How to Start Tackling Procrastination
Gather them, Gather them all together!
It is apparent that procrastination is happening in many areas of our lives. From the visible (washing up) to the less visible (paperwork, life decisions, and ignoring the credit card bill!). However, each has it’s own measure of mental fatigue!
Each has it’s own measure of mental fatigue!
The washing up gives the sense that something was missed, maybe a little untidy, perhaps an inability to keep up with everyone else and of course guilt and embarrassment should anyone else see in through the window. The less visible items give us greater cause for concern because they can be hidden from others and we can internalise these same feelings above. The credit card bill is the ideal example here. It slowly accumulates to the point where you do not wish to look at it, then it is a matter of paying only the interest and finally the horrid call or the shock at the till when your payment is declined! The feelings of guilt and the burden of what is before us is so overwhelming that we can do nothing more but to procrastinate even further.
Our Actions
We even make up actions over these issues! We begin to see people about how we got into this mess. We talk about it to a friend, we read about it online, all the while procrastinating through these little actions and delaying. Delaying is what it is! Nothing else – at some point it must be faced, at some point something must be done, but until there is movement – we are stuck and the situation continues to deteriorate until we face it and decide.
ACT ANYWAY – Make the Start!
Those first tiny steps into anything always feel the heaviest and the hardest, but once there is a little momentum forward there is also that tiny relief that comes with it – “Something is changing!”
I always start with a blank piece of paper.
I hope through this brief look at procrastination you can see a little of how it affects us. How it causes us to readjust our lives and to live in a world of self made pressure. Get up, stand up, and begin to gather all the concerns of the mind into one spot.
How: I always start with a blank piece of paper. No lines, just a single piece of paper and an empty desk/table. I take my pen and begin to write everything I have to do, want to do and wish to do on it. I don’t categorise it, I don’t spell check it I just let everything in my brain flow out onto the page. From the smallest nagging item (Should hang that picture on the wall) through to the big concerns on my mind (Where will I take my life next!) and everything in between.
Just get it down so it is visible. Once the thoughts begin to alleviate and your mind takes a little relaxing break, take another piece of blank white paper and begin to categorise it. How to do this will appear later on, but for now you’ll now what is urgent and non-urgent and that should be enough to get you started. (Check out my posts on Evernote and how they could help)
As always thanks for joining me and if you enjoyed what you read give me a like over on Facebook or a tweet over on Twitter. Maybe even leave a comment below with advice for others and stories of how you manage to overcome procrastination or just to let me know you made the first step.
Life is for Living, so ACT ANYWAY!
Previously we discussed “The Analysis of Procrastination” which can be found here. To return to the category of Stuff, click here.
