Ah, procrastination…

One way to find more time is to avoid (or reduce) procrastination… We rarely make good use of time when we are procrastinating. And procrastination drains us of good energy… We feel badly about ourselves… A negative loop ensues.

We know this, we are victims of this, and we continue to succumb.

We’re human – by definition, not perfect – but we might look at why we typically procrastinate in order to find alternative behaviors (or at least help us hack our human tendencies!).

I often resist work when a project or assignment seems really big or amorphous – just poorly defined. If there are too many unknowns or I don’t understand the ‘why’ – the goal – it can be very difficult to take charge.

[Some video I shot on FB Live about this topic…] 

In addition, as humans, we are wired to want to complete tasks. So if the entirety of a project is poorly scoped, or is going to take a long time to fully execute, we’re not even ensured the satisfaction that comes with completion. We’re left in a constant state of limbo.

To work against procrastination we can break the big project into smaller bites – we’ve all heard this, right? What was more helpful for me was something I read read years ago in David Allen’s Getting Things Done. His suggestion was to consider only the very next action. This tiny bit of wisdom gave me an instant sense of relief at a time when life was getting unreasonably messy.

So when I am planning, instead of writing a project name in the calendar, I write what the next actions are. For example:

**if I am working on an annual event, I might write in my planner: “send speaker contracts” and “review committee notes” instead of “annual event”

**if I have a training event the following week, instead of writing, “training event” I enter the specific actions like, “review deck” and “print handouts”

**if a have an even more lengthy project, (like the workbook I am creating for my public workshops) the process is a little different. I can generally only work on it in two hour chunks. So when I have to move onto something else, I will note what’s ‘next’ and enter those next actions into my calendar (or master project list)

By making some simple notes and breaking things down and I wasting WAY less time.

So now, think of your own massive list of to-dos. What is something that elicits resistance? What is the VERY next action that will move that thing forward? You can think of the very next thing, right? I bet you already feel better!

About Linda Stacy

Linda is a Boston-based Productivity Specialist and author of The Whole Package Professional: The Definitive Guide to Productivity, Success and Fulfillment in Business and Life. She created the LivingBluPrints System based on her experience as busy professional in the management consulting industry, an entrepreneur, and years of research, training, and living her best life.

Linda hosts public workshops and brings her transformative productivity system to corporate audiences, entrepreneurs, and hyper-busy professionals.