The Ultimate Cure for Procrastination
The death of success comes from the delusion of “I’ll Do It Later.”
This one is even more insidious than the secret to failure that I wrote about a while back… because when we say that “I’ll do it later”, we are usually lying to ourselves on some level.
We may not intend to be lying… but we usually are.
In Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill have a solution for this -
Do It Now
That’s it.
Just Do It Now.
Whenever you find yourself saying “I’ll do it later”, answer yourself with the self-motivator Do It Now.
When You Can’t Do It Now
Sometimes you honestly can’t Do It Now. If you’re in the middle of something else, and the thought “Wow, the garbage needs to go out” comes up, you’ve got a couple of choices.
1.) Stop what you are doing and take the garbage out.
2.) Continue what you are doing and take the garbage out later.
The problem with “later” is that if we don’t get “take out the garbage” out of our heads, it’s going to keep popping up until it’s taken care of.
In these situations, I like to use what David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, calls the “Two Minute Rule.”
If it can be accomplished in two minutes or less… Do It Now.
If it can’t, capture the thought in whatever way you prefer – write it down, record it… whatever works best for you.
The “two minutes” is an arbitrary time frame. The idea behind it is to decide which of the following would take more time with the least disturbance – recording it for later action, or Doing It Now.
It may actually take 5 minutes, but if that garbage has been piling up for awhile… it may be best to just go ahead and Do It Now.
What Just Came Up For You?
While reading this, what came up for you that needs to get done, but you haven’t for whatever reason?
Why not Do It Now?
[ image credit: Piotr Lewandowski on stock.xchng ]
This post has 26 comments
January 8th, 2008
“Just Do It Now.” Great catchphrase… it’s the classic Nike ad merged with GTD. Simple, yet effective.
Also, great redesign of the site!
January 8th, 2008
Al,
Strange that Nike didn’t even enter my head when writing this! You’d think that it would have…
Thanks for the compliments on the redesign!
January 8th, 2008
I struggle with this one. Sometimes I’m really into getting everything done as it pops up. Other times I think it’s better to focus on the task at hand and just note ideas when I have them.
The problem with option 1 is that I feel really scattered and spend the day running from one fire to another. On the other hand, option 2 usually leaves me with a “To Do” list that’s about 8 miles long.
Sigh.
January 8th, 2008
Hi Maria,
I hear you. Been there myself on both fronts, and still get there sometimes!
For me, when it comes to the first option, I had to add the “only if it won’t cause a disturbance or disruption in what I’m doing.” Otherwise, as you said, you will always be jumping from here to there, doing those two minute tasks!
When it comes to the 8 mile long “To Do” lists, I consider that normal.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll never get everything done that I want to. But when it comes to those things that I think that I want to do, but have trouble getting started on, just committing to working on them for a short time (15 minutes works for me, but it could be as short as five minutes) gives me the boost and sense of accomplishment I need.
Hope that helps! And thanks for the comment.
January 8th, 2008
I don’t say “I’ll do it later.” I just put it on my Possibility List. If there are too many things nagging at me, I spend time simplifying my life. I don’t like being pushed around, and I have my priorities straight.
January 8th, 2008
Hi Lyman, just like what you have said, it will keep popping up in my head! Sometimes, I just have to ignore all the objections I have in my mind and just do it, done, over!
January 9th, 2008
Hi Lyman, mmm, both agree and disagree with the post.
Maybe it’s better if I say that I want to add something, that is not to do much multitasking! Put priority as well!
If whenever you’re reminded of something, then you’re doing it, you will lose focus on what you’re doing right now, which might be a more important thing!
If what you’re doing right now is the right thing and important thing to do, don’t let yourself distracted! Sometimes we’re going to do other small things, such as checking email, replying email, etc to run away from important task we have in hand. In that case, I preferred the idea of writing it down, and do it later!
Hope can add to the discussion, wanna share my post on procrastination @
How to avoid busyness for procrastinator
Thanks for the article!
Robert
January 11th, 2008
Jean – that is perfect! We are the ones in charge of our lists, not the other way around! They are supposed to serve us, not master us. Thanks for that important point.
January 11th, 2008
Life Reflection,
Sometimes the blinders *do* have to go on just to get done what we want to get done. Even when the objections are “valid”, many times they can become just another barrier to getting the results that we want to get.
January 11th, 2008
Robert,
Thanks for sharing that article. You’re right, we don’t want to multi-task… we can only do one thing at a time, no matter what we think. The point of the “two minute rule” isn’t to get us to try to do more, it’s to get the stuff that keeps popping up in our heads out of there so we can focus on what we are doing now. The key is to make a quick decision about which will take longer – deferring it or just doing it now.
January 11th, 2008
Hmmmm… I have a totally different take on this.
I labeled myself a “procrastinator” for years… and I continually lived up to that label!
So – I have dumped that label — I don’t really believe in procrastination… If I am not doing something – there is a reason – and usually that reason is I am not in alignment with it.
I have learned how to listen to my inner voice and follow my inner voice’s timetable —
I like Cheerful Monk’s probability list – I put my stuff on the Universe’s to do list.
January 11th, 2008
Hi Ellie,
I agree with you on the labeling aspect – we need to be careful when we start saying things like “I am X”… as you said, we do tend to live up to it.
But I’ve found in my own experience that sometimes I do need to just give myself a little push to do things. Actually, maybe “push” isn’t the right word… I like what what said earlier about just ignoring the conscious objections and moving; for me that seems to work well.
You are also dead on about there being something behind the lack of action. For me, sometimes just taking the action I’m avoiding is a great way to discover and move beyond whatever it was that was holding me back in the first place.
The Universe’s To Do List, Possibility Lists… both great *positive* labels.
Thanks for your thoughts!
January 14th, 2008
Your “do it now” is very good and practical advice for
most things, and putting it off is often an indication that
I don’t really want to do it at all, but think I ’should’
out of duty. The shortcoming of the advice is that there are many situations where the workload becomes overload and overload becomes ‘overwhelmed’ so priorities have to be
chosen or established. Some tasks have time constraints or deadlines and demand a higher priority. Nevertheless, I did
apply the ‘do it now’ to something that was nagging at me,
when I first read this, and it worked like magic! Freed the mind to concentrate on other items. Thanks.
(P.S.I don’t have a website.)
January 14th, 2008
Honestly, I’m also like that. I’m always “do it later”.. but I’m trying to change it now.. This is also one of the reasons why people don’t get what they want. Being an organize person, you know what to do first then next thing to do.. I guess this will work well..
January 16th, 2008
Lawrence,
I’m glad you were able to get something done *now*
.
You are right about priorities and deadlines… but if we got things done *now* (including those priorities) then the deadlines end up not being so deadly.
Thanks for your comment! Keep on coming back… no website is necessary to join in the conversation.
January 16th, 2008
Exactly, Land Projects UK… we usually do know exactly what needs to happen; it’s the doing that gets us tripped up.
Just like anything else, it’s a habit that needs to be developed. But each time we do it, it makes the next time easier.
Thanks for the comment!
January 16th, 2008
Lyman,
For me, this is where EverNote comes in. I get SO many ideas, and if try to just do them right now, I would never actually COMPLETE anything. So, I write down the ideas or tasks that come into my head, and they get divided up into the 8 categories of tasks that I do every day. The next time I am working on that particular category, I will look at everything in that list and then prioritize from there what should be done first.
As Ellie indicated, though, sometimes there is a reason why we don’t do certain things, so if I write it down and I never get around to, then I guess it wasn’t that high of a priority after all!
January 16th, 2008
Aaron,
Thanks for mentioning EverNote again! I downloaded it after your plug in 5 Ways Powerful Paperless Proactivity Provides Personal Progress, but thought “What can I do with this that I can’t do with Google Notebook and Calendar?”
The next day, my internet connection went goofy, and I would only be able to get online for a few minutes at a time.
The Google Apps needs a net connection… EverNote doesn’t.
EverNote wins.
January 16th, 2008
Lyman,
Glad that you got to see the value in the program, and thanks for the plug!
You nailed it about the Internet connection. Plus, it has a bunch of bells and whistles that I don’t even use that often. I imagine they would at least put up a good fight with Google Notebook.
January 16th, 2008
You’re welcome, Aaron… and thanks again for turning me on to it.
January 20th, 2008
Here’s another I got from Jack Canfield’s The Power of Focus – Just Delegate it!
When I read Jack’s book, I was sure I couldn’t afford to hire help. I did it anyway. I hired a housekeeper and I hired an assistant for 5 hours a week at $10.00 an hour – and prayed that somehow the $200.00 a month I needed to pay her would show up.
I made two lists. The first list said – “My Assistant will do..” and the second list said “So I can…”
Not only did I afford that assistant and housekeeper, but I almost tripled my revenue that year. Why? Because I was able to stay focused on those things that brought me revenue and delegate much of the rest.
Having said that, I could stand to learn from the 2 minute rule – because I will tend to let the “garbage” pile up at times.
Thanks for a great post, Lyman!
January 25th, 2008
they that live in the world of “I’ll do it later” will end up not achieving anything at the end because that “later” is when you are supposed to be doing something else and you’ll spend it in doing something you should have done before. The world will be a better place if everyone will wake up to their responsibilities and carry it out when it will be more efficient.
January 31st, 2008
Excellent point, Donna… thanks for bringing that up! I’ve never taken the plunge with this kind of delegation, but it’s definitely something to look into.
May 23rd, 2008
There’s never a “later”, but the list is just too damn long!!!
September 10th, 2008
Wow, I actaully might be suffering from this and didn’t notice it, but after reading this I’m going to work towards “doing it NOW”. I always thought it was okay to be like that, I guess I’m afaird to fail. No more of that though. I
think I’m motivated.
December 28th, 2008
I like this article. The “Two Minute Rule” is great to keep things off my task list – but it can’t avoid it; at least not for me.
I’m building up 4 different businesses, while working a full-time 9-5 job. And if that’s not enough – I have a girlfriend! LOL The time I have to do things is so tight – I NEED to task out my stuff correctly; otherwise, I get nothing done, and I’ll simply fail.
I wrote this article if it helps anyone:
Procrastination Cure: 7 Tips to Beat Procrastination And the Struggle Within
The bottom line is this (if you don’t really want to read the article LOL):
Each person has their own reasons why they procrastinate, as well each task. All the task managers and memo pads in the world won’t help if you can’t figure out why you’re not getting things done in the first place.
For example… I seem to procrastinate most on exercise.
Found out there were 2 reasons why I avoided exercise:
1) hard to find the time
2) The bottom-line is it hurts and is uncomfortable.
So what I did/do is find solutions to each.
So for #1 – I simply schedule 20 minutes where I can. Mainly the mornings before starting anything else.
And #2 is the real tough one. But once I recognized why I didn’t want to do it – it was easy to find it’s solution. First off – of course it’s uncomfortable! Duh! But do I really want a Quadruple Bypass surgery like my father had? Heck No!!!!
That’s my motivator!
Procrastinating is a very complex subject – but I believe it can be cured in a few simple steps. And there are lots of books out there that already have solutions. I have my favorite, as I’m sure some of you do too.
So just find your personal reasons.