2. WRITE IT DOWN
If I could give only one piece of advice for beating procrastination it would be this: write down everything you need to do and then plan exactly when you will do it.
Writing down everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is a technique I learnt many years ago from David Allen’s brilliant productivity book Getting Things Done*. In it he explains that one of our biggest problems is we try to keep too much in our heads… thus cluttering up our brains so they don’t have any space to process.
Our brains are great processing tools but only if they are not already stuffed full of, as Allen puts it, ‘open loops’… things we know we need to do but haven’t got round to yet. Getting those things out of our heads and onto paper (or a spreadsheet, or an app!) frees our brains up to do what they are supposed to do: solve problems, connect dots, make decisions and form new ideas.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
If I could give only one piece of advice for beating procrastination it would be this: write down everything you need to do and then plan exactly when you will do it.
Writing down everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is a technique I learnt many years ago from David Allen’s brilliant productivity book Getting Things Done*. In it he explains that one of our biggest problems is we try to keep too much in our heads… thus cluttering up our brains so they don’t have any space to process.
Our brains are great processing tools but only if they are not already stuffed full of, as Allen puts it, ‘open loops’… things we know we need to do but haven’t got round to yet. Getting those things out of our heads and onto paper (or a spreadsheet, or an app!) frees our brains up to do what they are supposed to do: solve problems, connect dots, make decisions and form new ideas.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍9❤1
3. WRITE A BETTER TO DO LIST
So, if that long, daunting, ever-lengthening ‘everything’ to do list is actually one of the causes of procrastination, should we ditch the whole concept of to do lists altogether?
Actually no. While it’s true that BAD to do lists cause procrastination, GOOD to do lists can be part of the solution.
The trick is not to work from a to do list of EVERYTHING but to create a to do list that’s just for TODAY, and to keep that to do list short and achievable.
How?
Start by just focusing on this month.
Then focus just on this week and assign each task you have to do this week to a specific day. Finally write your to do list for today.With a long list of ‘everything’ and a whole year stretching out in front of you, you can easily kid yourself that ‘there’s plenty of time if I leave this until tomorrow’… with a solid plan and daily to do lists, you are faced with the stark reality that that’s not actually true!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
So, if that long, daunting, ever-lengthening ‘everything’ to do list is actually one of the causes of procrastination, should we ditch the whole concept of to do lists altogether?
Actually no. While it’s true that BAD to do lists cause procrastination, GOOD to do lists can be part of the solution.
The trick is not to work from a to do list of EVERYTHING but to create a to do list that’s just for TODAY, and to keep that to do list short and achievable.
How?
Start by just focusing on this month.
Then focus just on this week and assign each task you have to do this week to a specific day. Finally write your to do list for today.With a long list of ‘everything’ and a whole year stretching out in front of you, you can easily kid yourself that ‘there’s plenty of time if I leave this until tomorrow’… with a solid plan and daily to do lists, you are faced with the stark reality that that’s not actually true!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍9❤1
4. WRITE YOUR TO DO LIST THE NIGHT BEFORE
If you write your to do list in the morning, right before you start work, you’ll make decisions based on what you FEEL like in the moment. And that’s likely to be the easy/fun tasks, not the important-but-sightly-daunting tasks that would really move your business forward.
Worse still, writing your to do list immediately before starting work can be a procrastination opportunity in its own right… Hands up who has spent aaaaages writing a to do list as a way of avoiding actually starting work??? (Yep, I’ve been there too!).
Writing your to do list the night before gives you no room for frittering half the morning away ‘procrasti-planning’… It’s there, ready and waiting for you to hit the ground running first thing!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
If you write your to do list in the morning, right before you start work, you’ll make decisions based on what you FEEL like in the moment. And that’s likely to be the easy/fun tasks, not the important-but-sightly-daunting tasks that would really move your business forward.
Worse still, writing your to do list immediately before starting work can be a procrastination opportunity in its own right… Hands up who has spent aaaaages writing a to do list as a way of avoiding actually starting work??? (Yep, I’ve been there too!).
Writing your to do list the night before gives you no room for frittering half the morning away ‘procrasti-planning’… It’s there, ready and waiting for you to hit the ground running first thing!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍10❤1🔥1🤔1
98. Start Your Day with a Task Completed
- Making the bed right was important as it showed discipline and attention to detail.
...It shows you that the small wins matter and will encourage you to endure the work that you have ahead of you throughout the day.
99. You Can’t Go It Alone
- If you want to change the world…find someone to help you paddle.”
...In life, you will deal with many obstacles and will need help to get over them.
- Making the bed right was important as it showed discipline and attention to detail.
...It shows you that the small wins matter and will encourage you to endure the work that you have ahead of you throughout the day.
99. You Can’t Go It Alone
- If you want to change the world…find someone to help you paddle.”
...In life, you will deal with many obstacles and will need help to get over them.
👍15❤7
5. PLAN IN EVERYTHING!
When the next task on your to do list is something you really, really don’t want to do, suddenly EVERYTHING ELSE looks more attractive… a really good example of this is housework and other household admin. When faced with a tough task, we suddenly convince ourselves that deep-cleaning the bathroom / defrosting the freezer / cleaning the hamster cage RIGHT NOW is essential … when in actual fact this is just a fancy form of procrastinating! (‘Active Procrastination’ strikes again!)
The solution? Plan in EVERYTHING… if you see a household task that needs doing, don’t let it derail your plan for today… instead plan it into your week. Better still, have a master plan / routine for when all your household jobs will get done… so when you see your bathroom needs a clean, you don’t immediately leap to it… because you know that’s on the schedule for Wednesday at 5pm (or whenever you’ve scheduled that task for!)
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
When the next task on your to do list is something you really, really don’t want to do, suddenly EVERYTHING ELSE looks more attractive… a really good example of this is housework and other household admin. When faced with a tough task, we suddenly convince ourselves that deep-cleaning the bathroom / defrosting the freezer / cleaning the hamster cage RIGHT NOW is essential … when in actual fact this is just a fancy form of procrastinating! (‘Active Procrastination’ strikes again!)
The solution? Plan in EVERYTHING… if you see a household task that needs doing, don’t let it derail your plan for today… instead plan it into your week. Better still, have a master plan / routine for when all your household jobs will get done… so when you see your bathroom needs a clean, you don’t immediately leap to it… because you know that’s on the schedule for Wednesday at 5pm (or whenever you’ve scheduled that task for!)
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍22👎1
6. DON’T LET ‘SHINY NEW TASKS’ DERAIL YOUR PLAN
The solution is to never do a new task that crops up immediately. Instead draw a line under your main to do list and add anything new which crops up onto the BOTTOM of your to do list, under that line.
At the end of the day, make a decision about what to do about each of the things that you’ve added under the line: either do it there and then, add it to tomorrow’s to do list or plan it in for another time.
The brilliant thing about this technique (inspired by Mark Forster’s excellent book Do It Tomorrow*) is it gives you a bit of cooling off time to decide if a task is genuinely worth doing… When you look at those new tasks at the end of the day (when they can no longer be used as a procrastination tool!), they will almost certainly look less shiny and exciting. And you may decide that actually you don’t need to do them at all!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
The solution is to never do a new task that crops up immediately. Instead draw a line under your main to do list and add anything new which crops up onto the BOTTOM of your to do list, under that line.
At the end of the day, make a decision about what to do about each of the things that you’ve added under the line: either do it there and then, add it to tomorrow’s to do list or plan it in for another time.
The brilliant thing about this technique (inspired by Mark Forster’s excellent book Do It Tomorrow*) is it gives you a bit of cooling off time to decide if a task is genuinely worth doing… When you look at those new tasks at the end of the day (when they can no longer be used as a procrastination tool!), they will almost certainly look less shiny and exciting. And you may decide that actually you don’t need to do them at all!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍12❤1
7. BREAK BIG TASKS DOWN INTO SMALLER ONES
We often procrastinate because we are overwhelmed or daunted by the task. One easy way to beat procrastination is to break big tasks down into smaller ones. For example, perhaps on your to do list you have ‘write blog post’. That can feel quite big and daunting… it can feel like ‘such a lot of work’ and so you put it off… and keep putting it off over and over again until suddenly a whole month (or more) has gone by, and you haven’t written a single blog post!
If that sounds like you, try this instead… Break that big ‘write blog post’ to do into a series of smaller tasks. For example:
Write outline
Research topic
Write rough draft
Edit rough draft
Copy and paste into WordPress
Format text with headings, bullets etc.
Add photos
Publish blog post
Then just challenge yourself to do the first item on that list.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
We often procrastinate because we are overwhelmed or daunted by the task. One easy way to beat procrastination is to break big tasks down into smaller ones. For example, perhaps on your to do list you have ‘write blog post’. That can feel quite big and daunting… it can feel like ‘such a lot of work’ and so you put it off… and keep putting it off over and over again until suddenly a whole month (or more) has gone by, and you haven’t written a single blog post!
If that sounds like you, try this instead… Break that big ‘write blog post’ to do into a series of smaller tasks. For example:
Write outline
Research topic
Write rough draft
Edit rough draft
Copy and paste into WordPress
Format text with headings, bullets etc.
Add photos
Publish blog post
Then just challenge yourself to do the first item on that list.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍9❤1
8. START YOUR DAY WITH THE HARDEST TASKS
This is one of the best anti-procrastination tricks in the book! When you are writing your daily plan (the night before!) pick the task you are most likely to procrastinate over and put it first.
This technique is known as ‘eating the frog’ (from the book Eat That Frog* by Brian Tracy, which itself was inspired by a quote by Mark Twain).
The logic goes that, if you get the hardest task done first in the day, the rest of the day will (by definition) be easier. But it does more than that. It also gives you a tremendous feeling of accomplishment… which gives you a boost to your mood and productivity levels for the rest of the day.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
This is one of the best anti-procrastination tricks in the book! When you are writing your daily plan (the night before!) pick the task you are most likely to procrastinate over and put it first.
This technique is known as ‘eating the frog’ (from the book Eat That Frog* by Brian Tracy, which itself was inspired by a quote by Mark Twain).
The logic goes that, if you get the hardest task done first in the day, the rest of the day will (by definition) be easier. But it does more than that. It also gives you a tremendous feeling of accomplishment… which gives you a boost to your mood and productivity levels for the rest of the day.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
👍13❤1