Avoid procrastination at all cost!
Procrastination is a major cause of inefficiency. The more you postpone, the worse it gets! You will soon find that you have more on your plate than you can handle. Avoid procrastinating at all cost. The sooner you start and finish your tasks, the sooner you will have time to relax, unwind and celebrate your success! Procrastinating and stressing about a task does not get it done sooner, but planning and scheduling it does. So what can you do to get started? Let’s review some of the tried and tested strategies to avoid procrastination.
- Do the nasty job first! Start your day by doing the one task that you least want to do. That way the day can only get better!
- Start planning; get your thoughts on paper. Map out a task plan and do any task that is related to your task plan. This will start the ball rolling and build momentum.
- The five minute task. Pick a task related to your task plan and work on it for 5 minutes; schedule several 5 minute blocks throughout the day and the ball will begin to roll.
- Ask for help sooner rather than later! Once you have mapped out your task plan and scheduled your blocks of time, anything you can’t realistically achieve needs to be delegated. Delegate sooner, rather than later. No one like a rushed deadline, or a last minute surprise!
- Work out your ‘contaminated’ and ‘uncontaminated’ time. Some of us function better first thing in the morning; others take 5 cups of coffee to come to life. Schedule the hard tasks for your ‘uncontaminated’ time. So your brain is at peak performance.
- Do one more task. Opting to complete one more task in a day means you have less to work on tomorrow. If your energy is high and you can re-evaluate your blocks of time, knock off one to two more tasks from the schedule.
- Change your location. Sometimes a change is as good as a holiday. If you need re-energising, consider changing your work space or environment.
- Publicise your work schedule. Let your team and colleagues know what you are working on; they will be less inclined to interrupt you.
- When you become overwhelmed, focus on what matters most. Take 5 minutes to re-evaluate your important tasks. Work only on tasks that are urgent and important. Filter out all tasks that appear to be urgent when they are not.
- Plan, plan, plan! Schedule your blocks of time and be disciplined with your time management.
