The Anatomy of Procrastination: Why Do I Procrastinate?
by Kevin Hogan
Page 4
Next, go back to the previous section of this article, and look at the items you identified as the ‘root’ of your issues:
Self Worth – If you constantly downplay your skills and knowledge and doubt your own ability you will feel like your success (when it happens) is just a factor of luck.
You may find it hard to accept a compliment on your work because you really don’t feel you deserve it.
You may demand perfection from yourself even though, you feel you can never achieve that perfection. Lifestorms is a CD Program I developed to deal with this kind of life challenge. See the http://www.store.kevinhogan.com
You need to step back and put things in perspective and realize that not everything is critical enough to strive for perfection and that perfection is impossible, in any case.
Do the best you can but get the task done. Start it with plenty of time to allow yourself the focus and dedication to do a job of which you will be proud.
When someone compliments you, practice saying ‘thank you’ and moving on. Don’t downplay your effort or display false modesty. Just accept the praise! Say, “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
It may be hard at first, but it will get easier as you practice.
Pressure – If you find it hard to get a project or task started because you are swamped with other things, you may feel that nothing will get you out of this hole.
You tell yourself that even if you work really hard to accomplish this task, the only thing that will come of it is MORE WORK.
So why bother?
To relieve the pressure, you need to have a plan for how to prioritize the items you must accomplish and what the steps are to see each task through to completion.
Start by looking at what you have to do and be honest about how important each project is.
Determine new deadlines if you need more time to get certain things done, or if something else must be completed before you can start on a particular project.
If YOU are setting the deadlines, you can determine how critical each item is by asking yourself what will happen if you don’t get a particular task done by a certain date?
Will some catastrophe come down on you or someone else?
Will you lose your job or a promotion? Will you fail a class or disappoint someone you have promised to help?
(Why not assume, “yes,” and then prepare for that possible reality!?)
Once you have your priorities in order and all your deadlines on the calendar, start to detail the tasks that you will need to accomplish to finish each ‘phase’ of the task.
In this way, you can set smaller milestones and you will KNOW you are accomplishing something along the way and feel better about the fact that you are making progress.
Pressure comes from feeling like you have TOO MUCH TO DO and you are making NO PROGRESS to complete ANY OF THE THINGS on your list!
Control – If you are easily overwhelmed, or hate feeling controlled, you may feel that your situation is unfair.
Instead of getting frustrated and putting off the task to show others that you will not be pushed around, you should consider the things in your life over which you DO have control.
One of those things is the ability to give yourself a reward.
Plan a reward to enjoy yourself after you have completed the task and remind yourself that you DO have control over this task.
It is YOUR choice whether to do this task and you have chosen TO DO IT!
Justification – If you are unhappy with someone or something, you may not try as hard as you would otherwise.
Get out of this mindset by telling yourself that it is YOU that is upset (not anyone else) and that your feelings of revenge or anger will only come back to hurt you in the long run.
Don’t let the person, or situation, that has you upset, get in the way of your goals or success.
Do you remember what kind of “voice” you “hear”? Was it the Carefree voice, the Critical voice or the Chaotic voice?
Let’s go back to these voices for a moment and see how we can quiet and manage these voices.
The trick is to understand why the voices say what they say and what issues you have that are influenced by the voice you hear.
THEN, diffuse the voice – silence it by changing your mind set.
The way you think and the things you tell yourself will, over time, have a positive effect on old habits.
Carefree
The carefree voice is the voice of a child who wants only to do what THEY want to do and insists on distracting you from other tasks by thinking of things to do that are more pleasant.
This voice will tell you that there is no real problem with putting off the task. It will get done – all in good time!
The carefree voice is easy to listen to because it allows you to avoid the things you really don’t feel like doing, or the things about which you are uncertain, or the things you don’t LIKE to do.
You can diffuse this voice by telling yourself that you will have plenty of time to enjoy what you want to do.
You can even PLAN an event to take place after the completion date of the task to reward yourself.
Don’t forget to remind yourself that there is a different kind of satisfaction in achieving a goal, even if the work itself is not engaging or fun.
You may be making someone else happy, or advancing yourself toward a longer-term goal, which will make you VERY happy when you get there.
Small milestones will give you more confidence and remind you that you are achieving something, and it will keep the carefree voice quiet.
Critical
The critical voice finds you inferior in every way. If you DO accomplish a task, this critic will tell you that if it isn’t perfect, it isn’t good enough.
If you DON’T accomplish a task, the critic will tell you that you never get anything done and that you really need to get yourself together!
KEY: This voice speaks to your low self-worth and your uncertainty.
It makes you wonder if you CAN accomplish the thing you are trying to make yourself do and pretty soon you are frozen and cannot move!
You can silence this voice by setting near-term goals and congratulating yourself and recognizing your achievements as you accomplish your milestones.
AND, you can quiet that critic by reminding yourself that everything does not have to be perfect to be ‘well done’ and that trying your best is all you can do.
You should also remind yourself (and your critic) that you don’t have to think so far out into the future to imagine the worst.
Instead, all you have to do is to START the task and keep going, one step at a time. The future will take care of itself!
Fend off the voice of doom by keeping tasks and outcomes in perspective.
Remind yourself that even if the task isn’t a complete success, it will be better than total failure or not even TRYING to do it and you will learn from the experience.
Focus on your strengths and skills and silence the critic!
Chaotic
If this is the only voice you hear, you are in luck.
This type of procrastination is rooted mostly in the absence of organizational skills, which can easily be learned by taking a class, reading a book or watching a video.
Of course you’ll have to practice, and it will take time to break the bad habits, but you can accomplish this with a little effort.
The chaotic voice is trying very hard to help you start and finish projects but this voice just doesn’t have the information you need to get the job done!
The planning and time management processes you learn will give you the ability to establish a calendar with milestones.
You can organize your work in such a way that you create ‘chunks’ of tasks to accomplish; all focused toward meeting your longer-term goal.
A large part of these processes involves things like ‘Action Lists’, ‘To Do Lists’, and writing goals and objectives for longer-term things, like becoming President of a company ,or completing your degree by a certain date.
Strengthen your attention span by starting a project and focusing on the task for a half an hour.
Then give yourself a 15 minute break.
When the 15 minutes is finished, go back to work. Keep doing this (you can set a timer or alarm if that helps) until you gradually extend your ability to concentrate on a project and stay on target for several hours, with a small break every 2 hrs or so.
The chaotic voice is often heard by that part of you that just doesn’t know where to begin - the part that gets easily overwhelmed and frustrated.
If you have a plan for small steps, and if you prove to yourself that you can focus on structured tasks for a reasonable period of time, you will begin to quiet the voice of chaos.
Tell yourself (and the voice) that you are learning new management skills every day, and talking to others to find out what works for them to keep them on track (calendars on the wall, project plans, specific goals and ‘to do’ lists, etc).
Every time you cross an item off your list, you silence the chaotic voice and prove that you are capable of learning structure and time management, and you CAN achieve your goals.
Now that you have considered the issues, the root of these issues and the techniques you can use to silence the voice on your shoulder, you can begin to sketch out some detail, as a first step toward...
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Kevin Hogan
Network 3000 Publishing
3432 Denmark #108
Eagan, MN 55123
(612) 616-0732
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