7 Tips to Overcome Procrastination
- Catherine France
- Mar 31, 2018
- 2 min read
Daily Review – spend 5-10 minutes going over the days priorities. I try and set myself three things I want to achieve that day. This helps avoid endless to-do lists and setting myself unrealistic goals. It is easy to create a sense of overwhelm if you write down everything you need to do or should have done over the last six months and it leaves you feeling demotivated. By Focusing on three you can help with step three on this list, focusing on the most impactful tasks first.
Resolve Emergencies First – helps prevent scarier issues down the road.
Most Impact Tasks – identify the tasks that have the biggest impact and do them first. There are lots of tips and tricks for this one of which is The Eisenhower Matrix, also referred to as Urgent-Important Matrix, helps you decide on and prioritise tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate, delay or not do at all.
Eat the Frog – The basic idea is that if you do the worst thing on your plate first thing in the morning, the rest of the day is a breeze taken from the Mark Twain quote “Eat a live frog every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Although the analogy can make me feel rather queasy on an empty stomach!
Complete Quick Tasks Immediately – if it will only take less than 10 minutes do it straight away. This can help you feel motivated and that you have achieved more - there is no feeling like ticking things off your list!
Attach All Tasks to a Goal – how does this relate to one of my goals, is it helping me get closer to my objective? I often find this helps with creating a focus and deciding what is a priority or not
Create Accountability for your Tasks – when you have someone to cheer you on and check you are on track you can make much more progress and are less likely to give up. This could be from a Facebook group, your peers or someone outside your line of work. There are lots of business coaches who provide motivational and accountability training and support. I am a member of two Facebook communities where there are regular accountability threads in the groups and it works for me, providing me with focus on a Monday and the opportunity to report on my wins on a Friday – I have been in the weekly roundup e-mail three weeks in a row and that also gives me a little lift not just to see my own accomplishments but those of other members of the group.
Do you find yourself procrastinating? What tips or tricks do you use? I would love to hear them. Drop me a line at catherine@catherinefrance.com or find me on Twitter at @CathFrance and start a conversation.
