Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Quit procrastinating!

Procrastination is one of the all time big time wasters.  We all do it and we know it, but there are times that it just seems impossible to get ourselves motivated to start or finish a particular task.  Here are a few I do when I can't seem to get myself motivated.

What is keeping me from starting the task?  Sometimes it is a simple as I am exhausted or the task is very low priority. I am OK with these answer and I will give myself a bit of slack.  But other times I find myself putting off a chore because the task is large and overwhelming or there is a emotional aspect that I am not ready to confront.  When I look at the reason that I am having difficulty with a project it becomes easier to find a way to overcome the procrastination and get to work.

One form of procrastination is procrastination by perfectionism.  Essentially someone will put a task off indefinitely because they are unable to do the project or task to their standards of perfection.  I fall into this category when it comes to regular cleaning of my house.  I like things really clean but I hate running the vacuum unless I can move all the furniture and really dust everything.   Consequently, I often end up waiting to vacuum until the dust bunnies of cat hair look like they will spontaneously create new cats.  (I always vacuum at this point since I am one cat away from being a crazy cat lady.) After I realized what I was doing, I began to give myself permission to vacuum without moving furniture.  It worked!  The floors stay clean and I don't have to do a complete detail of the house that takes days to complete.

For large projects, break them down into much smaller ones that can be done as individual steps.  I love the idea of writing cards but actually sitting down and doing it always trips me up.  So I break it down in to steps.  I address the envelopes one day, then I will stamp the return address another and put postage on in another step.  Finally, I will actually write the messages.  By the time I get to writing the messages the task doesn't seem so bad and it goes quickly from there.

Good luck on your project.  If you need more help finding the motivation, give me a call at 740-334-1928.

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