7 Habits to Help You Beat Procrastination 

Procrastination hits at the most inopportune times and halts progress, makes us miss deadlines and causes overwhelm. There are a myriad of reasons for procrastination and in order to help push past its potential downward spiral, you need to understand the reasons you procrastinate. Once you understand the reasons behind your procrastination, you can take steps to alleviate and eliminate it, so you can move forward.

Procrastination can be a threat to your professional productivity and your livelihood.

Why do you procrastinate?

There are many who believe procrastination is a time management issue, but it’s not – it’s an emotional issue. When you delve into the emotional reasons you procrastinate you can move past it.

Here are five reasons people procrastinate:

1. You’re not sure the project is worth the perceived effort you need to put in. If you’re not invested in the task, you can tell yourself “It’s not worth it.” You may be right, but you need to determine how missing this deadline could impact your future self and business.
2. You fear failure. This is a major reason for procrastination – if you don’t start, you can’t fail. Your fear keeps you frozen. Lack of training or knowledge of the overall project could add to that fear.
3. You are already overextended, but still you said “yes” to a new project. If you are already overwhelmed, and you add another project, procrastination is almost sure to follow.
4. Your perfectionist tendencies rise up. If you’re concerned that your efforts won’t yield 100% satisfaction, you are afraid to start. The desire to produce a perfect project helps assure you don’t work on it.
5. Your time management skills are lacking. If you procrastinate because you are overwhelmed, it could be because you truly do have too many tasks on your plate. However, you could be procrastinating because you don’t know how to properly manage your time and your tasks. Additionally, if you haven’t written down all of the tasks you need to do, you could be imaging you have more to do than you truly do. Write down everything you need to get done and you may see it’s not as overwhelming as you imagined. Prioritize everything on your list with the most important items that will help you make progress on your goals (revenue generation, for example). How many items are on your list that can be delegated – and delegate them?

To help you be even more effective and efficient, so you can achieve your goals at an accelerated rate, you can delegate more to your team members than you have or might think possible. Stop holding on to things that can be done by someone else and do only those activities that you can do and can’t be done by anyone else. Stop doing revenue generation / business development avoidance activities and delegate more! You should be doing only those activities that only you can do and nobody else can. Successful people are excellent delegators, so work at being an even better delegator and be even more successful.

Download my Free Delegation Exercise to help you identify more activities to delegate, by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/delegation-list-sample/.

Now that you know WHY you might be procrastinating, you can work on HOW to move past it.

You can beat procrastination – it just takes a bit of routine-setting and habit-building. Positive reinforcement will help you bust through procrastination and gain control of your time and your projects.

Here are seven habits to develop that will help you beat procrastination:

1. Make sure your workspace is conducive to productivity and effectiveness. You truly cannot work in chaos.
2. Set a timer for ten minutes. Tackle the project you’ve been dreading and pushing off when you get to the office. Set your timer for ten minutes and dive in. Anyone can perform any task for a mere ten minutes, right? I believe so. If you know you only have to work on a dreaded project for ten minutes, it will be less daunting. You may also find it’s not as bad as you’d imagined. Chipping away at ten minutes a day will get the project completed. To download my complimentary Time Log Exercise and help you be even more time efficient, so you are in a higher probability position to achieve your goals, go to: https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/time-log/.  Simple instructions come with the sample document to help you know how to complete the time log.
3. Manageable goals. If you’re given a project with many moving parts, break it down into smaller, more manageable goals. Incremental steps toward a larger goal will help eliminate procrastination.
4. When are you most effective? If you’re trying to tackle a major task at the end of the day (or the beginning of the day) when you’re not fully at your best, your productivity and production will suffer. Tap into your own energies and know when you are the most effective and work on big projects at that time.

Download my free audio training about how to Focus on your High Payoff Activities and Achieve Your Goals using Effective Time Management and the special report called 10 Power Tips for Getting Focused, Organized, and Achieving Your Goals Now, by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/landing/.

5. Write down all of your projects. To-dos seem more overwhelming when they are “in your head.” Write down ALL of your projects, set timelines and deadlines, then move forward. To download a Free Sample Prioritized Action List (PAL) that everyone in your office can use, go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/pal-sample/.
6. Prioritize items. Not every project in front of you is a priority, correct? Know what needs to be done first, which deadlines are looming and work on projects in order of priority.
7. Reward yourself for a job well done. If you can only do ten minutes on a project – that is ten more minutes than you did the day before. Celebrate that. Set milestones and attach rewards. A reward could be taking a walk, buying a fancy coffee, taking a half day off, for example.

Rituals, routines, and habits are important to our day. If you have a habit of sitting down to work at 8 am, for example, your routine is to do just that. Build a habit of writing down the to-dos and projects you need to tackle the next day, before you leave the office today; this will help get you even more focused and prevent procrastinating the next day on which task to do first.

Do you know why you procrastinate? What can you do to help beat procrastination and achieve even more each day which will accelerate your results?

For more help with reducing procrastination and growing your business, download my complimentary Guide to Stopping Procrastination, Helping You Create Your Ideal Business and Ideal Life, by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/stop-procrastination.

 

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Do you feel like your business has plateaued or you are sick and tired of being sick and tired? Could you use a shot in the arm to make even more progress on your goals? Consider working with The Accountability Coach. I’m here to help you accelerate your results, so you can enjoy your ideal business and ideal life!

 

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