Is procrastination of all tasks equal?

Procrastination is so easy and getting things done is so hard! Unfortunately, this is the reality of the world. This phenomena is really a curse for us; it destroys productivity and damages our self esteem. But that doesn’t change the reality- procrastination is still easy and getting things done is still hard. This article is going to discuss what type of chores are we prone to put off and what types are easier for us to complete and what this means to you.

The periodical “Medical News Today” describes an interesting experiment done by a team of psychologists, led by Sean McCrea of the University of Konstanz in Germany, to see what types of activities are we most likely to postpone doing.

They gave a questionnaire to 2 groups of students that dealt with simple everyday activities, like opening up a bank account and keeping a diary. They were instructed to respond by email within three weeks and at that time, when the sent back the filled out questionnaire they would receive a pay check for taking part in the survey.

The difference between the two groups was that one group were asked very concrete questions, like how to speak to the bank manager while the other group were asked more abstract type of questions, like what is the main personality trait of person has a bank account.

The findings were very clear; the group who were asked abstract questions procrastinated more, to such a degree that some never even finished the assignment (and forfeited their pay). On the other hand, those that were asked more the concrete questions emailed their responses much sooner.

The psychologists conclude that "merely thinking about the task in more concrete, specific terms makes it feel like it should be completed sooner and thus reducing procrastination."

The practical implication of this study is tremendous! When you see that you, your children, or your workers are pushing things off, try to frame the task in a more concrete manner to ease the difficulty of “getting things done”.

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Procrastination Is Bad! 3 Strategies To Help You Beat It.

There is no question about it.... procrastination is bad, and being industrious is good! This is hard to admit this to ourselves because of fear, feeling overwhelmed, or because we are just plain lazy but, deep down inside, we all know that in the long run the one who who is industrious accomplishes and the one that procrastinates stays behind. Unfortunately, though, it’s just very hard to be hardworking focused. In this article I will share with you 3 proven strategies that successful people use to conquer procrastination.

3 Ways To Conquer Procrastination

1. The Split-It-Thin-And-Win Strategy. If you find yourself procrastinating and pushing off starting a long complex project, the reason might be because are overwhelmed and freeze because of the massiveness of the project. If this is he case, then a good way to help you begin to work is to sit down with a paper and pen and break the whole project into much smaller manageable mini-tasks. You gain 2 things with this strategy. Firstly, you won’t be overwhelmed because you are focusing only on the little task that is in front of you. Secondly, the momentum that you will gain by finishing each little task will charge you energize to complete the whole task.

2. The Engage-A-Friend-To-Reach-The-End strategy. This is a powerful and effective strategy to use when you have to do a long project. Ask a friend/spouse (hopefully also a friend)/ colleague to monitor your progress and to give you support, nudge you (gently) and simply to check how things are going.

3. Tell the world strategy. This is similar to the above strategy but much more negative. Tell EVERYONE (or at least a lot of people) that you see that you plan to do {project} by {specific time}. The thought of the facing these people if you don’t accomplish your plan will help you to stop procrastinating and become hardworking.

If you find that it is hard to break the procrastination habit then go to http://stoprocrastinationnow.blogspot.com/2009/03/stop-procrastinating.html and read a review of a great resource to conquer procrastination.

Congratulations. You Admit That You Procrastinate.

Congratulations. You Admit That You Procrastinate.

Great, you have decided to stop living in denial and admit that you have a problem called procrastination. You realize that procrastination is a real killer. That’s right. It doesn’t kill your body but it does kill your chance to have a successful and meaningful life. Success and long term happiness comes when you DO something and not when you push off doing things and “hope for the best”. Keep on reading and discover some proven strategies that successful people have used to conquer procrastination.

3 Strategies To Conquer Procrastination

1. Post-A-Note. One of the ways that “neutralize” our conscience so it won’t bother to do a difficult task is that we “forget” what we have to do. As long as we don’t have that annoying feeling of our conscience nagging us to do something we can... do nothing. Therefore put up a note in a visible place to let your conscience nag you to do what you have to do.

2. Fast Forward. Focus on the end result. This works in two ways. Firstly, it makes it easier for you to your difficult task because it akes your mind away from the difficulty of that task. And secondly it gives you something to work toward.

3. Hibernation. Hiberantion Can Be Liberation. One of the ways that we “pull off” procrastination is that we find other things do to. We all of a sudden remember to make a phone call to an old friend. We all of sudden remember that “we have to” buy a birthday card for a distant relative, etc. Therefore sometimes it’s worth it to go in your room, lock the door, close your cellphone, close the computer and do what you have to do. When you take away all possible distractions it is much harder to procrastinate.

Once again, congratulations that you stopped living in denial and you admitted to yourself that you procrastinate. Now take the next step and conquer your procrastination.

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Procrastination ruins our life!

That’s right it is procrastination is one of the biggest reasons we are not successful in life. Unfortunately, proportionately to it’s importance is also the difficulty to get rid of this menacing trait. Read on to learn some techniques that people have successfully used to conquer procrastination.

Techniques To Conquer Procrastination

1. Prioritize. One of the reasons that we procrastinate is that we get overwhelmed with so many important things to do that we don’t know where to start. In the beginning of the day or weekend sit down and make a list of the most important things you want to do and do them first.

2. Jump in and do it. A lot of times we put off doing simple, straightforward, and one minute things, like calling a repairman. In these cases just take a deep breath and DO IT. There is no other way. It might help to just focus on the good feeling you’ll have after it’s finish.

3. Give yourself a time limit just to start it. We push off a lot of tasks simply because they look so big to us. If this is why you are procrastinating then give yourself just 10 or 15 minutes to start it. After that (put on timer if you want), decide if you want to continue or not. You’ll see that a lot of times the main cause for procrastinating was only the fear to begin but after you begin you’ll find it easy to finish.

4. Pamper yourself. If you are pushing off doing a big project it might help to promise yourself something nice if you finish by a certain time; buying something nice, going out on the town, or just going to a park with your spouse or by yourself. Just remember though, if it will cost money, put the money on the side now so the promise to yourself will be more real.

Use some of these easy strategies to conquer procrastination and begin to live a successful, fulfilled, and happy life.

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Procrastination: Some Tips How To Stop It

Procrastination murders! I’m not referring to physical death, which is surely a possibility if you put off going to your doctor for an annual examination. I’m talking about murdering your soul! What does this mean? Putting things off day after day, month after month, year after year, causes that you more or less don’t really live; you only exist. Not too exciting, no?

Okay, so what can you do to stop your procrastination. Well first let’s figure out what causes it.

Cause #1. Fear of both failure and success. Don’t laugh; to move away from your “middle class” neighborhood to the fancy part of town causes uneasiness. We feel more comfortable with a difficult “known” than a better “unknown”.

Cause #2. Time management. We think something will take sooo much time that we keep on putting it off until we have a long enough block of time to do it. In reality it takes only a fraction of the time that we think.

Cause #3. Trying to be perfect. Perfectionists see every project so complicated that not only do they fear failure; failure is almost certain! They know that it takes days and days (or weeks and weeks) to achieve their level of perfection, so they never even start.

What To Do To Stop Procrastination

Firstly identify what is causing YOUR procrastination:

If it’s:

The Fear Aspect: If you procrastinate because you fear failure then you have to train your mind to think about what will it be like AFTER you finish. By focusing on the outcome instead of the process you won’t worry so much.

If you fear success then you have to sit down and think of the plusses of reaching your goals versus the minuses of staying where you are.

Time Management: The simplest way to tackle this is to make a schedule for yourself. Estimate how long you are willing to work on a certain project and after you have worked on the project that amount of time... move on to something else. Tomorrow or next weekend get back to the first project.

Perfectionism: To change this trait is the hardest of all. You have to constantly tell yourself that almost good is also good. Take Microsoft as an example. How many .1 and .2 versions of Windows went on the market. If he was a crazy perfectionist Windows would have never made it to the market place and to your computer.

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Read it and don’t let procrastination kill YOUR life.

Why Do You Procrastinate?

Procrastination is so destructive! It holds back more people from success than almost anything else. If is is harmful to us, why then do we do put things off for tomorrow what we should do now? In this article I will reveal to you a few of the many reasons why people procrastinate and then direct you to a great resource that can help you to finally put and end to your procrastination once and for all. Keep on reading..

One of the reasons that we procrastinate is that we tell ourselves that I’ll do it when I’m in the proper frame of mind. Let’s get real: Unpleasant tasks are..., well, unpleasant so you’ll probably never be in the “right mood” to them. Washing dishes, mowing the lawn, or English grammar just isn’t fun. However, something that I did notice in myself is that once I finally do start these unpleasant chores, and get “into it” I forget my mood and focus on just finishing up what I have to do. And believe me, the more dreadful the task, the quicker you want to finish it and get it out of the way.

Not only do we procrastinate before we start a task, we also procrastinate finishing things. One of the reasons for this is that we miscalculate the time we think that we need to do it. For instance, you might think that you can finish mowing the lawn in 2 hours, but in reality it is a whole day job. After you are working for 2 and half or 3 hours you get discouraged and you throw up your arms in total despondence as if to say, ‘I’ll never finish. Let me take a break!”

Sometimes a bad time estimation works in the opposite direction; you see that you gave yourself too much time for something so you say to yourself, “There is no reason to rush and finish up what I’m doing. I have plenty of time.” Until the dishes are piled up, the questions on the history homework are empty, and the few square feet of lawn is still not mowed. (You know what I mean?

These are not the main reasons we procrastinate, however. The main reason is our fear of failure. This is especially true when we have to do something that will bring us monetary value. The horrible feeling of failing is just too much for a lot of us, so we push off and off and off so we won’t fail. (The logic is that if I don’t try then I didn’t fail, I just didn’t do it!)

“One hundred percent”, you say, “he hit the nail right on the head!. But what can I do about it. Firstly, don’t expect to change this bad and destructive habit over night. There are no magic wands or magic potions that can help you overcome procrastination over night. This is a bad habit that you have to unlearn.

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Why Procrastinate? What’s Keeping You From Doing...?

Be honest with yourself: procrastination is a real killer. We suffer so much from it, it makes living life like being in a pressure cooker and it is probably the biggest reason that we are not successful. Why do we suffer from this, and much more important, what can you do about it? If you know what I’m talking about keep on reading- this might be your ticket to overcoming this destructive habit and to get out of the pressure cooker.

Why do we procrastinate? Here are the two main reasons.

1. Fear of failure. No one likes to fail, so we think to ourselves, “If I don’t try I won’t have to suffer the feeling of failing.”

2. Fear of succeeding.Think about if for a second and don’t just laugh at me (even if does sound way off!) If you are successful you will have to make huge life style changes. If you become super rich you’ll move out of the neighborhood and have to make new friends. Not too much fun, no? And more than that, if you are successful, people will expect more from you and you’ll have to work harder. Who wants that? Often times this is going on deep down in your head (in a place where you are not even aware that you are thinking like this)

“Makes sense”, you say to yourself, “but what should I do about it?” Unfortunetly there is no magic wand to help us overcome our procrastination and no magic pill. MAGIC PILL, oh yeh, sadly, some people do turn to medicine but this is surely not the answer. It is only temporary, wears off and then you are back to square one, with the added problem of it being a few hours later and the work is still not done! It is a viscous down spiraling cycle! Drugs are not the answer.

What then is the answer; change your mindset. This, unfortunately much easier said than done. There is no easy way to do this.

One way to do it, though, is to sit down and ask yourself the following question, “What is the worst thing that can happen if I succeed/ fail?” By envisioning the worst case scenario, you realize that in many cases, the worst isn’t really all that bad. You should know though, that it might be pretty bad, “If I go on the plane and it crashes...” However, when your realize how infrequently this happens, you’ll see that there is nothing really to worry about.

After you spend a little time envisioning the wost that can happen, start to envision the GREAT FEELING and other benefits that you’ll have when you do finish your chore.

These two thoughts together, increasing your awareness of the benefit and decreasing the pain of doing what you have to do, will help you to finally get a move on things.

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