• Work too complicated – break it down
• Manifest the action to tangible physical tasks.
Look at procrastination as addiction to time wasting
• Defuse the task – it's not as bad as it seems
• Make a list of why the activity is dreaded
• Make a list of what will happen if we don't do this activity
• Make a list of all of the reasons you might actually want to do this activity
• Now, you can look at the Dreaded Activity with some equanimity. Go through each of the dreaded reasons and see if you can't overcome them one by one.
Quick fixes:
• Clean your desk
• Clean your email inbox and keep it at zero
• Few glasses of water a day keep procrastination at bay
• Get attractive tools for tasks that cause your procrastination
• Just say NO. It will help you regain the power and win over procrastination
• Use tools that will help you build habits
Mark Tau Getting Back To Work: A Personal Productivity Toolkit
• Create a good environment, use Positive Associations, improve your scenery, background music. Even your Desktop theme counts
• Flow – make sure the job Variety, challenges, goals, feedback and compatibility to your skills are aligned
• Nanny 911- take away everything you use to procrastinate, and not give it back until you finished your work
• Browser homepage – Create "Get Back to Work" page and put it as your homepage
• Disrupt your negative behaviors, and reinforce your productive ones.
Enjoy your procrastination !
If you know about other resources worth mentioning about defeating procrastination please add them as comments.
