When you mind tells you ”Tomorrow” – How to avoid Procrastination in your daily routine or in business?
It’s Monday afternoon and the clock is ticking. You are working energetically to complete your task/s before your deadline! At the same time you get angry at yourself for not starting it sooner and wonder ”why did I loose my focus”?
Remember, the focus goes,energy flows! Well, the thing is my friends that from time to time we all have something that we know we need to do but just can’t force ourselves to get started. Me included. Oh, yes. Such a ”chronic mental state” triggered my attention some years ago to start studying myself, how our brain functions, in other words, our nervous system. It’s about relatively new science called NEUROSCIENCE that researches and explores the relationship between our emotions and behaviour. Pain too. Amazing discoveries!
Throughout my journey in studying personal development one thing that triggered most of my attention was that magic and destructive ”Mr Procrastination ”and how to get rid of it! Initially I had no idea what it was. It is something like when your mind (brain) say ”relax, it can wait tomorrow”. I can reassure you that IT CAN NOT providing my friend you know what you want from your life-what’s IMPORTANT and URGENT for you! Remember, what’s important CAN NOT WAIT. Urgent things can wait !
This ”tomorrow” is a deep trick of our mind, meaning if in the morning your mind says ”I will not get up and do my morning exercise or work on my speech you will need in three days time, or whatever you know you must do, your ego will than reply, ”No, you must do it now”! Since you start feeling guilty so you make a deal with your mind and say ”OK, it can wait tomorrow”. Tomorrow is always a good day but when you say magic ‘tomorrow”, everything is over, as tomorrow never comes! I have realized that that ‘tomorrow’ is the biggest demon in our lives. Tomorrow is an idea for which we must plan, but we can never live. So, all these lead us to one conclusion;
Procrastination is a trap that many of us fall into and it is not to be confused with laziness (dear parents, important for you to know! And help your kids. If you do not, do not count and blame schools!), but they are very different. While procrastination is an active process, because you choose to DO SOMETHING ELSE instead of the task you know you should be doing, laziness suggest apathy,inactivity and unwillingness TO ACT!
How to stop procrastinating?
Well, there are many ”recipes”. My lessons learned I wish to share with you break down into the top 7 lessons and suggestions for you to consider and test :
Number 1 – first you must recognize and be aware that you are procrastinating. Secondly work out to figure out reasons WHY do you procrastinate.
No 2 – I can tell you that since I started doing my ‘TO DO’ list it helped me to become more productive, efficient and happier, after all. As a matter of fact I use three ‘magic lists’ which I will be sharing with you in one of my next posts. Very efficient!
Number 3 – Forgive yourself and get rid of destructive feeling of guilty.
Number 4 – Commit to the specific task and focus on doing NOW, rather than avoiding.
Number 5 – Reward yourself if you complete a heavy task on time!
Number 6 – Act as you go, meaning tackle tasks as soon as they arise.
Number 7 – Minimize DISTRACTIONS! It is so important that I can not stress enough. How? Turn off your social media, emails, TV, coffee chats, and other,,,.
Last but not least, I believe that when our desire is strong enough, nothing can stop and distract us from doing something. So , bear in mind that weak desire brings weak results and vice versa, right? If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.
Good luck in transforming your habits. Bad habits, as Procrastination is and do not give up, ’cause you can make it! What’s your driving force No1?
