Do you put things off until the last minute? Or worse still, until it's too late?
Keeping in line with today's tips theme, here's a few for serial Procrastinators. You can of course buy books on this topic and find lots of tips from highly organised people who really don’t understand why some people don’t lead methodical and carefully managed lives, but here's a few ideas from someone who's entire life is routineless and utterly disorganised but still manages to get stuff done - yep yours truly!
- Try and figure out why you don’t want to do that particular task. Do you think it will take too long; are you unsure of how to do it etc. - and then deal with the symptom.
- Find someone to help you – doesn’t matter if they don’t have a clue either. Mostly it’s just the moral support that will get you through it.
- Realise that it really doesn’t have to be perfectly executed
- Feel the fear and do it anyway – think T-Shirt slogans!
- Write it down – it helps sometimes
- Break the task down into small components that are easy to do it in little bits - this is the textbook view
- Tell your friends what you're planning to do – it’ll create some external pressure that might motivate you
- Make a start - any start!
And finally, you could always look at it like this. If you really can keep putting it off, it probably isn’t that important. Most of the time I just use it as a yardstick to filter out all the crap I really don’t need to do!!
What brought this on you ask? Well I’ve been meaning to set up this networking event for the Urban Survival Project and I keep putting it off. Frankly because entertaining people is just not my idea of fun; networking makes me groan; it sounds like the sort of thing I’d have to present something at and of course I have no idea what I’m going to say. But in the interest of following my own advice, I’m going to take the slogan approach, feel the fear and do it anyway...
So if you’re reading this you have now been formally invited to the first USP catch up event on the 6th of February 2008. Location and further details to follow!
