Putting things off from time to time may not cause too many problems in your life. On the other hand, chronic procrastination can consistently jack up your stress levels. It lowers your self-esteem and can cause severe mental and physical health problems.
The negative effects of procrastination can range from something as simple as missing a deadline on an important task, or it can be something more long-term, such as a missed opportunity that kills a dream.
For others, it can have long-lasting effects that resonate throughout their lives.
The reasons that people procrastinate can be incredibly varied and they may not always obvious. Sometimes, it is a hidden fear that we don’t want to acknowledge, or it could be simply not wanting to do something because it just doesn’t motivate us.
Here are 7 life-wrecking dangers of procrastinating you should remember the next time you are thinking about delaying some action or task you know you need to be doing today.
Odds are you already feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day. Why procrastinate and make the situation even worse? The most fleeting and valuable commodity you have is time. It can’t be replaced.
Procrastinators often look up with deadlines staring them in the face at the last minute and think, “Where did all the time go?”
When you have to fly around at the last minute trying to cram a few days’ worth of work into a few hours because you’ve been procrastinating, you realize that you’ve wasted precious time that you can’t get back.
Any time you do one thing, you are costing yourself the opportunity to do something else. Putting things off until later, when later finally arrives and you absolutely must take action, doesn’t allow you to be free in case a wonderful opportunity arises.
Procrastination doesn’t allow you to answer when opportunity knocks.
Studies show that if you procrastinate once, you’ll do it twice. Procrastinate a couple of times, and you begin to plan procrastination into your regular routine.
The people who create their dream realities make effective use of their time.
When you waste time and put things off, the results you finally achieve are watered down and rushed.
This means you rob yourself of living the greatest and most fulfilled life that you possibly can.
Procrastination is the enemy of efficiency and productivity. When you put things off in the workplace, you kill your chances of advancement. You might even get fired.
When you consistently procrastinate in a relationship, you’re telling the important people in your life that you simply don’t care. This means you run the risk of damaging, or even permanently ruining, relationships that are important to you.
Low self-esteem and procrastination are comfortable bedfellows. When you put things off and put things off until you have to rush around at the end and get them done, you feel bad about yourself.
You wonder, “Why can’t I just do what I need to do?” You ask yourself, “Why can’t I take action in the pursuit of things that are so important to me?”
Negative emotions like self-hatred and self-doubt create stress, and stress is at the cornerstone of all chronic disease. It is in this way that …
Procrastination seems to become a major issue when we start to think about setting goals or wanting to achieve or change something.
Don’t get me wrong; you really may have a strong desire to change, but you just find it impossible to take that vital first step.
This can be incredibly confusing and frustrating; you might find yourself thinking, “Why is it so difficult to go for something that I know I want so badly?” Only you can answer that; you’ll have to explore a little deeper to try to find out why you are resisting and effectively sabotaging your own personal growth.
You need to find what the root cause is behind your procrastination, especially if it’s preventing you from achieving your goals, or you may never attain them and you may be losing out on some of what life has to offer you.
You may think that statement is a little harsh or “over-the-top”. Actually, it isn’t. People who procrastinate constantly make poor decisions. You put off going to that doctor’s appointment, justifying your decision by saying that you probably won’t be able to afford his bill.
You find excuses for putting off exercising all the time. You know you should eat better, but you can always start your new diet tomorrow.
Stress is related to the top preventable causes of death. Procrastination is a powerful stress booster. Put off taking care of your physical health for years, and you increase the odds that you’ll die from a serious illness or disease.
Stop procrastinating. It’s a killer, a job and relationship wrecker. Putting off important tasks and responsibilities leads to so many negative results. Chronic procrastination can make it virtually impossible to live a life of fulfillment and success.
And remember, one way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
We’ve all heard the quotes when it comes to procrastination. ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today’ or ‘Action today can prevent a crisis tomorrow’… and so on.
Yet, millions of people procrastinate daily. So why do we not do what we know we need to do?
The answer is simple. When you view a task as unpleasant and tiring, your mind immediately starts cooking up excuses to prevent you from being in discomfort. This is your self-preservation instinct at its finest.
Your mind is trying to protect you. While this is good when it comes to dangerous situations, for the most part it’s unnecessary and actually holding you back.
Knowing how to act is crucial to avoid procrastination. If you keep procrastinating, your work will pile up and your schedule will become a mess.
You won’t reach your goals or meet your deadlines. It’s impossible to have work-life balance when you’re always playing catch-up. So, here’s what you need to do to stop procrastinating…
Make a list of ALL the things you need to get done. List them in 3 categories:
Get the urgent matters out of the way ASAP, then focus on the important tasks and finally clear the other tasks as and when you can.
Many times, you may feel like you’re not in the mood for an activity. This could be exercise or writing or cleaning your house, etc. Whatever the activity is, your mind is already making excuses for you to avoid doing it.
You’re thinking of skipping the workout. Or maybe you’d rather organize the folders in your laptop than write that blog post you need to.
Clean the house? Pfft! You can always do that next month.
So how do you beat this problem?
Simple. Just give yourself 2 minutes to do the task. Tell yourself that you’ll just exercise for 2 minutes or clean the room for 2 minutes. It doesn’t matter what the task is. Just aim for 2 minutes.
You’ll often find that once you get started, you’ll usually go on for 30 minutes to an hour or longer.
It’s always the initial step of getting started that’s the most difficult. 2 minutes tricks your mental resistance because writing or exercising for 2 minutes is not as intimidating as doing it for 30 minutes or an hour.
Employ this technique whenever you catch yourself about to procrastinate.
Parkinson’s law states that, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
What that means is that if you give yourself 3 days to complete a job, you’ll take 3 days. However, if you gave yourself 8 hours to do it, you’ll rush and get the job done.
So, giving yourself shorter deadlines will help to motivate you by lighting a fire under your butt to get you moving. You can’t procrastinate when you have a deadline that’s approaching really fast. You’ll get the job done quicker than you thought possible.
One of the cruel twists of life is that very often, you get motivation only after you’ve completed the work. If you wait to be motivated to do a task, you’ll be waiting a long time.
However, if you just go ahead and do it, you’ll gain some self-satisfaction and feel productive. Now you’ll have the motivation to quickly complete the next task and so on.
Start doing first, and the motivation will come later – and you’ll not even think of procrastinating once you’re on a roll.
Avoid procrastination at all costs and know that it doesn’t change anything other than cause your responsibilities to pile up. Life begins outside the discomfort zone. Challenge yourself to get started today and right now.
And now you have mastered procrastination, let’s look at how you can use automation to make even more use of the time you have.
One of the best ways to increase your productivity and free up more time for leisure will be to automate your recurring tasks or outsource them. This could be done in a variety of ways.
One fantastic strategy to stop wasting time at the bank will be to have your bill deductions automated. You could plan things out in such a way that money from your account is automatically deducted towards your outstanding bills.
Online banking is all the rage these days and yet thousands of people queue up at the tellers just because they’re not ‘tech savvy’ and don’t wish to learn something new.
If you’re working from home or you’re a busy entrepreneur, it’s these automated tasks that will save you precious hours and also prevent any hassles in your workday.
Instead of washing dishes by hand, you could use a dishwasher. Instead of drying the laundry on a line, you could use a dryer. There are many machines that will help to simplify your chores.
You could also create a roster for your kids where each one gets a specific chore to complete daily. It could be doing the dishes or vacuuming the house or one of the many daily chores that threaten to suck up your time.
They’ll do it in a fraction of the time for a small fee. The amount you pay for the service will be worth every cent because your time is worth much more.
If you’re an online entrepreneur, there are tons of email management software and other tools that simplify your job. You can queue emails for an entire week that are set to be sent at a specific time and day.
The same applies to other activities such as scheduled blog posts, social media posts, etc. Automation is a time saver that you absolutely must use if you wish to be effective.
Which brings us to the next point…
Batching your tasks is without a doubt one of the best productivity hacks ever. So what is batching?
For example, if you’re planning to write 10 articles, batching will mean doing the research for all 10 articles at once. Then you’ll outline them all.
This principle applies across the board. Write all your emails at once. Schedule them at one go and so on.
Instead of doing each task from beginning to end and then repeating the process over and over, batching will save you countless hours in the long run.
Use the methods above to manage your time effectively. Time management is life management. The better you are at it, the more time you’ll have for yourself and the activities you really want to do.
And remember, one way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
Now that you know all the components of procrastination, you’ve had a chance to determine which ones might apply to you, and you’ve learned the skills you need to get rid of or diminish them in your life.
Let’s put it all together so that you have a coherent assessment of yourself to bring to your tasks, your projects, and your life going forward.
You will finally be able to get stuff done and start achieving your goals, and these may be business, career or personal development goals.
Whatever the goals you are aiming for, getting laser focused and having a plan is really going to help you to beat procrastination and get you to your end result.
Follow the 8-step plan below to help you beat procrastination once and for all.
Using your computer or a paper and pen, answer the following questions in as much detail as possible:
1 – Identify the areas in your life where you procrastinate. It could be with tasks or projects or relationships. It could be in your home, on your job, in public situations, or with friends and relatives. Where do you want to make changes? What are you dissatisfied with?
How do you see it changing? What is your vision for the future? Write this in as much detail as possible.
2 – Remember, you achieve change through a combination of dissatisfaction with the present plus a vision for the future plus a plan plus taking the first steps.
Now, give yourself a challenge. Write down each change you want to make in phrases starting with,” I will…….…”
Look at each thing you want to change and ask yourself:
3 – Next, turn your challenges into goals. Decide when you want to achieve the goal, and write this down for each goal,” It is(the date) and I have achieved this goal. Make these goals real in whatever way you want: for instance, a vision board, a journal, or by telling your friends about them.
4 – You need a way to measure your success. How will you know if you’ve reached your target goal? What will success means you? Write it down.” My success criteria are…….” Do that for each goal.
5 – Write down each goal, leaving some space beneath each one. Think through all of the negative things associated with that goal. What will the obstacles be? What can you do in advance to diminish the obstacles? For each goal, finish this statement,” I am removing the barriers to success with this goal by………”
6 – Now it’s time to break your project into steps. We know by now that this will make it much more manageable and give us reason not to be overwhelmed or afraid. Develop two or three first steps for achieving your goal and write them down.
7 – Now take a look at your first steps. What are the positives? What are the negatives? Choose the first steps for each goal that you determine to be the best ones.
8 – Next, plan the rest of your project step by step, going back and assessing each step as you did in number seven. Remember to build in flexibility in time constraints to allow for unforeseen events and obstacles. Remember also that it’s completely acceptable to amend these steps as you go along.
A few more pointers to remember when you’re actually working in your project:
Well done! Celebrate you!
I hope that you have enjoyed this 4 part series discussing the problem of procrastination and that you have some useful actionable tips that you can use to blast through any areas in your life that are being affected by procrastination.
And remember, one way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
Now is the time to build on your strengths, improve on your weaknesses, and develop your skills.
Procrastination always has two elements: the task you’re putting off and the internal forces that are causing you to do so. The more you deal with your inner “demons,” the easier it will be to take action.
When you start to get things done, you experience these feelings less and less.
In our projects as in life, we come up against obstacles. We need to handle those obstacles in order to see the task through to the end. Self-esteem helps us to do that because it helps us develop resilience and the belief that we can succeed despite barriers. Self-esteem can grow or it can diminish, and we can control that.
So, what is self-esteem? The most important component of self-esteem is internal. It’s the ability to like and accept yourself with all your strengths and weaknesses, and in spite of the mistakes you make.
It’s understanding that you are equal to anyone else and you, like anyone else, are unique and one-of-a-kind. It’s not ego driven. It’s not a belief that you’re superior to anyone. It’s the understanding that each one of us is unique, special, and important.
Another component of self-esteem comes from the reflection of ourselves that we get from other people. We get either positive or negative feedback from people in obvious or subtle ways all the time.
We get from the media, from work, and from our relationships. Unfortunately, we can’t always depend on outside sources to have our best interests at heart or even to be honest.
So, although it’s inevitable that some of our self-concept comes from outside sources, a much better, more fulfilling approach to our lives is to develop our internal self-esteem and diminish the effects of external self-esteem.
Here are the questions to ask yourself:
The answers to these questions should give you an awareness of yourself that will strengthen your internal self-esteem and lessen your need for approval of others.
Next, here are some powerful actions that you can take to strengthen your self-esteem and diminish your tendency to procrastinate:
Here’s one non-negotiable law for living the life you dream of: self-esteem is essential to our well-being. It’s not selfishness; it’s just the opposite.
It’s possible that you are not even aware of the negative inner voices that keep harping at you. Science has shown, though, that the vast majority of our thoughts are negative, and a lot of those thoughts are about ourselves.
It’s natural that this is true because these thoughts are an accumulation of judgments we received in childhood, then from our peers, and eventually from ourselves. These thoughts are even more frequent when we’re feeling vulnerable or facing obstacles.
How many times have you said things like if yourself:
The next step is easy and even fun. Start talking back to those thoughts.
Say things like:
” It’s okay to make mistakes.”
” I’m not stupid, this is just something new for me.”
” This is not too hard – I just have to take it one step at a time.”
” Everything does not depend on this. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll find another way.”
See, wasn’t it fun? Won’t you feel a lot better doing that than giving in to negative thinking?
The next step is to reinforce your self-esteem with some positive thoughts about yourself. Remember the list you made of the things you’re good at and your positive qualities?
Repeat a few of those things to yourself after you’ve had some negative self-talk. Then give yourself a small reward (talking to a friend, reading a book for a little while, taking a time out for yourself, etc.). These positive thoughts and actions reinforce your positive feeling about yourself.
Our negative self-talk tries to protect us from taking risks and things we fear, but it also puts up barriers to opportunities and challenges and changes that would enhance our lives.
And think about this: research has shown that four out of five of our fears never materialize. The fears that do materialize, we can handle, especially after we build our strengths.
Here are some strategies for managing your fears:
Handling fear is not easy for any of us. But facing it leads to a more fulfilling, productive life.
Of course, it’s obvious that we have to have some degree of motivation in order to overcome procrastination. And it’s also obvious that we need some willpower in order to want things to change so that we do follow through on our projects.
A better idea would be to choose projects and tasks for now that can help you build your motivation and willpower in general.
Try these exercises to increase your willpower:
These are all small steps, as you can see. You can and should substitute as many small steps as you can think of. The point is that you’re building your willpower. This in turn builds your self-confidence: you begin to realize that you can depend on yourself to follow through.
What is assertiveness? And why are some people so much better at being assertive than others? How can we be appropriately assertive without being aggressive and overbearing?
Acting assertively can be complicated because how we behave stems from a combination of our beliefs and values, our attitudes, our thoughts and feelings, and our self-esteem. It comes down to choosing the way we will behave in order to get what we want.
Many of us use more than one of these techniques, and while we probably know that the first choice is the best choice, many more of us don’t know how to go about being assertive.
Being assertive means acknowledging our needs and asking in an open and direct manner for those needs to be fulfilled. It implies respect for the people we’re asking, respect for ourselves, and respect for the task at hand. If our needs in this particular situation are not met, it is not a blow to our self-esteem because our self-esteem is not based on the approval of others.
Assertiveness is not always the easiest behavior choice, but it is the one most likely to get what we want. It is the win-win approach.
Being aggressive is often a compulsive overreaction; it’s competitive and leads to win-lose situation.
Being passive is negative behavior with negative results. It creates victims who allow other people to decide their fate. But the truth is that those people are victims of their own passivity.
The indirectly aggressive or manipulative approach also rises from low self-esteem. For these people it’s safer to control and manipulate rather than face confrontation and the possibility of being rejected.
There are some techniques you can use to maintain an assertive attitude without becoming aggressive or passive. Try some of these to keep you on track. You don’t need to use all of them; use the ones that work for you in a given situation.
Remember that being assertive is often about negotiation and compromise. It’s about not being aggressive or passive or manipulative. It’s about the win-win for everyone involved.
Few things encourage procrastination better than anger and frustration, yet anger and frustration are inevitable in life and in projects.
The first thing you must do is recognize when you’re frustrated or angry. Many of us are so proficient at hiding these feelings from other people that we’ve become great at hiding them from ourselves. That is usually a problem because the anger and frustration show themselves in other ways.
One of these ways is to discontinue whatever we’ve started. Another outcome is that we show our anger toward other things or people that are unrelated to the real cause. All of this is unproductive.
You could channel that frustration into finding other solutions for the problem. Or you could find other projects to work on temporarily. Next, find a productive way to release your anger and frustration. It might be through exercise or even household chores.
Pay attention to what causes you anger and frustration. Try to make sure that you’re separating your current anger from past situations that cause anger. One thing that many of us do is bring old anger that has been dealt with to new situations.
Find means to deal with anger and frustration as they appear. A good idea is to come up with solutions in advance. Since we know for certain that the feelings will come up again, channeling them in a positive way will produce the best outcome.
Another enemy of productivity, closely related to frustration and anger, is stress. Stress is our body’s way of letting us know that we are confronting something beyond our coping ability.
On a physical level, much less an emotional level, our instinct is to flee. This is the point where many of us give up on our projects. Again, a lot of us have a tendency to ignore stress until it causes major problems physically, emotionally, and even in all areas of our lives.
The symptoms of stress can vary from person to person, but we all need to know what they are so that we can deal with them if and when they arise.
Physical symptoms – heart palpitations, nausea, muscle cramps, colds, infections, fatigue, body aches, and indigestion.
Emotional symptoms – mood swings, irritability, tension, anxiety, and powerlessness
Behavioral symptoms – accidents, inferior job performance, overeating or not eating, lack of concentration, general exhaustion.
Mental symptoms – indecision, memory failure, worrying, loss of perspective, lack of empathy
Get to know your particular signs of stress and recognize when you’re experiencing …the sooner you do, the better for your health.
Knowing the factors that cause stress will help you anticipate when you might be experiencing them. We have different levels of stress tolerance, and many times different types of stressors can combine to cause serious stress.
The four types of stressors are:
Situational stressors – these include unexpected situations, change, bad news, heavy workloads, and negative environmental factors
Life events stressors – these include marriage, divorce, death, birth of a child, moving, ill health, and financial concerns
Stressors caused by others – these include unreasonable demands by others, unreasonable expectations from others, and a negative atmosphere at work or at home
Internal stressors – these include perfectionism, unreasonable expectations from ourselves, feelings of inadequacy, unmet needs for acceptance and love, and the need to control.
Stress can be debilitating and lead to many physical problems if you don’t deal with it. The way to handle stress is to recognize it, interrupt the pattern, and use the tools available to reduce it.
In order to recognize stress in your life, ask yourself these questions:
Once you recognize that you’re feeling stress, come to terms with those feelings. Don’t run away from your feelings but accept them as signs that are showing you the need to take action.
Develop a support network. Let your friends know when you need them, and make sure they know that you’re grateful for their help.
Take a good look at your lifestyle. What changes do you need to make? Make the time for some exercise and some relaxation. Eat a healthy diet, don’t smoke, and drink moderately. Think positively and handle your negative inner thoughts.
All of these things that you build into your lifestyle will strengthen you again stress.
The serenity prayer is an awesome piece of wisdom and wonderful for dealing with stress. It says,“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” – Old Irish Saying
The feeling of overwhelm is a major cause of procrastination. It is so uncomfortable it can cause us to put off doing projects or flee from them faster than just about anything else will. The good news is that prioritizing, organizing, and planning – tools that can easily diminish this feeling – are not that difficult to learn.
I know that you know that old expression:” How do you eat an elephant?” “One bite at a time.” We all know that breaking things down into parts make sense. It makes difficult things easy by putting them in logical order so that we can address each step and go on to the next one. For some of us, it’s difficult to do.
Here are the steps:
Once you begin your project, you may discover efficiencies that will help with your time management. For instance, are the right people performing the right tasks? Could you improve performance by switching people’s functions?
These are just examples of efficiencies that you may find what you’re going through the project. The point is to monitor your progress to reduce unexpected, unwanted surprises, and to keep you on track.
Prioritize your tasks on a daily basis because the priority can change quickly.
Priority one – important and urgent, tasks to do immediately.
Priority two – important but not urgent, tasks that can’t be planned for a future time.
Priority three – urgent but not important, tasks that can be delegated.
Priority four – routine, tasks that need to be done but can be deferred or delegated.
So, in the final article in this series, we’ll look at how to put this all together.
One way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
So, who are you, anyway? First, let me tell you the end right now at the beginning.
When we come to the end of this article and you have learned a few things about yourself that you didn’t know, you’re very likely going to approve of the person you find.
Second, some of the exercises might ask you questions you haven’t thought about before but do your best to answer them because they will give you insight into your preferences.
An important part of overcoming procrastination is getting to a point where you want to do the things you need to do because you like them. The more you know yourself, the better you’ll be at framing your tasks in terms of your preferences.
This exercise should give you an idea about how you perform on projects currently. Think about a project you have successfully completed — at work, at home, or in a social situation. Answer the following questions:
This exercise will tell you something about your attitude toward goal setting. Which of the following statements apply to you?
Let’s talk about willpower and motivation next. To some extent, they go hand-in-hand because the more willpower you have, the less easily you give in to distractions and the more motivated you are to begin a task and to complete it.
Which of the following statements fit your personality?
It’s easy to put things off for all kinds of valid reasons. But if you’re procrastinating for other reasons, you need to identify those reasons. Do you really want to take on this project?
Try to understand why you are unable to start – or finish – certain tasks.
Fear of failure can stop you dead in your tracks even though everyone fails sometimes. It can interfere with your time management, your productivity, and even your relationships.
Answer often, sometimes, or never to the following questions:
The more times you answered often or sometimes, the more effectively you cope with failure. Feeling rejected or threatened when something doesn’t turn out as you had hoped is somewhat natural, but passion and anger can be destructive if they’re not managed.
Sometimes, we procrastinate because we believe we don’t have time, but the truth is that we don’t know how to manage our time or how to prioritize.
Use the following questions to assess your time-management skills:
No worries, these skills are ones you can learn.
In this exercise we’re going to think about what we do well. Make a list of all the things you are good at.
The key here is for the person you are asking is completely honest about your strengths and isn’t just telling you what you want to hear.
How assertive you are and how you interact with others can directly affect how much you procrastinate, and also how well you initiate and negotiate tasks.
Your answers to the following questions will let you know how assertive you are in four areas: at work, at home, in public, and with friends.
Now, let’s think about how you react in these situations.
Awareness about your skills and personality traits is the first step toward strength. You can’t change what you’re not aware of. So, take a look at all your responses and ask yourself what they tell you.
So, in the next article in this series, we’ll look at how to build on your strengths, improve on your weaknesses, and develop your skills.
One way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 😊
