My guilty little secret; I am an absolute wiz at procrastination. When I was at school I thought that when I finally hit adulthood that I would grow out of it. Unfortunately, at 34 years old it does not seem to have happened.
I procrastinate in both my work and personal life. I sometimes wonder if work procrastination comes from a lack of confidence in my own ability to make decisions and to have confidence in those decisions. In previous jobs I have left the hardest jobs (or the jobs I do not want to do) until last and would do everything in my power to avoid having to do them; only to find that when I actually got stuck into the task that it was not that difficult. I have read Eat that Frog and the Fish Philosophy and they always inspire me. I stick to their philosophies but eventually fall back into old habits.
The other thing that I have struggled with since having a job where my confidence was knocked out of me, is asking questions. I constantly fail to ask questions as I do not want to appear stupid, and this often holds me up on particular tasks. Then I start to stew and get even more stressed out, and then I wickedly procrastinate!
How do I break the procrastination habits of a life time?
I will write my “to do” lists and start tackling at least 2 things from both my work and personal lists each day until they are finished. I will tackle the jobs I least like or that are hard in the morning and get them out of the way. I will try not to use social networking sites to put off inevitable jobs and I will close my email and only open it a few times a day.
Just for the record Twitter, Facebook and email’s are great procrastination tools for me!
Facebook is a nightmare if you're procrastinating.
ReplyDeleteI always procrastinate tasks I don't want to do. I will put them off for as long as humanly possible. That said if I enjoy the task, I jump right on it! :)