Fight Procrastination Day

Break your To Do's into smaller tasks to fight procrastination

Monday, September 6th is Fight Procrastination Day. What are you doing today to fight procrastination? Procrastination is when you make a decision that is counterproductive and results in a needless delay of actions or tasks. Often we procrastinate on things that have little to no impact on our daily lives. But other times our procrastination can be a detriment to our ability to function or succeed on a daily basis. Procrastination often comes with negative feelings and emotions such as stress, anxiety, guilt or lack of self-worth. Procrastination becomes problematic when it negatively impacts your ability to function normally. Procrastination is counterproductive and needless. It’s also important to recognize that as with every action we take, that action is a decision we make – therefore we are deciding to put off something that can be done. We are deciding to procrastinate.

All of this leads me back to my original question…what are you doing today to fight procrastination? If you take small steps to fight procrastination in small activities such as doing the dishes or making your bed you might find it will be easy to fight procrastination for larger, more daunting tasks, such as a writing a report at work or organizing your bedroom closet (so you can pick out your clothes in the morning quicker and get out the door on time).

To combat procrastination try breaking the task into smaller tasks to make it more manageable. Rather than organizing the entire master bedroom closet. Today, organize the top shelf of the closet. Or just the shoes. Create a schedule. If each weekend you conquer one task, within 6 weeks you could have the master bedroom closet you’ve always dreamed of having.

Fight procrastination

Another tactic to combat procrastination is to review and recreate a deadline. If you have a report due in 10 days, break the tasks into smaller parts as explained above and give yourself deadlines. For example, the outline might be due in 2 days, the rough draft in 5 days and the final version due in 8 days. This gives you 2 days of cushion to allow for any unforeseen challenges or changes to the assignment. Recreating a deadline forces you to begin working on the task at hand sooner and eliminates the tendency to procrastinate.

Reward yourself for fighting procrastination. Determine what motivates you…chocolate? Bubble bath? Alone time with your favorite magazine? Pedicure? Time with your professional organizer? Once you recognize that you’re consistently meeting deadlines, not putting off things for tomorrow that can be done today and finishing tasks without stress you may want to reward yourself. Continue to reward yourself (within reason). Soon, procrastination will be a thing of the past.

Determine today what you’re going to do to fight procrastination. I would love to hear from you…feel free to share your comments below!