Procrastination is a real and present danger to your business and to your life. Fortunately you can kill it easily. This article explains how.
First off, let’s have a think about procrastination itself. What is it? As far as a definition is concerned, procrastination is basically putting off something you’d rather not do. Sometimes you might put it off for a short while. Other times you may put it off indefinitely.
Neither option is good for your business or your life.
Because here’s the thing. The tasks that we procrastinate over tend to be the boring but necessary steps in processes that will ultimately lead to something positive—or at least necessary—for us.
But we put off the bit we don’t want to do because they are distasteful.
An example. Say you are at a party and you see a beautiful girl over by the pop-up bar, ordering a glass of champagne. She’s dressed elegantly. She is exactly your type.
Of course you would love to date her, and ultimately get undressed with her. But before you reach that point you will have to speak to her. And that means risk and an uncertain outcome.
Most obviously, she might reject you. That could hurt, and it could be embarrassing if other people notice.
But let’s take another example—sorting out documents for a property deal, which I had to do earlier today.
Now, paperwork is not something that any of us like. And so even though the ultimate outcome of what I had to do will be a net gain for me (rental income from my property), nevertheless I dragged my feet over it and failed to take action for some time.
The things we procrastinate over all have this in common—they cause us pain of some kind (even if it’s only imagined pain)—and thus we fear them.
We fear talking to the attractive girl because she might reject us. We fear doing the paperwork because it is boring (pain) and worse, it may be complicated and we fear getting it wrong and having to spend even more time over it (increased pain).
But failing to take action as a result of this is not the answer—obviously.
So what do you do to break the procrastination deadlock? Simply this:
You focus on the outcome.
It really is as simple as that.
First off, you have to think about why you are doing this irksome thing in the first place.
Typically it’s going to be in order to get something you want or to avoid a consequence that you don’t want.
Either way, what you need to do is visualise the positive outcome that you’ll get as a result of doing the thing you’re procrastinating over and concentrate on that as you force yourself to do the task.
As long as you keep visualising what you want, and you make a deal with yourself to refuse to listen to any excuses that your brain might throw up as you do what needs to be done then you’ll get through.
Amazingly, you might find that you start to enjoy the task you avoided—because you’ve built a strong mental connection with it to the outcome you desire.
And when you’ve finished the thing you’d procrastinated over then you will feel a massive flood of satisfaction. Guaranteed.
So remember, whenever you don’t want to do anything, look past the task itself towards the outcome you crave. And then move forward until you come to the end.
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