Fighting Procrastination

Here are a few of the ideas for fighting procrastination from the Exchange web article, "Getting Organized: 50 Ideas for More Effective Use of Your Time":

• Confront Yourself.  Much procrastination is unintentional:  you allow yourself to be sidetracked without thinking about it.  Often such mindless diversions can be avoided by asking yourself, "What's the best use of my time and energy right now?"  If the answer is not what you are doing at the moment, stop that and put your time and energy to work on a more important task.
  
  
• Attack Ugly Tasks First.  When you start the day, it may be most effective to dispense with the most unpleasant task on your priority list first.  If you postpone working on this task, you will most likely fret about it all day, thus preventing yourself from concentrating your full attention on other tasks you attempt.
  
  
• Create Instant Tasks.  Sometimes it helps to take a major task you're avoiding and break out some easy sub-tasks, which you can readily start.   For example, if the major task is filling out income tax reports, instant tasks could include pulling together all the necessary income and expense documents, filling out the identifying information on the forms, or reading the instructions on filling out the forms.  Once you get rolling on these "instant tasks," you might establish some momentum that will carry you well into the major task.
  
  
• Establish Familiarity.  It may help to get started on an intimidating task by establishing some familiarity with it.  If the task is developing the budget, you might reduce your resistance to starting by reading articles on preparing budgets.
  
  
• Offer Yourself A Reward.  Try to give yourself some incentives for completing major tasks.  Promise yourself, for example, that when you complete a difficult task at hand you can go out and have a lobster salad sandwich or call up a fellow director you enjoy chatting with.
  
  
• Complete What You Start.  Once you've overcome the inertia of getting started and are rolling on a difficult task, it is a mistake to stop.  Try to finish a task or a complete unit of a task in one setting.  If you stop, you may well waste additional time getting organized and getting rolling again.

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