Do It Now - 5 Steps To Help Control Procrastination

In your opinion, what is the single biggest reason many people don’t achieve what they are capable of? Is it because they don’t work hard enough? Maybe. Is it because they don’t have written goals and therefore have no idea were they really want to go? Yes, sometimes, but the biggest monster in my opinion is procrastination. Putting off till tomorrow what can be done today. Many of us are guilty of it on a daily basis. For example, a college student has an 800 word essay due one month from today, instead of working on it slowly and handing in a good essay the student will wait till 3 days before the essay is due and fail anyway. Another example could be the salesperson who receive a message that a potential customer is interested in their product instead of calling right away the salesperson putts it off for a day or two, by the time the customer was contacted they had already purchased from the competition.

Procrastinating is a habit, a bad habit. How do you get rid of bad habits? You replace them with good habits. Pretty easy right. Wrong. Getting rid of any bad habit takes allot of hard work, courage, and determination. The thing with bad habits is that most of them help us feel good, the give us instant gratification. Let’s look at alcohol for example; do you think that an alcoholic can understand that his drinking is killing him? In most cases, yes. The problem is that it feels too good at the moment to think about the consequence. Same thing applies to procrastinating, I’m sure we have all at some point in time put off activities that benefit us.

Can we stop the procrastination circle? Yes. But be prepared to work your behind off. I’m going to give you my top recommendation for getting on the ball and doing everything you supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it.

1. Begin everyday with a to do list in play. It’s easier to do what you got to do when you know what it is. Every day should be one step in the direction of whatever your largest goals are; above you’re to do list in a header style write down those goals.

2. Get the larger more difficult task done first, and early. Let’s say you have 2 tasks that must be done today, one is run 10 miles the other is visit mom. Wouldn’t it make more sense to knock the 10 mile run out first?

3. Don’t let meaningless task get in the way of what is important. Entertainment is good, I believe we all need to be entertained sometime, but it should not be our everything. TV, internet chat, games, magazines, books, and so on should be our rewards for accomplishing what we set out to do for the day. Refuse to entertain yourself until your list of items is complete. You will soon realize how much you don’t miss your entertainment.

4. Think about your reward for getting everything done. Not only will you feel great about yourself, but you will have taken one step toward your goals and dreams. Most people know what it is they must do in order to be a success; I believe most people know what it is they must do in order to become a fantastic success. The problem is pushing and getting it done.

5. Discipline yourself. If you have to get up at 7am to get your list complete, just do it. If your new weight loss plan says don’t drink soda, then don’t. Too much is lost over lack of discipline, I believe it is easier to do things right once and reap the rewards then to do them half way a dozen times and never enjoy the fruits of your work.