Tweet 5 Marc and Angel Hack Life Practical Tips for Productive Living blog archive about book thought questions makes me think post written by: Marc 7 Common Causes and Proven Cures for Procrastination Like 779 Share Share 47 7 Common Causes and Proven Cures for Procrastination http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/11/22/7-common-causes-and-prove... 1 of 16 2/19/2013 1:38 AM
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7 Common Causes and Proven Cures for Procrastination
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7 Common Causes and Proven Cures for Procrastination
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This is a guest post by Mike from Living Skillfully: Change Your Life.
Do you put off doing things that would bring you closer to your desired goals? I know I do. But why are we so
foolish?
It has something to do with how our daily responsibilities overwhelm us. In the midst of all the important things
we know we need to do, we somehow convince ourselves that none of these things need to be done right now.
In other words, we decide that some peace and relaxation in the short term is what’s most important.
So we take another break, read another blog post, watch another TV show and just kick back and relax. And life
is blissfully dandy… for a little while.
But then suddenly the inevitable deadline has arrived. Ahhh! It’s panic time!
So here are 7 common causes and proven cures procrastination. I’m hoping these tips help you avoid that insane
moment of panic.
1. Fear of the outcome
Sometimes we’re afraid we’ll fail. Sometimes we’re subconsciously afraid we’ll succeed and then we’d have to
deal with all the disruption (growth) and change that follows success. And other times it’s our fear of rejection
or simply our fear of looking like a fool.
The best way I’ve found to defeat fear is to stare it down. Connect to your fear, feel it in your body, realize it
and steadily address it. Greet it by name if you have to: “Welcome, fear.”
If you are conscious of it, soon it becomes shy, hangs its head, and mooches off, scraping one shoe on the
ground.
2. Helplessness in the face of complexity
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We look at a task at hand and feel intensely un-resourceful. It may remind us of something we had to do when
we were younger, before we had the skills to conquer it (even though that’s no longer the case). Or it may
actually be a daunting task at our current skill level. Either way, the task seems far too complex, so we try to
avoid it.
This time the solution is to break it down. Take that complex task and break it down to its bare essential
components and then tackle each one of those components one at a time.
Sometimes it’s also helpful to recall one of your previous successes with conquering a complex task just to get
yourself in a positive mindset. Think of a time you were really on top of things, achieving great results – when
you were in the zone. Close your eyes and place yourself in that memory with all your senses.
3. Rebellion and laziness
We resent the task in front of us. We feel imposed upon. “I have to do this,” we think to ourselves. “But I don’t
have to do it now.”
Rebellion is about control. We assert our control by choosing when (or whether) to do the task.
A friend of mine whose home-schooled son is very rebellious came up with a clever hack. She said, “We’re
going to do what kids who are in school do. You’re going to sit and do school work for 8 hours a day.” Her son
rebelled, naturally. When the rebellion was in full effect, my friend offered an alternative. “Or, we could do this
home-school style. If you finish early, we can go somewhere fun.” And her son worked more productively than
ever.
So when you notice yourself feeling rebellious and lazy about a task, think of a way to reward yourself for
getting it done now. Also, remind yourself of the consequences of not doing it.
4. Lack of motivation
I procrastinate doing my tax return. It’s an administrative task and I don’t like it. But it helps when I think
about it this way: “I’m due a refund this year.” When I concentrate on the amount of money I get back versus
the time it takes to do my taxes, it’s an excellent hourly rate. And it motivates me to focus on getting it done.
That by itself wasn’t quite concrete enough, though. So I promised myself a reward: out of the refund, I would
buy myself a kayak – something I’d been thinking about for awhile to help me get back in shape.
The basic principle is reframing. If you know the job has to be done but it’s not emotionally important to you,
find a way to make it important. (If I was going to be paying a penalty fee for turning my taxes in late, I could
set aside the equivalent amount of the penalty for a reward, for example.)
What are you going to get by doing this that’s important enough to motivate you to do it now?
5. Lack of focus and fatigue
Distractions are everywhere. You must learn to ignore them.
Minimize distractions by secluding yourself. Disconnect the Internet and power off your cell phone if you have
to. Check e-mail and voicemail at set intervals instead of randomly every few minutes. Find a quiet space
where you can concentrate on the task at hand. And only take breaks as a reward for accomplishing smaller
sub-tasks.
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Also, it’s hard to focus when you’re fatigued. So get enough sleep, eat healthy and exercise regularly.
6. Not knowing where or how to start
Or maybe the task just looms in front of you as a big block, like a building with no doors. You walk around its
perimeter and you don’t immediately see a way in. How do you get in? Where do you begin? You can’t figure
it out, so you set the task aside.
I’m creating a course on procrastination. It started out as one of those buildings with no doors. “How do I even
start designing a course like that?” I thought.
Well, I wrote down a few reasons why people procrastinate (the starting point). I thought about reasons why
you’d want to stop (the end point or goal). Once something has a beginning and an end, it’s a lot easier to
start seeing the middle. And usually you can work from both ends until you meet in the middle. Each of those
reasons is a topic. And each of those topics has a start and an end, and so on and so forth.
So don’t give up. Uncover the starting and ending points and start filling in the blanks one at a time.
7. Perfectionism
One of the best bits of advice ever about perfectionism comes from Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No
More. “It just doesn’t matter,” she says. “IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!”
But that’s hard advice to put into practice sometimes. I’ve often put off implementing ideas by using the excuse
that I’m not yet prepared to do the idea justice. Some part of me thinks I’ll end up wasting the idea by
implementing it poorly at my current level of skill.
But guess what? My current level of skill isn’t going to increase unless I practice. And I can’t practice until I
implement. And that means I have to implement with my current level of skill, make mistakes, learn from them
and press on.
So in reality, not implementing that idea right now is the only true way to waste it.
And guess what else? There are plenty of additional ideas and variations I haven’t thought of yet, and most of
them won’t come to me until I’ve started implementing and making mistakes. It’s impossible to steer a parked
car.
Conclusion
By taking the time and initiative to understand your own reasons for procrastinating, and devoting a little energy
to take the necessary steps to move forward, you can beat procrastination. We all can.
In fact, simply writing this article was a testament to this. I kept procrastinating on writing it because I lacked
focus. So I locked myself in my den, eliminated all distractions, kept the end in mind and started writing. And
as usual, starting was the hardest part. Now I’m done.
For additional guidance on beating procrastination, I highly recommend The Now Habit: A Strategic Program
for Overcoming Procrastination.
Mike Reeves-McMillan blogs at Living Skillfully: Change Your Life. His upcoming procrastination
course is Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding.
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29 Comments
farouk
November 22nd, 2010 at 5:08 am
yes that’s so true
the only way to get over procrastination is to understand its underlying causes
Living the Balanced Life
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:53 am
Perfectionism is a big one for me. I feel if I can’t do something perfectly, then I have to wait until I can.
Which means then it gets put off forever, since I’ll never be perfect!
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I am working really hard to overcome this as I feel it is a great burden we place on ourselves and the