The blog

Are you one of those who tend to post­pone some­thing you have to do, week after week, with­out real­ly know­ing why you do this?

Speak­ing for myself, I do this even when it con­cerns tasks which are actu­al­ly in them­selves eas­i­ly done, but the pro­cras­ti­na­tion seems to hap­pen by itself. 

Once I have post­poned the task once, it becomes known to me as ​“a task which I post­pone”, and hence I put off com­plet­ing it again and again. 

There is a time for soul-search­ing and a time for kicking

We could prob­a­bly go search­ing deep with­in our­selves and find the true rea­sons for why we (or is it just me?) act in this way from time to time. 

But I per­son­al­ly think it is more refresh­ing to some­times instead give myself a well-aimed kick with every good inten­tion of putting me on the right track again. 

One way of doing this is to make sure to do some­thing which requires that you have done what­ev­er you have been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing. You there­by ​“force your­self” to get some­thing done by doing some­thing else. 

Does it sound com­pli­cat­ed? Let me give you an example. 

When I for instance, couldn’t seem to get around to buy­ing a stand for my portable record­ing-device, I sched­uled an appoint­ment for an inter­view I was intend­ing to do with a busi­ness acquain­tance. I need­ed the stand for the inter­view, so I will leave it to you to fig­ure out if I final­ly bought the stand soon there­after or not. (The answer is yes.)

Do this

If you are stuck with a task in a project, skip it for now and pro­ceed with oth­er tasks. This way you will be required to do it eventually.

• Let’s say that you for exam­ple have a text you need to write before you can offi­cial­ly pub­lish your new web­site. You get a real writ­ers-block and can­not seem get a sin­gle decent word onto paper, so you pub­lish the web­site any­way and, as you can imag­ine, you will soon have writ­ten some­thing at least accept­able since you can­not allow the web­page to remain com­plete­ly emp­ty for long!
• Or do as the Swedish per­former Robert Broberg did, who dur­ing a per­for­mance at the large con­cert-are­na Globen in Stock­holm told the audi­ence of how he once sold a con­cert with his new skif­fle-band before he even had a band! When the deal was done, he head­ed out to find a few musi­cians to pop­u­late the band with!
• It could also be some­thing as sim­ple as that you make a pub­lic announce­ment regard­ing some­thing you will have suc­ceed­ed with with­in a month and that you then will report it back nice and clear to your clients, friends or fam­i­ly. Since you do not want to lose face, you make the extra effort need­ed and final­ly get going with what­ev­er it is.

Let go of the burden

If you force your­self to do some­thing by doing some­thing else, you will final­ly get the task you have been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing done. Even if you haven’t spent time com­plet­ing the task, it has been a bur­den and a nui­sance to you. Every time you remem­ber that you real­ly should do that one thing you have been putting off, a few dark clouds pull in and cloud your mind and conscience. 

But now you are free. You have shown your­self that you are a per­son of char­ac­ter, that you have the ener­gy to go through with things and that you no longer need to be known as ​“a procrastinator”. 

If what you pro­cras­ti­nate con­cerns improve­ments of qual­i­ty and ser­vice in your busi­ness or per­haps even the devel­op­ment of a new prod­uct, the con­se­quences of get­ting things done soon­er are as you must real­ize, significant. 

How do you deal with procrastination?

What is your best way of going from being the King or Queen of Pro­cras­ti­na­tion, to being the oppo­site? To ​“fool” your­self to do some­thing which you used to postpone? 

Leave a com­ment and tell me and others.