Sometimes we find ourselves stuck, struggling with our ever-growing to-do list.
We know that we should get started on the tax forms, on redecorating the kitchen or tackling an overgrown garden: tasks which can seem so overwhelming. At this time, it can appear much more enticing to set our sights on lower, hanging fruits that bring less value to our lives.
If you are struggling with the procrastination bug, there is a solution.
Ask yourself this series of questions to gain some insight about the reasons causing your procrastination.
1. What tasks are you struggling to get started or completed?
List these tasks on a piece of paper and prioritise them by impending deadline (urgent first), how important they are (most important first) or how much mental capacity they are taking up.
Having a clear idea of what you have to get done starts with getting them down in black and white, knowing your starting point will at least bring nebulous anxieties into reality and allow you to make some sense of the thoughts whirling around your brain.
That grey matter between your ears is not utilised fully when keeping a mental to-do list – it has been designed to be creative and solve problems. So freeing up mental capacity to solve rather than remember problems will aid your procrastination.
We have another great blog post you might want to check out about the causes of procrastination
2. How long have you been putting these tasks off?
If these tasks have been on your mind for a while, can you pinpoint why it refuses to get done? Dig down to ground level with several ‘why’ questions like the example below:
I was given this project a fortnight ago and haven’t even started it yet!
Why have you not started it?
Because it is such a big project. There are so many facets to it, it’s overwhelming.
Why is it overwhelming?
I need so many different parts – research, finance, industry solutions, etc. to complete it. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it all?
Why do you think you won’t be able to complete it?
For a start, I’m not confident analysing the finance forecasts and don’t want to get the figures wrong.
Why don’t you want to get the figures wrong?
The Senior Management will be there. They know their stuff and if I don’t perform, I might get sacked.
Ding! Ding! There’s the ground level worry.
You’re procrastinating on the report because you’re afraid you’ll be judged and may lose your job if you don’t succeed.
3. What are the negative consequences if you continue to procrastinate?
By procrastinating in the work situation above, you are almost definitely going to be judged by the SMT as you won’t have a presentation to give. Given the two outcomes, you are more likely to be sacked by not producing a presentation than you are if you don’t quite meet your bosses’ exacting standards.
If you want further information on how fear is linked to procrastination, then you might want to check out this blog post fear and procrastination
4. Am I looking for excuses to explain delays, rather than taking responsibility for my actions?
If we were working efficiently and effectively to find solutions rather than problems, we would be busting through any challenges and obstacles that get in our way. So the very fact that we may be searching for excuses, even well before the deadline, indicates that we perhaps need to look at our commitment to the project, our attitude towards the task and/or our confidence in our own abilities to get the job done.
5. How would I feel if I wasn’t procrastinating?
The purpose of this question is to make you think about the benefits of facing the task head on and busting through this wall of self-doubt!
List the positives your would enjoy if the project was well on track and going smoothly. How would your day to day life be improved by knowing you were crushing it?
6. What would be my Next Few Steps towards bringing this feeling into reality?
If you were going to crush this task, how could it be chunked down? What would be the first task to do the smaller the better?
If your presentation needs financial data, who do you need to contact to send it over to you? Who would have access to this information who would be prepared to send it to you? This is the first task.
Step 1: Contact Jeremy for June’s financial forecast. You can do that! It’s just one quick phone call.
Once you have determined your first step, what would you have to do next to move forward?
Perhaps asking someone from accounting to go through the details with you to help you understand its significance to your project.
Step 2: Ring Beth to ask her to pop over and talk it through with you.
Step 3: put together a list of questions that will ensure that you get the information you need in a palatable and concise manner, ready to transfer this to your presentation.
There you go: the Next Few Steps sorted.
7. Which one of the Next Few Steps will you do first?
Which one of your Next Few Steps is the most sensible to start with? Already, your attitude towards the task has hopefully gone from one of sheer terror, to less overwhelm. You’re on the journey towards making this unmanageable goal into a set of small, highly achievable steps.
Then the final task is to take action. Take the first of your Next Few Steps and do it. If you’ve planned it correctly, this may only take a couple of minutes.
- Phoning Beth takes 60 seconds.
- Email Finance Department takes 2 minutes.
- Getting paint swatches for the kitchen is one quick on line search.
- Getting the hedge trimmer set up takes 5 minutes.
To understand some amazing ways to decide which next steps to take, have a click on this article: deciding on your next few steps
If you want to find out more, watch this amazing Ted Talk by Tim Urban going deep inside the mind of a procrastinator
Conclusion
Once you take action on one of your ‘Next Few Steps’, you have automatically busted through that towering, once-impenetrable wall of procrastination and have made progress.
And after that, just keep going. Don’t lose the momentum you have built. Keep using the Next Few Steps to help you chip away at large overwhelming goals and if you get stuck at any point, go back through the 7 questions above that will move you from passive to active, from scared to sacred, from non-starter to awesome finisher.
To get more insight into other ways to bust the procrastination habit, check out this article: 7 easy ways to overcome procrastination