There are many different ways that you can use to beat procrastination. In fact, whole books have been written about ways to get going. Here are the 5 techniques I use most often to get me going:
Permission to Fail
A lot of my procrastination is rooted in perfectionism. I don’t want to do something imperfectly so I never do it at all. I get around this by writing out permission for me to fail at something, or I write out a description of how I could complete this task really poorly. Then I attempt to do just that. For example, if I am writing a newsletter article and can’t seem to get started, I give myself the assignment to write out everything in run on sentences or in a mind dump. Then I can go back and work with the material on a second go-around.
Ugly Frog
In the case that I am putting off something really important, I apply the frog principles from Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time (BK Life)*. I know that if I have to eat an ugly frog, it doesn’t pay to sit and stare at it first. So I just dig in. I have internalized this message so completely that I cannot think of an example from my life off-hand. A fictional example: let’s say you have a sink full of dirty dishes that need to be washed. They are already starting to smell bad. If you keep avoiding them, it will turn into a worse job. If you dig in, it won’t take as long as you think.
A counterpoint to getting around this situation is to not let it occur in the first place. This is applying another frog principle: you eat an ugly frog one bite at a time. If I keep up with a task, it will never get to the point where it becomes a big job. If I keep the bathrooms clean on a daily basis, I never have to spend an entire day cleaning them.
Delete It
If I am avoiding a task consistently, sometimes it is because I subconsciously recognize that I don’t need to do it at all. If that is the case, I delete it.
Remove Distractions
Sometimes I start procrastinating simply because there are things more interesting going on. I get sidetracked easily, particularly from tasks I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for. (Example: give me the choice of mowing the lawn or talking to a neighbor, and I will pick the neighbor) I find that removing all distractions will help me get started. I have had some very productive writing sessions by taking my computer to a place where there is no Internet access!
Comparison
The comparison method is a new one for me, and comes from Mark Forster. When I have a whole list of things I can’t get moving on, I take them in pairs and do the easiest one first. Then I take the one I didn’t do and compare it to the next item on the list and do the easiest of that pair. This really has helped get me un-stuck in the past weeks.
By using these methods I can usually get through my ordinary bouts of procrastination. Do you have any that you rely on?
