The best way to get something done is to begin

I think I’m not exaggerating while saying that we all have the habit to procrastinate, which is postponing the things we have to do until the last minute. Or in some cases, even further. It gives us short term gain, but long time pain.

In order to improve our members’ time usage, our Talent Management Development Team gave a training about procrastination and how to avoid it.

We procrastinate things that are too insignificant or annoying to bother with them or things that are too difficult and/or time consuming to deal with them. This can lead to stress, depression, lower self-esteem; it stops us from being successful and makes us settle with less. It is giving us a constant sense of guilt and has a destructive effect on your personal life.

In order to handle the problem, think what type of procrastinator you are. The types are following:

-       Relaxed type – 98% of people belong to this group. Relaxed postponers often use phrases like "I need to wait for inspiration" or “I’ll definitely do it tomorrow". There is nothing wrong to occasionally postpone unpleasant things but if it becomes a habit, it is a problem.

-     Genius type – If you believe that you work best under pressure, then you belong to this group. Generally they have the ability and required skill but they're just lazy with their time. Leaving things on the last minute doesn’t allow us to use our full potential.

-      Avoider type – If you’re constantly dreaming about far-far future instead of dealing with tasks in the present time, then you belong to here. Avoider procrastinators are very sensitive to what people think and say about them. Being viewed as a failure may paralyze them to even try to break the vicious circle of delays altogether.

So, how to overcome procrastination? Development team gave us 7 simple tools to use:

1)   10 minute rule – Break big assignments into manageable tasks that take 5 – 10 minutes to  complete.

2)   2 minute rule – Do these tasks immediately that take only 2 minutes to complete.

3)   3 magical questions – Write down the answers to these 3 simple questions:

              1. Where are you? 

              2. What do you want to do?

              3. How will you feel after doing it?

       While writing, you’re already imagining yourself doing it and it won’t be very difficult for you to get up and do it anymore!

4)   Make your ultimate goal and your immediate desire change places. Let’s say that instead of studying you want to watch TV. So, instead of thinking how tired you are and how much you want to see the next episode of How I Met your Mother, you should focus on the ultimate goal: to get good grades in order to have a satisfying job and nice living.

5)   Recognize that you're just about to procrastinate – it needs a lot of self control to do that but works damn well!

6)   Recognize what distracts you – You can try to eliminate the disturbing factor (f.e. closing FB while studying at a computer) or award yourself with it after some work is done.

7)   Make a promise to a lot of people and put a deadline on it. So you’ll have a social pressure from your friends and family when they are constantly asking how is it going with this.

So do not procrastinate becoming the best version of yourself!