Master Procrastination

by Paul A. Douglas, Ph.D.
Time management consultant R.Alec MacKenzie, has suggested that of all management ills, procrastination looms as the most obvious and readily admitted. This time management problem affects us all to a greater or lesser degree. However, some people are more affected than others. We often joke about our procrastinating habit, but it is really not a joking matter. Relationships have failed because of procrastination, organizations have folded because of it and people have died as a result of it.

What is procrastination?
Procrastination is doing the urgent rather than the important.
Procrastination is watching television when you should be exercising.
Procrastination is enjoying a long lunch, when things are stacked up back at the office.
Procrastination is avoiding a person rather than facing them and solving a problem.
Procrastination is putting off that activity with your children because you have more important things to do.

There are really four reasons why we procrastinate, the task is unpleasant, the task is overwhelming, the task requires a decision and involves risk and the task is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being of low priority.

To conquer procrastination we must overcome our inertia, that is our tendency to resist taking action. From physics we learn that a body remains at rest unless and until a force is exerted against it. As well from physics we learn that it always takes less effort to sustain movement once inertia has been overcome. Below are some suggestions that may help you to deal more effectively with procrastination:

1. Set a deadline. A deadline gives a sense of urgency to a task. It also provides structure. We tend to move more quickly to accomplish a task when a deadline is set. Challenge yourself to accomplish a particular task within a given time frame, "I will have this task finished by Friday noon."
2. Reward yourself for accomplishment. When you have completed that unpleasant task within the time frame you have established, reward yourself for that job well done. It may mean simply enjoying a soda or going for a walk or taking a relaxing moment to do something you enjoy. This positive self- stroking will help reinforce your new behavior.
3. Do the most unpleasant thing first. Your mother was right when she insisted you eat your spinach first. If you will attack the most unpleasant part of the task first, the rest will be downhill.
4. Break the object of your procrastination down into smaller units. This is what Allan Lakein calls in his book - How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, the "Swiss cheese" method. He says treat that large and overwhelming task like a block of Swiss cheese, by gnawing a hole here and gnawing a hole there, before you know it, you have reduced it to a size where you can gobble it all up. The accomplishment of great things always comes from the accomplishment of many, many small things. Most of us approach our work in a different way. We pull that enormous task out of our in-basket, recognize the scope and magnitude of the task and shove it back in the pile, leaving it in abeyance while we do something that is quick, fun and easy. For this reason I instruct people as they use their date book organizers, not to write anything on their prioritized daily "to do" list which will take them more than an hour. If it will take more than an hour it should be entered as two or more individual tasks. If for example, it is going to take you five hours to do a personnel planning report, it would be best to enter this on your list as a number of individual tasks, probably over a number of days, such as:
Gather required documentation
Prepare the outline
Write the objectives, etc.
Tasks are overwhelming because of their size, their complexity or the amount of time involved in their completion. By breaking down a task into sub-units, we provide for ourselves structure, and we reduce complexity.
5. Make a commitment to strengthen your resolve. Let other people know about your deadline and commitment. We may frequently break commitments we make to ourselves but we are far less likely to break commitments that we make or share with other people. It can be painful and embarrassing to have to admit to others that we have failed. Organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous, or Weight Watchers or a myriad of other highly successful self-help groups have recognized this principle. By making a public commitment you are less likely to procrastinate; so make a commitment to your boss, your spouse or friend.
Take some time to analyze your procrastinating habit. Ask yourself the following six questions:
1. What things do I tend to put off most often?
2. What am I putting off right now?
3. How do I feel about my procrastination habit?
4. What has my procrastination cost me?
5. What do I feel is the cause of most of my procrastination?
6. What can I do to overcome my procrastination?
If you can master your procrastination you have gone a long way toward the management of your time, for contrary to conventional wisdom, it is the internal time wasters - our inability to say no, our own personal lack of organization and our procrastinating habit that are our greatest time thieves. The steps I have outlined above will help you to overcome your inertia and gain greater control of yourself, your time and your life.

Get rid of your bad habits

By the time we reach the peak years of our career, most of us have picked up a deadly collection of time-killing habits. Each one eat into our capacity to focus on success. TV and the morning newspaper are two of the worst. Devotees watch their days dawn stillborn, suffocated in the awful banality of pulpy events and canned banter.

Long juicy phone chats with friends and enemies are deadly. If you need a ten minute chat every hour to get through your workday, you should feel lucky you even have a job. A phone chat costs you not only the time it takes to dial and talk, but also the time and energy to restore your focus to the effort at hand, not to mention the lost momentum caused by the interruption.

Coffee or snack breaks rob precious minutes from prime work hours while adding flab and lowering energy levels. Grabbing coffee and a donut seems like it should take a minute or two. In fact, a donut break is more likely to cost 20-30 minutes, especially when you consider the time it takes to refocus on what you were doing. If you must nibble, bring a snack to work and keep it on your desk so you can munch without breaking stride. Just make sure it's energy boosters like baby carrots or trail mix, not slothmakers like donuts, cookies or breads. Anything starchy makes you drowsy and costs you the keen edge you need for focus.Bad habits can turn a highly effective person into a hopeless bumbler.

The trick to dealing with bad habits is to substitute a good habit in their place. Substitute a morning run or swim in place of TV or the morning paper. Substitute a call to a few key clients or associate in place of a chat with friends or a coffee break. Use the impulse to indulge a bad habit as the stimulus that triggers a good habit. The next time you feel the urge to get your third cup of coffee, consciously replace it with the desire to make a business call to a favorite client, or at least reach for a carrot or glass of water. The next time you feel the urge to call your significant other to engage in a long gripe session about your lazy, stupid, ugly boss, condition yourself to call your boss instead and suggest ways to add to the bottom line. That way you're actually using the conditioned power of your bad habits to trigger a good habit. If Pavlov could do stimulus-response conditioning with canines, you can train yourself to do the same.

Obviously, relaxation and entertainment must have a place in your life. The key is to save them for the end of the workday, after hours or weekends when they help us unwind rather than indulging in them early in the day and causing our workdays to start stillborn.