either good or bad. One key to success is to develop good habits and make
them your masters. You develop the habit of overcoming procrastination by
rewarding yourself every time you do it until you rewire and reprogram your
subconscious mind permanently.
Creating a reward system for yourself only requires a little imagination on
your part. For example, if you have a big task to do, and there are five parts
to the task, give yourself a reward upon completion of each step.
The reward can be something simple, such as a cup of coffee, a break when
you get up and walk around, or even lunch. If it is a major task, or a major
part of the task, you can reward yourself by going shopping, buying
something you like, taking yourself out for dinner, or even taking a vacation
with your spouse or family.
When you put a reward system in place, and you discipline yourself not to
take the reward until you have completed the task, or part of the task, you
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eventually find yourself internally motivated to start and to finish your tasks
and responsibilities. In a way, your focus of attention moves away from the
difficulty of the task itself and onto the enjoyability of the reward.
Overcoming Call Reluctance with Rewards
For example, to help salespeople overcome the fear and reluctance
associated with cold calling on the telephone, we set up a simple reward
structure. The salesperson sets a specific time and place to telephone. He
sets a specific goal for a number of calls, appointments or sales. He then gets
a fresh cup of coffee and puts it in front of him. Every time he makes a call
he is allowed to take a sip of coffee. Soon, he becomes motivated to make as
many calls as possible so that he can drink the coffee before it goes cold.
Sometimes we take a cookie and break it up into small bites, or place a bowl
of jellybeans in front of the salesperson. Each time the salesperson makes a
call and gets through to a prospect, he or she is allowed to eat a piece of
cookie or jellybean. In no time at all, like the Pavlovian response, where the
bell rang and the dog salivated, the salesperson becomes eager to make calls
and enjoy the reward. It sounds simple and even childish, but it is
extraordinarily effective in developing the habit of overcoming
procrastination.
You can practice operant conditioning with your children to train them in the
good habits that they will need as adults. Offer to take them to McDonald’s
or watch television if they clean up their room or complete their homework.
Refuse to allow them the reward until the job is done satisfactorily. You will
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be amazed at how quickly they get started, and keep going until the job is
finished.
7. Accept Complete Responsibility for Completion
Seventh, program yourself to overcome procrastination by accepting 100%
responsibility for the completion of the task on schedule. Look only to
yourself. Rely only on your own ability. No matter what the obstacle in your
way, resolve to find a way over, around or past it. Refuse to make excuses.
Accepting complete responsibility for results, and never allowing yourself
the luxury of a mental escape hatch, is the equivalent of putting your own
feet to the fire. It is amazing how much more you will get done when you
eliminate your excuses and reasons for putting it off.
Five Ways to Get Yourself Started
Overcoming procrastination permanently requires that you use every method
and technique possible to get yourself organized and motivated into starting
and completing the job. Here are five things that you can do in advance to
reduce your tendency to procrastinate.
1. Create a detailed plan of action
Begin by creating a clear, written plan with each part of the plan and each
step organized in order of priority. Put an A, B or C next to each step.
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Determine the most important thing that you can do to get started and put a
circle around that item.
A written plan leads you into action. It gives you a track to run on, and a
blueprint to follow. The more you break down your goal into individual
steps, and then list those steps, the easier it is for you to take the first step.
Often, that’s all you need to get going.
2. Clean Up Your Workspace
Clean up your workspace. Begin with only one thing, the most important
thing, in front of you. A clean workspace is a real motivator to action. A
good time planner or system of organization can be very helpful in this
regard because it keeps you focused on the next task.
3. Separate the Urgent from the Important
Remind yourself that important tasks are usually not urgent. An urgent task
is usually not important. Start off working on the tasks that are both urgent
and important, the tasks that have short time fuses, which must be done
immediately. Then move onto the tasks that are merely important but not
urgent. It is these important but not urgent tasks that contain the greatest
potential consequences for your career and your future.
4. Start with Your Most Important Tasks
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You always tend to procrastinate on large, important tasks with considerable
future value. Successful completion of these major tasks can make a major
difference in your life. There seems to be a universal tendency to delay
working on, or completing, the most important tasks until the last moment.
Some people say that they work better under pressure. This may be true in
some cases, because then, you have no time for excuses. The heat is on. The
consequences of not completing the job are too serious to delay. But it is
always better to have the job done well in advance of the deadline.
5. Practice Creative Procrastination
Fifth, learn to practice creative procrastination as part of your time
management program. This requires that you consciously procrastinate on
those tasks that contribute little or nothing to the accomplishment of your
major, high-value goals. Since you can never do everything that you have to
do, you are going to have to procrastinate on something. The difference
between effective people and ineffective people is that effective people
procrastinate on the things that don’t really matter.
On the other hand, ineffective people always procrastinate on the tasks that
could make a real difference. Use your willpower and self-discipline to put
off and delay doing minor, irrelevant tasks in favor of major, important
tasks.
Many small jobs, left to themselves, have a tendency to become
unnecessary. If you don’t do them for a while, you eventually reach a point
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where they don’t need to be done at all. These are the tasks that are the best
candidates for creative procrastination.
Before you start on a job, ask yourself, “What would happen if this task
were not done at all?” If the answer to this question is “Not much,” then put
it off as long as you can. Often you won’t have to do it at all.
Sixteen Ways to Overcome Procrastination
Because procrastination is such a major concern of so many people, and has
been a bugaboo for people throughout the ages, a series of ideas and
methods for overcoming procrastination have been developed over the years.
Here are sixteen of the most powerful techniques ever discovered to help
you to overcome procrastination in your work and personal life. Think about
which one of these ideas could be most helpful to you right now, in your
current situation.
1. Think on paper.
Prepare thoroughly. List every step of the job in advance. Break the job
down into its constituent parts before you begin. The very act writing out
every detail and thoroughly preparing in advance will help you to overcome
procrastination and get started.
2. Gather all the necessary materials and work tools that you will
require before you begin.
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When you sit down to work, or when you begin a task, make sure that you
have everything at hand so that you won’t have to get up or move until the
task is complete. Being fully prepared is a powerful motivator for staying
with the task until it is finished.
3. Do one small thing to get started.
There is a 20/80 rule that says that the first 20% of the task often accounts
for 80% of the value of that task.
This is probably what Confucius meant when he said that, “A journey of
1000 leagues begins with a single step.” Once you have taken even one
small step to start the job, you will often find yourself continuing on with the
task and through to completion.
4. Salami slice the task.
Just as you would never try to eat a whole loaf of salami at once, sometimes
the best way to complete a major job is to take a small slice and complete
just that piece, just as you would take a single slice of salami and eat it.
You have heard the question, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer of
course is “One bite at a time!” There is a saying that, “by the yard it’s hard,
but inch by inch, anything is a cinch.”
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When you select a small piece of the task and then discipline yourself to do
it and get it behind you, it will often give you the momentum you need to
counter inertia and overcome procrastination.
5. Practice the Swiss cheese technique.
Just as a block of Swiss cheese is full of large holes, you treat your task like
a block of cheese and you punch holes in it. Select a five-minute part of the
job and do only that. Don’t worry about the whole job. Just pick a small part
of the job with an identifiable amount of time required and then do that part.
For example, if you wanted to write an article or a book, you can break the
task down into small pieces and do just one small piece at a time whenever
you get a chance. Many authors begin by writing one page per day. If you
are doing research, you can read one article per sitting. Many people write
complete books on airplanes, or complete their college degrees with snatches
of time between other activities. If you wrote one page per day for a year,
you would have a 365-page book by the end of the year.
6. Start from the outside and complete the smaller tasks first.
Often there are preparatory steps you must take before you can tackle the
main part of the job. In that case, starting from the outside and doing all the
little tasks necessary will help you to overcome procrastination and get you
started on the big tasks.
7. Start from the inside and do the larger tasks first.
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This is the opposite of number six. Look over your list of everything that
you have to do to complete the job, and ask yourself, “What is the biggest
single task on this list?”
What is the one item that will take the most time, or require the most effort?
Then discipline yourself to start with that item and stay with it until it is
complete. All the other smaller tasks on the list will then seem easier by
comparison.
8. Do the task that causes you the most fear or anxiety.
This usually has to do with someone else. Often it has to do with
overcoming the fear of failure or rejection. In sales, it may be associated
with prospecting. In management, it may be associated with disciplining or
firing an employee. In relationships, this may have to do with confronting an
unhappy personal situation. In every case, you will be more effective if you
deal first with the item that is causing you the greatest emotional distress or
fear. Often this will break the log jam in your work and free you up mentally
and emotionally to complete all your other tasks.
9. Start your day with the most unpleasant task first.
Get it over with and behind you. Everything else for the rest of the day will
seem easier in comparison.
A recent study compared two groups of people. One group started an
exercise program in the morning. The second group started an exercise
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program in the evenings after work. The researchers found that the morning
exercisers were much more likely to still be in the program six months later.
They found that starting the day with exercise was much more likely to lead
to the habit of regular exercise than putting it off until the end of the day
when it was easier to make excuses and procrastinate.
Mark Twain once wrote that, “The first thing you should do when you get up
each morning is to eat a live frog; then you will have the satisfaction of
knowing that that is probably the worst thing that can happen to you all day
long.”
Your “live frog” is your biggest, most difficult, most unpleasant task. When
you start and finish this task before doing anything else, you will have the
satisfaction of knowing that the rest of your day is going to proceed much
more smoothly.
10. Think about the negative consequences of not doing the job or
completing the task.
What will happen to you if this job is not done on schedule? Both fear and
desire are great motivators of human behavior. Sometimes you can motivate
yourself by the desire for the benefits and rewards of task completion.
Sometimes you can motivate yourself into action by thinking about the
negative consequences of not doing the job as promised.
11. Think about how you will benefit from doing the job and
completing the task.
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Write down all the reasons why it would be helpful for you to get this job
done on time. The more reasons you have for completing the task, the more
intense will be your desire to begin, and the greater will be your internal
drive to complete what you’ve started.
If you have one or two reasons for getting a job done, you will have a mild
level of motivation. But if you have 10 or 20 reasons for completing the job,
your level of motivation will be considerably higher, and so will be your
persistence and self-discipline.
12. Set aside a designated 15-minute period during the day when you
will work on your project.
Set aside a specific time period, sometime during the day, say from 10:00 to
10:15 in the morning, or 2:00 to 2:15 in the afternoon, and resolve just to
