So what’s nagging you?
I asked myself this question on my day off last week, and the answer was the laundry list of things I was fearing:
Bills needed to be paid.
Letters needed to be written and mailed.
Phone calls needed to be made.
Taxes needed to be filed.
Magazines needed to be sorted and thinned.
Clutter needed to be sorted, with some being put up for online auction and the rest sent to charity.
My wireless internet connection needed to be repaired.
My business web site needed updating.
The list really went on and on. And the common factor in every item on the list was that each had been there for some time. These were the items on my daily to-do list that got bumped forward day after day. I had to admit I was procrastinating, and I wondered what it was costing me in terms of energy.
Have you ever been around a child (or a childish adult!) who likes to tap on your arm to get your attention? Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap… You may be trying to focus on conversation, but there’s that little nagging tapping. You can try to shrug it off, but it’ll immediately resume. Procrastination is very similar in that when you’re trying to focus on anything at all, there’s a weight on your mind. You know you’re avoiding something, and you’re none too pleased with yourself for it. What’s frustrating is that even after you have put in a long day at work and feel you deserve some rest, you cannot completely relax because that task is tap-tap-tapping on your mind.
Signs and Symptoms of Procrastination
- A task seems complex. Most likely the tasks you keep avoiding seem like they will take more problem-solving energy than you have available. When I thought about doing my taxes, I was flooded with troubling questions: Will I be able to itemize, or will I have to take the standard deduction? Can I even locate everything I need to be able to itemize? How long will that take me?
- The time required to complete the task seems enormous. Cleaning the oven will take me two hours. Sorting out that incorrect bill will take at least an hour, and probably 75% of that time I’ll be on hold!
- A new, somewhat difficult or tedious, but not troubling, task suddenly becomes extremely important. Never underestimate the wiles of a mind determined to procrastinate. When you really need to solve a problem with your web site yet suddenly your mind insists that you need to wash and wax the car today, you’re procrastinating.
- You cannot seem to relax. You’ve taken David Allen’s advice (Getting Things Done) and dumped all of your to-do’s into a very long list, but instead of having a mind like calm water, you have the white rapids.
The Cost of Procrastination
The cost has been named, and that is, a drain on your energy; however, it is difficult to quantify this in numbers. Know this: If you’re thinking about the task at work and when you are supposed to be relaxing, it is significant because you are never able to be fully immersed in any task. The cost then becomes your bringing less than 100% of your creative, intellectual, even physical, energy to anything you wish to accomplish. There are other quantifiable costs to procrastinating, of course, such as late fees, legal problems, and even lost employment.
Six Ways to Fix Your Energy Leaks Pronto
If we could just have a simple formula, that would be wonderful and people would no longer wrangle over ways to stop procrastinating. I don’t have that simple formula for you, but I can share a few things I learned after asking “what’s nagging me?” last week:
- Determine to just get started on a task. Give yourself permission not to have to complete the whole thing. I did this with the phone calls I needed to make. Some were stressful and required some intensive problem-solving, but what I found was that once I had the momentum of a task underway, I didn’t want to stop. Bring a timer to the task if you find it helpful. Set your timer for 15 minutes, and determine to spend at least that much time at work on a single task.
- Realize you’re probably overestimating the time the task will take. In fact, if you have some dreaded tasks that you must do periodically (like taxes), clock them for the future. Rather than taking days, I found I could complete my taxes in a few hours. I’m determined to remember this for next year.
- Raise your awareness of your sudden urges to do odd tasks. If it’s suddenly imperative that you begin a new project, hold up and ask yourself what you’re avoiding.
- Chunk your dreaded tasks into a day off. This is another approach you might take instead of just starting on a task. Determine that you’re going to knock off as many of these monster tasks as possible on your day off, and stick to that decision. This is the way I approached my laundry list last week, and after a good 6-8 hours of work, I had solved problems and eliminated tasks that had been on my list for months. What a great feeling!
- Set a limit on how many times you’ll “bump” a task on your to-do list. I don’t believe David Allen ever thought we’d achieve a mind like still water if we just kept moving things around rather than accomplishing our monster tasks. Set a limit of 3 times or so that you’ll bump a task to a new day, and stick to that limit.
- Set a reward in advance. This is important, and make it reflective of the time and effort spent. When you devote a significant part of the day to clearing your list, make sure you know ahead of time that you’re going to be getting something special that feels like a suitable reward.
The Payoff
Just as the cost of procrastinating cannot be completely quantified, the payoff of taking care of things cannot be entirely translated into numbers. After I had worked for the greater part of a day tying up my loose ends, I felt such relief that it made me more aware of how much these things must have been pressing on my mind. Now I know when I spend time reading my book that I don’t have some long-overdue communication I need to take action on.
The more you practice applying the principles of plugging your procrastination energy leaks, the more aware you’ll be of the quadrants of your life, and ultimately, the more you’ll be able to be fully present in the task at hand, whatever it is.
Are any of these tips helping you? Have a technique for stopping procrastination? Please share in the comments!
Photo credit: Vrogy
Tags: Motivation, overwhelm, procrastination, tasks
