The Procrastinator’s Toolkit

Acknowledge to yourself that this is a huge positive step, and maintain your resolve as we provide you with a few more simple steps to which you can apply it.
Step 1 – Don’t Panic!

Your situation is not unique. The world is full of procrastinators – some of whom have raised it to an art form! Against some of them, you look like a dynamo of resolve and results! But, we both know you have a way to go, and we are both resolved that you will take steps 2 onwards, right?

Having realised that you are in a hole, the next thing to do is to look for a way out. Well a Goal would be a fine start, so how about:
Step 2 – Set a Goal

Select one task that you have a history of putting off – make sure it’s a significant task, but it doesn’t have to be the biggest, baddest one in the box; just a medium size one would be good to start on.

With the task in mind, write out a goal. Make sure that your goal statement has the following elements; that it is:

Dated (“tomorrow” won’t work; tomorrow’s date will)
Precise (numbers would be good)
A positive statement of what you want as an end result
In the first person (ie, it contains the word “I” followed by a verb)
Achievable (set yourself up for a success on which you will build)

Step 3 – Practice Affirmations

Write out your goal at least 3 times a day, then recite it (softly, in private is OK) three times a day for more than 27 days. (Why “more than 27” – we could tell you, but we’d have to kill you, and that would defeat the purpose of this exercise, so just trust us!)
Step 4 – Complete a Reality Checklist

What could possibly have prevented you from achieving this Goal up to date?

You might find the following checklist helpful in localising or labelling your challenge:

Lack of effectively-articulated goals? These lead too Fear – I’ll probably fail, so best not to try.

o Distraction – doing the stuff that’s easy but doesn’t matter

o Perfectionism – I’ll start when everything is perfect

o Lack of opportunity – goals focus the power of your unconscious genii and bring hidden opportunities to your attention

Lack of desire

o What do you really want? (Could this be “lack of goals” again?)

Lack of commitment

o Commitment to a goal creates a deep channel to which energy naturally gravitates and flows and grows.

Lack of energy

o To create energy, expend energy – do something and you’ll start the flow!

o Lack of goals leads to lack of energy!

o Lack of commitment leads to a shallow energy flow

Lack of Time

o Lack of clear focus (eg, goals) leads to unproductive priorities

o Thinking about what you don’t want to do occupies the time you could allocate to doing what you do want to do. (Could this be “lack of commitment to your goals” yet again?)

Stress

o Absence of proven systems and structure means that everything has to be invented anew – and all the old mistakes made again. Very stressful!

o Fear of rejection and “taking it personally”. (In sales and Life, people seldom reject you; they reject the “offer” that you are not making attractive to them – because you did not put the effort into following a proven system!

Failure

o Comes from lack of

• Goals
• Commitment
• Preparation
• Systems
• Desire
• Energy
• Priorities

Step 5 – Only Fix the Broken Bits

How do you rectify all of these? You don’t!

Be realistic, and pick the ones that are truly and issue, and leave the rest (avoid perfectionism, and get on with the job).
Step 6 – Only Do What’s Immediately Possible

Do what you can do simply, immediately and with available resources:

1. Set Goals

2. Increase your Desire

a. Emotion leads to action, so get emotionally involved in the desired outcome of your commitment to change. Imagine how good it will be. Fantasize and enjoy the result before it’s real. Get attached! Buy in! Be passionate!

3. Commit to action. Be a pig!

a. Commitment is like a bacon and egg dinner. The chicken has an interest, but the pig is committed.

4. Get fit.

a. Start regular, progressively challenging exercise and you will find your energy level rising! Use your new energy for you new resolve to get new results.

Get organised!

• Put in place – buy! – a proven time management system and use it! Or invest in attending a time management course that supplies a support system that you can afterwards use to implement the ideas it teaches.
• Learn a relaxation technique
• Meditation is hard to beat, but a quiet walk through a park or forest has merit as well.
• Create and give importance to your “unwind time”
• Promise yourself unwind time after you complete a stage of your chosen task.
• Create an optimistic outlook based on proof!
• Study an expert in the field of your challenge.
• Buy autobiographies of such a person, and get inside their heads.
• Note that they often start their story with their challenges, and don’t be surprised if they are just the ones you have now! Great! Here’s a map of how to get to where you want to go from where you are now.
• Kill the habit of procrastination. Counter this using the only means proven to reach deep-seated negative programs you may be running in your brain (ie, the ones on your “motherboard”). Use:
• Well-structured Affirmations (written and/or spoken), repeated with passion. (Belief is not necessary, but is desirable since it accelerates the process); and/or
• Action executed with a commitment to Excellence; and/or
• Doing the things you are afraid of until they become mundane; and/or
• Perfect practice

Bonus Tips For Soon-To-Be Former Procrastinators

• Screw up the courage and set a challenging but achievable goal (you may need to talk to positive and supportive friends for help on this. Avoid friends who console you and attempt to keep you were you are; look for the ones who will challenge you to change. They are your true friends because they see the “better you” clearer than you do)
• Find a good book on dealing with your challenge and read it from cover to cover, taking notes and looking for just three solutions you can apply now, with little resources. Look around for any other resources or people to support your progress.

Settle on a strategy and do it! You might simply:

• Double your efforts in an area where you were previously only moderately successful.
• Double the time you allocated to a task that you find challenging but which you accept you must master for progress.
• Double your activity on a key component of your chosen challenging task.
• Keep count of your activity each period, day, week on this task and review it regularly. When you could the items do they prove that you are really as dedicated and active as you feel you are,
• Double your support network – those challenging people – and ask them to keep you honest and on track with your project (Oh! That’s assuming that you shared it with them in the first place!)
• Double up. Do some tasks twice to make them routine and to remove any resistance to them within yourself.
• Review the things that don’t work for the lessons that they hold for you.
• We usually learn more from our failures than from our successes.

Wrap Up

From all of the above, select just 3 courses of action that you will apply, with commitment and passion, in the next 7 days.

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The Procrastinator’s Creed

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.

2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.

3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.

4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.

5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.

6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.

7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesimally small, is not exactly zero.

8. If at first I don’t succeed, there is always next year.

9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.

10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.

11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.

12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.

13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.

14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator’s Society) if they ever get it organized.