Procrastination - Failure to Launch

So you are ready to get to work, you've written everything down so your mind is clear, you've switched off your distractions.

And your brain has gone into hiding. 

What's happened? You are overwhelmed by your 'To Do' list, so your brain goes into overdrive looking for avoidance behaviours, you know, more coffee, having a 'rest', just one more check of Facebook, or perhaps even some advanced procrastination strategies, like that DIY project that you've been putting off for months. In fact anything at all that is not on your list to take you towards your goals!

So whats the solution? 

Think about your goals, look at your 'list', and decide what is the most important thing on that list that will take you towards your goals? Perhaps it's marketing, or writing that ebook, or setting up a website. 

Then write down the second most important thing, then the third, etc. Hint - filing is probably not going to be at the top of this list.

To help you order your list, here are some ideas and their relative value, for least to most important:

Now, refer to your new list of tasks for the day, in order of importance, that are going to take you towards your goals.

Start on the most IMPORTANT one.

When do you start on the second one? Only AFTER you have completed the first one! That way, even if you only do one thing that day, at least you have worked on the most important thing.

I have a simple mantra - "Started is Half Finished!". Often getting started is the hardest part. e.g. Once you are at the gym it's easy to work out, getting there is the challenge. And you know what, us humans are creatures of completion, once we get going, we like to finish things off. Have you ever gone into the kitchen, just to load the dishwasher, and found yourself cleaning the whole kitchen? While that may be an advanced form of procrastination, it proves the point.

If I'm not getting into a task, for whatever reason, maybe I don't like it, or I don't know how to do it, or I'm considering checking Facebook one more time, I have another mantra - "10 Focused Minutes!". You can do anything for 10 minutes, right? So I commit to spending 10 minutes purely focused on task at hand, nothing else for that 10 minutes. That is usually enough to get engaged in the task, and see it through. Worst case scenario is that at least it got started, and I can throw another 10 minutes at it later. Usually though, the "started is half finished" thing comes into play and the job gets done.

To your Success,
Trevor Long