Do you have a never ending ‘To Do’, list? Have you heard yourself saying things like “I’ll do it tomorrow”, when deep down you know that you’ll probably put it off again?
Are you just feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to be
achieved?
We are all guilty of procrastinating from time to time, however it can become a
real problem if tomorrow never comes and your list of things to do just keeps
growing.
So, the big question…how do you begin to overcome this?
Well, the first thing is to acknowledge that you are probably procrastinating! It might be a hard truth to hear but I’m all about tough love where it might be needed. One of my good friends told me to tell him “stop making excuses and just bloomin’ do it!!” So, once you’ve fessed up to yourself…
The trouble is that once we start putting off a task, it can seem more and more daunting to get going again.
I can speak from experience when I needed to complete a 7000 word thesis! I really didn’t want to write it, so just put it to the back of my mind and tried to forget about it. Of course, the longer I went without doing it, the more I thought about it! It was dominating my life and I hadn’t even written it!
The next thing is to be realistic about how you start to change the way you do
things, you’re not going to switch from super procrastinator to productivity guru overnight; it takes time to find the right solution for you, and that depends on the reasons you’re putting things off in the first place…
Eventually, I had to take action – so I started by just writing a title on a page. Then, the following evening, I grabbed my notepad and just started writing some random ideas! Sounds crazy. but I just wanted to break the pattern. Amazingly, it felt good, and I carried on like this – just writing random things down for a couple of weeks.
From there I was able to go on to write the Thesis and submit it within a few weeks.
Finally, be honest with yourself that unless you can start again with
a blank sheet, there will still be some work to do, both behaviourally and
physically.
Then try to work out the reasons why; this is a crucial step as it means that
we are recognising that something needs to change.
The learning for me was that the longer you avoid doing something the bigger it gets inside your mind. ANY
PROGRESS wipes away that feeling and gives you a fresh
start, and from there it’s easier to keep moving once you’ve got a little
momentum
Top tips to help you take action today:
- Stop looking at the end goal – think smaller and more immediately
- When you’ve taken the first step – congratulate yourself and do the same again.
- Quick wins (those actions with immediate impact), help us to stay motivated and see actions as progress.
- Work out your preferred time period – in other words set yourself a time goal!!
- If you think it might help you, tell others what you are doing – knowing that
others may check in with you can be very encouraging (or the kick up the backside that you need!) - Focus on the benefits, for instance I knew once I’d tackled my written work, I would be able to close the door on it!
Just do something! Anything! Try it and see what happens!
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