Striking Procrastination From Your Schedule and Lowering Your Stress

Ways To Get Things Moving Forward

How many times have you vowed to stop procrastinating?  How many times have you mentally smacked your head for the unnecessary stress you put yourself through? 

We often think procrastination is a mindset issue: “I don’t feel like it” or “This will take too long.”  That’s a real thing.  Yet what if that’s not always the deal? 

What if you found that there’s actually a reason behind a lot of your procrastination - and it’s not that hard to fix? 

 

Imagine you want to write an article about confidence.  You know you want to talk about the importance of skill development and positive mindset.  Yet you can’t seem to begin.  Your first step isn’t to sit down and open up a Word document.  Your first step is to research confidence as it relates to your target audience. 

 

However, you weren’t thinking about research.  You subconsciously avoided it by checking email and social media.  In desperation, you played a game of solitaire because you knew something is missing, but you hadn’t thought through the process.  And that blank page was as barren as can be, an hour or more later.

To create an effective schedule, you need to back up.  Know what’s important.  Start with the big picture. 

• What are your big goals?
• What projects drive those goals to fruition?
• What steps accomplish those projects?
• Are there pre-steps?

Where You Get Stuck

It’s the pre-steps you are unconsciously aware of that lead to procrastination.

However, let’s take a look at a few less visible culprits of procrastination:

• Ineffective schedule
• Lack of clarity on a task
• Waiting for someone/something else

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Getting Unstuck

Build an effective schedule and review.  Be clear about what moves your goals forward.  Know how many things you can manage at one time.  Prioritizing and setting the rest aside for later is crucial for stress management.

Using a weekly schedule template allows for regularly scheduled events.  It allows you to see the bigger picture.  Build in time for the unexpected for cushion.

Know your current projects. Knowing the actions you want to take on each task in light of the big picture informs how to schedule your day.  More on that in a minute.

Creating blocks of time for similar activities is efficient.  Tony Robbins calls this “chunking.”  If you can schedule your meetings in one chunk of time, plan errands plus appointments away from the office in another chunk, you minimize disruption.  You free up time spent getting ready to go and settling back in for singular events.

Particularly while this is a new habit, review your schedule frequently.  Being able to respect that stop time is challenging when there’s no hard deadline.  This means spending your time in a balanced way rather than being sidetracked on the easy or the more enjoyable tasks. 

The stress seems worse somehow, when you find yourself up against a deadline unnecessarily.  Effective scheduling combined with clear project steps will go a long way in reducing procrastination.

Create clear steps for each project.  You need to do something, but can’t seem to get started.  You may think starting the project is the first step.  You actually need to make a decision first – how do I want to go about it?  Do I need to research to make that decision?  That’s the pre-step … write it in your schedule as it’s the real first step.

When you need to stop in the middle, write the next step or two.  This means clarity about project status at any point. David Allen of http://gettingthingsdone.com/  is big on getting stuff out of your head.  This frees up brain function for your projects and lowers stress.

I highly recommend his book for any business owner as well as those who want to be more effective in their day.  (And no, I receive nothing for this recommendation.)

When it’s out of your control.  Does your project require someone else?  Have you reached out to that person?  If so, did you schedule a time with them to deal with their part? If there is no forward motion, are there other options?   

If not, and timeliness isn’t working, schedule yourself to check back in a reasonable time frame, and then forget about it.  You took it as far as you can go, the other person is aware and unable/unwilling to schedule right now. No point nagging or wasting mental energy on it.

As you get clear on your next steps and scheduling more effectively, you will find your projects may go more smoothly.  You may even find yourself less stressed.