One minute motivator:
Do you procrastinate? Are you a daydreamer? Does it take very little to divert your attention from the task at hand? Do the words ‘I’ll do it later’ feature prominently in your vocabulary? Be careful. Procrastination lies in wait to hurt you, whether at your place of work or in your relationships with family, colleagues, and friends. Procrastination is a silent killer of purpose and relationships.
Do you tend to put off or delay doing things? Sometimes putting off decisions is a good thing. It allows time for reflection and may result in a better course of action. However, when it becomes a general pattern or habit, it will prevent you from attending to the things that matter, and that becomes a problem. Add to that feeling of inaction; it can also lead to feelings of guilt.
The solution is to become aware of when and why you procrastinate firstly. Face it head-on and commit to taking action. Just try to force yourself from time to time to do things immediately. That alone will make you feel good about yourself.
Someday is now. Just do it!
A quick win:
The five-minute procrastination solution
“The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.” – Dawson Trotman
Do you tend to put off or delay doing things? Sometimes putting off decisions is a good thing. It allows time for reflection and may result in a better course of action. However, when it becomes a general pattern or habit, it will prevent you from attending to the things that matter, and that becomes a problem. Add to that feeling of inaction, and it can also lead to feelings of guilt.
I’m going to share with you one of the best solutions for people struggling with procrastination. It’s simple, and it works. It involves only two simple steps:
1. Ask yourself: ‘What can I do TODAY and right NOW that moves this task ahead even by a little bit?’
2. Once you are done identifying the action, start working on that task for precisely five minutes. It has been proved by research studies that once you get off to some work, you end up completing it. This happens because of a psychological effect that is known as the Zeigarnik effect. The Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
The best way to get something done is to begin. A small action taken is still an action taken and can make a huge difference. Once you start the seemingly trivial task, a loop will keep running in your mind to finish it off as soon as possible, and this is how those productive five minutes will prove to be useful for you.
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
An extract from my book: Smart Thinking for Crazy Times
