What makes procrastination so dangerous is that anyone from interns to CEOs is capable of falling victim to it at any time. It is the most insidious of bad work habits, the one you may not even realize has infiltrated your workflow until it’s too late.
Think about it: You have a report to file today at 2:00 p.m. You’ve done all the prep work necessary to easily make your deadline. That moment of conversion from work-in-progress to complete is within reach. You’re almost there.
Then you get that impulse: What is TREC up to on Twitter? Have I seen last night’s event photos on Facebook and Instagram? Wait, I did follow TREC’s LinkedIn page, right? Let me quickly check on that and then I’ll finish my assignment.*
Three hours goes by and you’re deep into studying TREC FAQs and history. You still haven’t finished that assignment. You didn’t intend to be lazy, but you were. You procrastinated.
Happens to the best of us.
Luckily, leadership development coach and Navy SEALs Training RDAC mental training mentor Renita Kalhorn is here to help with a five-step plan to break procrastination’s nasty spell and get real work done:
- Break through the psychological inertia: Inertia, Kalhorn writes, is more like a wall than a steep grade. Once you break through that wall, momentum will take over.
- Pinpoint the resistance: Kalhorn suggests asking yourself what part of the task you’re dreading to complete to prevent it from overtaking your feelings about the overall task and allow you to determine the best action to take.
- Use time as a tool: Put a limit to how much time you’ll devote to a task and your mind may also limit the associated discomfort, Kalhorn writes.
- Set micro-goals: Sometimes, projects are too intimidating to begin, but completing an incremental task that creates no psychological resistance is a great way to build confidence and establish workflow, she writes.
- Stop in the middle: By doing this, Kalhorn says you’ll maintain momentum into your next work session because you’ll know exactly where to start and how to proceed.
Procrastination’s threat may always loom, but now you’ll be prepared to…checks Twitter, RTs picture of dog wearing tiny sunglasses and Christmas sweater…combat it.
*If you’re going to procrastinate, you might as well support TREC while doing so.