Some ideas to beat procrastination

Hello to all!

I think I have said quite a bit about procrastination in the last few blogs, so I might just close up for the time being with some ideas and tips to help with this problem. Others have also good ideas and I have added some links down at the end of this for you to visit and enlarge your reading. And no, I am not promoting anyone else, just giving you some more ideas.

The first thing anyone who wants to at least get a handle on procrastination has to understand that EVERYONE in the world, from Sir Richard Branston to President Barak Obama has procrastinated at some part in their life. So you aren't alone. The lady who is immaculately dressed and made-up, with her kids looking like they stepped out of some glittery magazine has, so don't beat yourself up about it. This lady may be able to afford designer dresses and have a nanny for each child, but she still has the same amount of time as you in a day.

And that is twenty-four hours.

So you don't really need to manage time. What you really need to manage is YOU.

Learn the tricks of self-management. Instead of waiting for  that extra cup of coffee to cool and reading the paper, make it and while it is cooling, rinse the plates. If you are someone who enjoys scalding-hot beverages, then use the time the kettle is boiling to rinse the plates. You have all day to read the paper/ talk on the phone/catch up with Facebook.

Make yourself some notes the night before and leave them where you can see them, not first thing, while you are still shaking the sleep out of your head, but very soon afterwards. Most of us can estimate or rather guesatimate, how long it takes to get the kids out of the house of a morning. Holidays are an exception. If your husband can't get himself out of the house mostly by himself, then educate him. Is is the days of sharing, after all. Either buy shirts that do not need ironing or teach him to do so. Or outsource the ironing and provide a little bit of income for someone else.

Screeds of paper everywhere on sticky notes and post-its are fine, but after a while, they become just part of the furniture if they are continually the same colour. So make your lists on different colours for each day. That simple trick will startle your eyes, which are accustomed to the green/yellow/blue notes you stuck there yesterday.

Don't put too many tasks on the notes or you are sunk before you start. And don't make them marathons either. I personally like to be extremely specific on what I plan, so it does not fall victim to both procrastination and exhaustion, although you haven't even started. Cleaning a cupboard from top to bottom for instance is broken down into clean one drawer and sort junk from it into piles to throw out/give away/keep at a time.I find the optimum number of tasks I can exert myself to complete in a day is about five. This does not leave me stressed, frustrated, or any of the other negatives. But I have a system in place, as well as the one below.

Use bribes. It works for quite a lot of the population, so why not you? Promise yourself to read the paper/phone that friend/check Facebook, but choose only one, after you have finished each task. Often the enjoyment of having actually finished something on your list can be enough and inspire you to go further on with what you are doing, instead of commencing your next task.

Don't.

That euphoria will be short-lived and make it twice as hard to start the next task, which should be entirely different, or derail what you did plan in the first place. Instead, savor the feeling and give yourself that reward. This can be added incentive for the next job. Depending on the size of the closet, schedule one drawer for every day of the week, At the end of the week, you should have a clean closet with a great deal of unneeded stuff removed.

Two pieces of advice that I really have found valuable are: to break the task into tiny bite-size pieces, and anything that I have not worn for more than a year/ keep for sentimental reasons only/ really has hit its use-by date has to go. If I have not worn it for a year, chances are I am never going to be thin enough again to wear it/ I'll be far too old or it will be when it comes around in fashion again, so stop deluding yourself. Besides, you can always free-up some more closet space for new clothes!

Breaking the job up may not result in a sparkling clean closet in one day, but hey! Rome wasn't built in a day either. If you look at it from the side of  'It doesn't look any different', then that leaves a gap for disappointment and disillusionment to move in and completely derail everything. If you must, admire the clean drawer, ignore the rest of the mess and slam the door until the next time, or whenever you have scheduled an assault for later on.

Okay, on with those links I have inspected. They may just give you further ideas.

www.marcandangel.com/.../7-common-causes-and-proven-.

www.pickthebrain.com/blog/procrastination-4-causes-and-cures/

Procrastination V laziness

Hello to all!

No, I actually haven't been procrastinating this time. I've been researching two words which seem to mean the same at first sight. They are procrastination and laziness.

Are they the same meaning-wise? I guess it depends on you and your view of things. Mind you, procrastination does sound better than lazy!

So what are the differences? Well, let's have a look at lazy and all its derivatives first.

All of us have usually learned the meaning of lazy from when we were tiny. 'Stop being so lazy: and get up/ wash your face/ make your bed/ pick your own ending. I know my mother probably opened her eyes in the morning saying this to whichever of her brood she was cranky with.

Lazy will take the path of least resistance usually. That is, if you can take the rapid repetitions that follow, with little variation. Actually  if you know in your heart of hearts that the nagging is correct and it will cease as soon as you obey, but you choose not to do it and can ignore the two voices, one inside your head and one actual, then you have laziness almost to a fine art. This state of being is also enhanced by the fact that you are extremely comfortable living in a mess. Lazy, bone-idle, call it what you will, but not procrastination.

Procrastination is when you acknowledge it has to be done, but find as many things as possible to do before giving in to the evil deed. So with laziness there is a high chance that whatever it is will definitely not get done no matter how much it begs; by you anyway. With procrastination it at least has a chance of being started, if not finished, and maybe some other things may benefit as well.

My mother had a simple way to get the bed made. If pulling the offending child out of it and standing there tapping her foot didn't work, she usually screamed for a sibling to get in and help. If that didn't have results, she usually gave in and made it herself. These were not the days of doonas and simple ways of making beds, but roll the mattress, apply sheets and tuck them in, followed by a blanket maybe and certainly a quilt. And she did it in less time than a trained nurse would or a housemaid, although she was never either of those. it used to amaze us children at her speed. Then she would proceed to take her vengeance, usually by some other task that had gone begging around the home.

So take heart. Procrastinating is better than laziness. It sounds better, it often results in some other task getting done, although the proper object may only get started, and you usually feel better. And livestock do not usually get a chance to set up home inside your wardrobe.

Emotions and procrastination - part two

Hello, all!

Well, guess who has been a victim of procrastination for the last few days?

Guilty as charged and absolutely no excuses.

I had planned to continue with emotions and their involvement in procrastination, so I will do so. If you feel down, why not use that misery to go yourself some good? Misery loves company, it is said, not without a certain degree of truth. Procrastination also loves misery.

I mean: I've just lost my job, what happens to me now? There's no work around that I can do....etcetera, etcetera. Perfect for procrastination to grab a hold and put you in the unemployable box forever. Those so-called friends that lost their jobs at the same time as you had no idea what they were talking about; going back to school, upgrading their skills.....

It may sound like I am making fun of people in this situation. I most certainly am not, having been in that very same place not so long ago. As a matter of fact, I made a living out of it, not understanding and not caring what it was doing to all of my family.

I procrastinated for almost twenty years.Twenty perfectly good years, while I hid behind procrastination and self-pity. Not so much self-pity, because I knew how to handle that, but I blamed everything I could think of for stopping my dream.

What was my dream? A very simple one, actually. To write. To entertain people. A dream that had accompanied me through both lots of school, university, nursing work and everything else I could fit in, while I dragged a few words out here and there, and went through all the emotions you can imagine as to what to do with them. But I  could always find some way of not continuing on with what  I started.

So the first thing in your fight against procrastination should be to examine your feelings. It is as a fact that a mood, no matter how bad, cannot not  sustain itself for more than half-an-hour, if that. You may think you have been in that state for hours, but really, there have been quick experiences of sadness, love, joy, expectation and generally the whole range of emotions that humans are capable of as well, despite them not registering on your consciousness.

Humans are incapable of keeping one emotion alive for very long. It will settle into a less strong feeling and become less and less, until woken up by some action or random thought, or overtaken by another emotion entirely.

So don't go with the first emotion you feel, or makes itself known to you. That one will probably last until you squeeze in a cup of tea or coffee. Think of all those people who say they cannot function without that kick-start.

If you consider you are in a bad mood, go take a shower. Not hot or cold, but reasonably warm, changing to luke-warm just before you get out. Dry yourself and clean your teeth. These two very simple acts should push your moods higher on the positive scale.

Don't sit around in your pajamas. Sub-consciously staying in your pajamas signals bedtime, and you will start to feel the good felling drain away. Some people can work in their pajamas and good luck to them. Many of us, however, cannot, unfortunately. Doing that throws our sense of rightness into confusion, even if we are galloping around after children to get them ready for school.

Many people now work from home, which is a great idea. But it really is a better idea to get dressed, not done-up like a sore toe and made-up to kill, but a little lipstick can do wonders for your ego, as can dressing simply but neatly.

 In your fight against procrastination, if you do the above for maybe a week, then you will see what type of moods you usually wake up in, or you are in when you look at whatever it is that you keep putting-off and putting-off. Keep a list of how you feel first thing, then think about it an hour later. Are you still tired, out-of-sorts, reluctant to even think about the problem?

Take the shower then. It will only take you a few minutes and you will be ready for anything. Somehow having a clean mouth also adds to the feeling of freshness that the shower starts.

It does work, all you Doubting Thomas's! Just try it!

Emotions and procrastination

Hello to all!

Ever thought about your feelings when you are busy procrastinating? Well, the next time you find yourself staring at a pile of work you need to be doing, such as going through your receipts, cleaning out your purse or wallet, folding the ironing, whatever, think about how you feel.

You may be unsurprised that you feel resentful, angry, tired, all feelings that will usually stop you in your tracks, throw the lot into a drawer or back wherever and say: Blow it, I'm too tired/hungry/whatever. I'll do it later.

This is how your emotions work against you, and in the service of procrastination. However, in most cases, moods do not last for very long. No one on this earth can keep up a fury for too long; the body is just not equipped for it. The fury either burns itself out in a few minutes(although it seems much longer!), or settles to a low dull throb.

Start to clean out that wallet/purse. Don't go get that cup of coffee/tea/whatever. If you do, you will find a hundred other things to take your eye, and, before you know it, everything is all too much trouble and you will either throw your hands up in disgust and go back to bed, or go do probably nothing important. There is only one thing that is wrong with that scenario.

Whatever you put off with procrastination will still be there, smiling and waiting for you, even if you threw it in the bin. That purse/wallet will have something in it that you desperately need, probably the same day, so you are back to where you started.

The bag/wallet needs cleaning out.

So don't let your emotions override you. Use them to help you to do whatever task it is. If you are in a bad mood with someone, screwing up old pieces of unwanted paper, flinging a useless pen in the bin and pulling pieces of lint out from where they are hiding, can all be used to work off that mood, instead of possibly ruining a good friendship over one silly piece of not normal behavior.

Use the emotion. You may find that you do a far better job when you do of cleaning up the purse or wallet than you would have before. A friend of mine, in a fine fury with her sister one day, took to one of her 'bottomless pits' of bags and ruthlessly turned it inside-out. When she had finished, she was $60 richer than she thought, her bag was much lighter, and she had found several lip glosses that she thought she had left somewhere.

She was also not half as angry as she had been with her sister, and nothing had been done to spoil the usually close relationship they shared.

Good moods can also be useful. You can use them to start something, and use whatever comes after that particular mood to finish up.In a typical day, we may experience something like over a hundred different moods. Some we realize, most we don't, unless they are strong emotions, like anger, love, fear.The rest are simply ignored or are too soft to note consciously. But the sub-conscious does note.

I shall write more on the subject of emotions soon.

If you should like me to write something for you, you can contact me at: taylor.cheryl54@yahoo.com. I shall be happy to hear from you! :)

1. How do you think you are procrastinating?

Hello, all.

Got a bit behind the eight-ball again, as usual. :) But I did say I was going to talk about procrastination again, and so I am. No lecture, but something to think about. In fact, I am going to make a series of posts about it, and, hopefully, help you with a few tips; nothing earth-shattering or disruptive, but to try to help with  this all-too-common problem.

Here is the first.

1. How do you think that you are procrastinating?

That is the first step, realizing that you are. Some people may qualify procrastinating on something by stating that doing something else was more important.

That may be perfectly true. But does paying for a new dress or pair of shoes instead of paying your rent do you the same amount of good? I really do not think so. You can't really live in a dress or a pair of shoes, although some seem to think they can.

Paying the rent to have a roof over your head may be a pain, but it is also necessary to your comfort. The other two items are necessary to your sense of self, certainly, but in the bigger scale of things, they are only additions to it. Without a roof, you will not be able to see what you appear like, or keep clean.

So this is one way that people need to re-priotorize things in their lives. This is the same with procrastination. You need to understand that, no matter how many ways you may find to put things off, they will still be there at the end, and you will have to deal with them anyway. Maybe after a few threatening letters from your landlords or visits from the bondsman, but the rent will still get paid. Or you will have all the problems of finding a new home, and paying rent still, as well as other costs; to put the electricity on, buy food, shift your things, amongst others. So why not pay the rent first up, and see if you can afford the new dress or shoes later?

There is a sly blessing to that. You may have bought the dress or shoes, got them home and found they were not what you wanted, been on special or something else, so you cannot exchange them or gain a refund. Then you are left with an item you don't want/like/need, rent unpaid, and no other  recourse, apart from to regret what you have done, and panic over the unpaid rent.

This is not as silly a scenario as it might seem. There are many people in the world who have just done that, and spent a lot of time in misery over it. Why join them? There is enough misery in the world without wishing more on yourself in particular.

So accept that you do procrastinate and do something about it. You will feel much better if you do. And remember that we all have a finite amount of time. Someone who seems to have it all under control usually has prioritized her life, and makes time for everything  out of that allotted span.

Why not join her? You only have to take one tiny step first, as she would have. it's easier than you think.

Some of my ways to procrastinate

Hello to all!
My last post was about procrastination, of sorts. Thinking(!) in more depth about this, as I am an expert procrastinater, just how many ways can you put off what is really important? Let's see.

1. My phone. I own a very basic mobile phone that certainly doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the new ones. I actually use it for making and taking phone calls, nothing else. So, how can I waste perfectly good time with this gadget?

I haven't a clue how to text properly yet. I mean, the phone is about three years old. My daughter has tried very patiently to teach me to text, instead of ringing all and sundry. My brother swears I am the dumbest woman he has ever met. ( He's younger than me, and married to a gorgeous woman, so we'll ignore that comment; besides, he has two other sisters!) And I simply haven't been bothered to learn. Hey, what's wrong with that?

The phone also has some of those amazing games on it. The amount of energy I spend playing them leaves me too exhausted to do anything at all constructive which I should be doing!

Those are just a couple of reasons I can blame on my phone, instead of other people. As for everything else, no one has that amount of time spare to read what I can find, but I will include a few more, just for interest.

2. The pot-plants suddenly look dull. Their leaves need washing immediately; today. No matter that there is a gentle misty rain outside which could do the job much better than I can manually, if I set them outside for maybe five minutes, and where's that leaf-polish stuff?

3. The pantry cupboard is a shambles, although I only pulled everything out, checked labels for expiry dates and removed the hundred or so spiders who were busily setting up home in the corners of the shelves that do not even remotely get used, apart from some unGodly stuff that has been tried, disliked intensely and stuffed promptly to the back.

4. The mending suddenly resembles Mt. Kilimanjaro. My God, is that where that pair of jeans disappeared to? Oh, guess what? There are five pairs that need buttons and I have the buttons here too, just looking at me. I've been wondering what five of the same type of buttons have been doing in that saucer.

5. Ditto the ironing. There's months worth there, and it looks disgusting. Besides, where is Aunt Sarah going to have her afternoon nap when she visits? Oh, that's right. She's moved States a couple of months ago. Oh, well, someone must need the bed for some reason, and I'm here anyway, so I may as well get rid of some of this. I do have a darling lady who does ironing for me sometimes. That's right, I've lost her number. And her name.

6. I haven't cooked a full load of cakes, scones, etc for ages. Oh, my poor deprived family. Never mind I saw my husband and daughter happily scoffing some bought rock cakes just this morning. Time to see if the oven cooks anything but roasts.

 7. There's that cupboard I really need for spare, in order to fill it up with junk again immediately,  so I may as well clean it out. I promised the Church charity a whole heap of stuff out of it and their used, pre-loved clothing sale is on in six months. I really need to get on with that.

8. There's that new Peter Robinson book I bought three weeks ago. I haven't read it yet, so maybe I just better see why I actually bought it in the first place. I've forgotten what the jacket said. I may as well read a little of it; after all, I do like his writing.

So you see, I can find a pile of things inside the house to do and they will take me all day. I haven't even given thought to the garden or outside. I have read up on how to avoid procrastination so much that it has become another procrastination tool.

So, what to do about procrastination? Keep reading how to avoid it? No. In my next post, I'll go through some strategies that may hopefully help you. There are many that really do work, if you practice them every day.

Procrastination

Hello, all! Well, guess what? I fell into the trap that I said not to. Have been too tired and haven't touched my blog for nearly a week. Not very good.

Everybody gets hit by procrastination at some point. It's amazing what the human brain can come up with to put off something that really needs to be doing. In order not to write sometimes, I have cleaned cupboards that I only did a couple of weeks ago, cooked( definitely not my favorite occupation!) and done all sorts of things that don't really need doing in the immediate timezone. Usually that piece of writing is a total disaster when I finally get back to it, and, if it is for a client, needs more work than if I had done it in the first place.

The stupid thing about it is I like writing. It's simply that I have somehow convinced myself that I don't feel like writing just at that moment. If I actually force myself to sit down in front of the computer and free-write, within ten minutes or less, I am ready to resume whatever work I have on the drawing-board.


Free-writing is actually a cross-over between the logical left-brain hemisphere and the dreamy, sub-conscious right hemisphere, where all writing comes from. If you are using both when you write, then great! You've got the best of all worlds. Ignore the critical harping that come from the left-brain as you free-write and ignore the desire to immediately fix every spelling mistake and sentence screw-up.

If you do this, you will quite often come up with a new idea or a way to remove the block you are furious with. Little nuggets surface from the deep pit that is your sub-conscious when you free-write, put together by the gnomes that live there and they are usually  the answer to your prayers.

So, use free-write if you are stuck, hit by the dreaded procrastination, or just don't think what you are writing is right. The little gnomes do not understand what is right or wrong, only that what they have come up with is related to some message you have given them. They don't see things as logical or black and white, so they are free to turn your imagination into words.