Procrastination Pointers

Procrastination is one of the biggest enemies we have to our personal productivity. Thinking about doing something and planning to do it are fine, but what if we fail to move ahead?

Procrastinating the unimportant items in our day is a useful talent. The problem for many, however, is that we are procrastinating the important and crucial items in our day, reducing our personal productivity and increasing our stress levels.

Here are five pointers to help you to better overcome procrastination. (You can implement them now or perhaps tomorrow or, better yet, next week!)

1. Daily planning the night before.

"People don't plan to fail but they sometimes fail to plan". Without a plan of action in place before you arrive for work it is real easy to get caught up in "stuff". The phone rings, someone drops by and you direct your time responding to the loudest voices demanding your attention rather than to the most important priorities on your plate. A plan of action, prepared the night before is like a roadmap for the next day. You know what your next step ought to be to get you into productive action and away from procrastination.

2. Work with a clean desk.

"Out of sight, out of mind." The reverse of that is just as true. When it's in sight, it's in mind and most of us cannot help but be distracted and our time is then directed to the less important and easier tasks causing us to put off the more important tasks. Working with a clean desk or clean work environment permits us to have only the most important task before us so that we can focus all of our attention on that task without other visual distractions.