Feel Good Factor

LAST WEEK I was speaking to a group of ladies about the ‘P’ word – procrastination.

It’s when everything other than what you need to do becomes incredibly urgent. Often hours can be spent updating your friends list on Facebook or searching for new contacts on LinkedIn. It can be quite frustrating, even stressful.

So how can we move from procrastinating to proactivating? First of all, in my experience, it seems that the more we have to do the less we may feel like doing it. I’m a great lover of lists so I find that a great start is to do a “brain dump”, get everything that is in your head out and on a piece of paper to start to regain some control (there is a great free guide on the Time to Motivate You page on my website, which may help).

Secondly, the other major factor is that our batteries have maybe gone flat. When was the last time you had some time for yourself?

If you are feeling really flat and you don’t have the energy to really kick those tasks into touch, take some time out and do something for you that you know you would find recharging, it can work wonders. And make sure that you commit to doing it regularly too, so that you reduce the risk of it happening again.

Thirdly, commit to be disciplined. Look at your brain dump and decide what needs to be done today, allocate time for each task, then go for it. Ignore the chatter in your head trying to persuade you otherwise and see it as a challenge to get whatever it is done in the time you’ve set yourself. Even use a timer.

It’s also useful to shut down all distractions (email, social media, phone) until you have done what you need to do.

Finally, when you’ve done what you need to do, give yourself a reward. I use this style of motivation regularly, there’s nothing like having something nice to look forward to to help motivate you to get those other tasks out of the way.

Often at this time of year we find ourselves procrastinating more as the days get darker and gloomier, but for many it’s actually a very busy time, especially with the run up to Christmas.

So if you start to feel that way, have these simple steps to hand and get yourself pro-activating quickly, so at least you have more time to enjoy yourself.