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
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.
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
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
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
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
9.MULTIPLE MINI DEADLINES
If you are the type of person who doesn’t get down to a task until the 11th hour when the deadline is looming, this one is for you! Instead of leaving the whole task to the last minute, break it down into smaller sections and give every section its own deadline.
I like to do this with big projects, like creating online courses. Instead of just having one massive deadline of ‘launch course in first week of June’, I write myself a simple project plan, breaking that big task down into multiple mini-tasks and then giving each mini-task its own deadline.
When you have a big project, and the date is a long way off, it can FEEL like you have all the time in the world… which makes it super easy to procrastinate! But by taking the time to break down the task, estimate how long each sub-task will take and give each sub-task its own deadline. suddenly you realise you don’t have all the time in the world… and you need to get this sub-task you are working on right away...
@deepthoughts2
If you are the type of person who doesn’t get down to a task until the 11th hour when the deadline is looming, this one is for you! Instead of leaving the whole task to the last minute, break it down into smaller sections and give every section its own deadline.
I like to do this with big projects, like creating online courses. Instead of just having one massive deadline of ‘launch course in first week of June’, I write myself a simple project plan, breaking that big task down into multiple mini-tasks and then giving each mini-task its own deadline.
When you have a big project, and the date is a long way off, it can FEEL like you have all the time in the world… which makes it super easy to procrastinate! But by taking the time to break down the task, estimate how long each sub-task will take and give each sub-task its own deadline. suddenly you realise you don’t have all the time in the world… and you need to get this sub-task you are working on right away...
@deepthoughts2
10. ADD DEADLINES TO YOUR TO DO LIST
We talked about creating a daily to do list earlier… Daily to do lists are a great way to beat procrastination… but they are not foolproof. When you start on the first item of the day, it can feel like you have endless time and, as a result, you (often without even realising it) take your time on the first few tasks of the day and run out of time to do the rest… this is another fancy form of procrastination!
To prevent yourself using the morning’s tasks as a way of procrastinating over the afternoon’s tasks, you can again harness the power of the mini-deadline! Estimate how long each task will take and give it its own deadline. That way when you start on Task 1, you won’t feel like you have loads of time to do it… your self-imposed deadline will focus your mind and make you work smarter and be more productive.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
We talked about creating a daily to do list earlier… Daily to do lists are a great way to beat procrastination… but they are not foolproof. When you start on the first item of the day, it can feel like you have endless time and, as a result, you (often without even realising it) take your time on the first few tasks of the day and run out of time to do the rest… this is another fancy form of procrastination!
To prevent yourself using the morning’s tasks as a way of procrastinating over the afternoon’s tasks, you can again harness the power of the mini-deadline! Estimate how long each task will take and give it its own deadline. That way when you start on Task 1, you won’t feel like you have loads of time to do it… your self-imposed deadline will focus your mind and make you work smarter and be more productive.
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
11. GET REAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Another way to overcome procrastination to get an accountability partner.
This is not a bad idea, but there is a big problem with accountability partners… it’s not ‘real’ accountability. Your accountability partner might be a wonderful person and great at encouraging you not to procrastinate… but ultimately you know deep down that it doesn’t actually matter to your accountability partner if you miss your self-imposed (private) deadline…
To get REAL accountability you need to get PUBLIC with your deadlines… That could be telling your audience that you’ll be post on a new idea or topic every Tuesday at 9am, advising your subscribers to expect a notification every Friday afternoon ..
Now you have REAL accountability… and a REAL deadline… a seriously effective tool in the fight against procrastination!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2
Another way to overcome procrastination to get an accountability partner.
This is not a bad idea, but there is a big problem with accountability partners… it’s not ‘real’ accountability. Your accountability partner might be a wonderful person and great at encouraging you not to procrastinate… but ultimately you know deep down that it doesn’t actually matter to your accountability partner if you miss your self-imposed (private) deadline…
To get REAL accountability you need to get PUBLIC with your deadlines… That could be telling your audience that you’ll be post on a new idea or topic every Tuesday at 9am, advising your subscribers to expect a notification every Friday afternoon ..
Now you have REAL accountability… and a REAL deadline… a seriously effective tool in the fight against procrastination!
@deepthoughts2
@deepthoughts2