It’s been proven that procrastination is bad for our health. (Procrastination: Ten Things to Know from Psychology Today). But it really doesn’t take research for us to know that procrastination isn’t good for us.
William James (American psychologist and philosopher, 1842-1910) said:
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”
Still, most of us feel we procrastinate more than we should. There’s a don’t delay blog, iProcrastinate podcasts, and even procrastination comics.
Some Ideas on Procrastination and What We Can Do about It
Piers Steel, Ph.D., in The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done
says that we procrastinate because we fear failure, because we don’t value the work, or, especially, because we’re too impulsive.
He has some suggestions, such as:
- Try new and difficult things, which will build your self-confidence.
- Watch inspirational movies.
- Avoid distractions and temptations.
- Give yourself rewards.
- Make specific goals.
- Break down big projects into manageable chunks.
- Find a job you love.
- Get in the habit of not procrastinating.
I’m very fond of Marla Cilley, aka FlyLady as an anti-procrastination motivator. She believes that perfectionism leads to procrastination and has lots of simple ideas that help perfectionists like me; ideas such as:
- Set your priorities.
- Add a good habit a day (babystep) for 31 days to develop good habits.
- Use daily reminders.
- Create daily and weekly routines. (Wednesday is anti-procrastination day, a day for doing something you’ve been putting off.)
- Do certain tasks no matter what (like shining your sink every night – something I actually started doing because of FlyLady and have continued for a number of years).
- Set a timer and do a task for 15 minutes. (“You can do anything for 15 minutes.” – FlyLady)
- Use motivational quotes (like “progress, not perfection,” “good enough is good enough,” or my favorite: “right away is the easy way”).
Here’s a post I published at Living Montessori Now: How FlyLady and Montessori Help Me Keep My House Clean.
“Right Away is the Easy Way” Word-Art Freebie
I love my 30-day challenges. They’re helping me get more done! I use a mixture of FlyLady and the 30-day challenge to do a minimum of 15 minutes a day of the task for my monthly challenge.
And there’s a lot to be said for the Nike slogan: Just do it! The feeling of accomplishment from finishing something is much better than any sense of relief from putting something off.
Do you have an anti-procrastination technique that works well for you?
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Related Posts
The Power of 15 Minutes
Achieve Your Goals in the New Year with 30-Day Challenges
30-Day Challenges for the New Year: Education and Workout
Break Bad Habits and Build Good Habits the Easy Way- 30-Day Challenge – Weekly Meal-Planning Challenge (Finally!)
- 30-Day Challenge – Preserving Our Children’s Memories
Let the Olympics Inspire You to Live Your Own Dream- Try a Mini Challenge to Improve Your Blog – Summer 2012 Blogathon
Great post! Yes, procrastination is bad…..veeerrry bad for our health!
Thanks, Sheila! I’m a person who really has to use routines to keep from procrastinating. And I definitely feel better when I do! Have a wonderful weekend! 🙂
I love the FlyLady! And totally do the timer thing. Except I use 5 minutes. Once I’ve dedicated that much time, I’m usually knee-deep into the task and keep going.
I used that with my kids, too. “5 Minute Clean Ups” were standard practice before bed at my house. Set the timer and everyone picks up scattered mess around the house until the buzzer goes off.
Also, I go for speed. It overcomes my perfectionism. I can always go back and fix whatever I was working on (very little that I do has to be perfect out of the gate). But I can’t fix something I haven’t done yet.
Thanks for posting this. 🙂
Thanks so much for your comment, Mary! The 5-minute timer would definitely work well, too! I think timers and speed are awesome tools – and it’s great that they work so well for kids, too! 🙂
Great article! I found that my answer to procrastination is to load more onto my plate! If I have a “managable” load, I put off doing it.
Thanks for the thoughts!
Thanks so much, Julie! That’s a great point. If we don’t have too much to do, it’s easy to do nothing! 🙂
Making specific goals and rewarding yourself for completing looks like a good idea for me to work with. I give those tips a try. Tanks for sharing it.
Thanks for your comment, Nicole! That works quite well for me! Have a great week! 🙂
I love this post! I love the list of things to do as well. I always get annoyed when people do this even though I am definitely guilty of it myself!
Thanks so much, Kirsty! I recently discovered Remember the Milk: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/. I’m finding that’s one of the easiest ways for me to keep a list, since I’m at my computer most of the day! 🙂
Deb another great post here! I remember overhearing a conversation about how the human body creates habits when an action/task is repeat 13 times. So, in your habit forming modes, I recommend you try to perform a task just 13 times and let me know if it helps you without going overboard and performing a task 30 times. Have you every heard of Brian Tracey? He is a life coach. I’ve listened to his CD’s and they are very inspirational. I definitely recommend that you look into them as it seems that you would enjoy them as much as I do. I’m a perfectionist too! From the list above I definitely find that setting goals are essential to getting things done. But you MUST also not get distracted. I tend to avoid my goal task by doing little other things. Procrastination is definitely tough to resist, but I’m definitely working at conquering it!
Thanks for your comment! So true about not getting distracted. That’s something I definitely have to be careful to avoid, too!