I’m an expert. Expert procrastinator, that is. I hold an accounting degree, but I procrastinated taking that last class that would have given me my Master of Accountancy. I didn’t want to take it, because it’s not my passion, so I’ve procrastinated until it doesn’t matter. The time limit is up and now I don’t have to decide if it would have been worth the money and time invested to complete it.

I have untold amounts of practice procrastinating. In fact, I’m writing this post (which as been a draft for about a year) as I procrastinate on something else—a lot of something elses, to be frank.

It feels nice keeping my skills up-to-date.

Don’t you ever wonder that if you quit practicing your procrastination you might forget how to procrastinate?

That was a tongue twister, wasn’t it? Whew. I had trouble reading that back through…

This is where I get serious. Because the answer to that question is “yes.”

I’m not going to make this into a long article, so I’ll say only one more thing. Think about it. If you just start practicing not procrastinating one day, and practice a little every day, pretty soon, you won’t be procrastinating nearly as often.

So call it practice. I do. This was my daily practice to quit procrastinating. My next goal? Become a finisher.

Hey, you might could say I’ve been practicing that this morning too! I’ve finished this post.

This week begins National Procrastination Week, but what does it mean?

Is National Procrastination Week supposed to be a time of leisure when we can feel good about putting things off, or is it a time when we’re supposed to bust out of our procrastinating ways and get our stuff done?

I’m not really sure about the answer yet, so I’ll give you a choice. Pick one and follow the instructions for a productive National Procrastination Week.

1. Let things go

Take the week off. Anything time sensitive should be delayed as long as possible. Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone else will do it for you.

2. Play catch up

Schedule every day with as many of those long put off tasks as you can remember and race the clock to get them done before the end of the week. Just think. If you finish even half of them, you’ll be halfway to done.

Can’t get anything done because of email? You’re not alone. One of the most popular (and easiest) ways to procrastinate is to check email, I don’t know, like 300 times a day.

Maybe this is an exaggeration, then again, maybe not. Either way you look at it, if you can learn to shut off all the notifications of email and the auto checking functions, you’ll be that much closer to not having an instant procrastination pal. Take heed, so you don’t end up at the end of the day wondering just where the heck your day went.

Shut off all the email interruptions that could pull you away from what you are doing and send you spiraling out of control. Continue reading this article »

Procrastination is a character trait that isn’t likely to go away and if you’re hoping it will disappear one day, you’ll probably be hoping for a very long time. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. Unless…you become action oriented.

What does action oriented mean?

It means to be oriented toward, or focused on, action.

Do it, do it now. Don’t batch tasks for greater efficiency, and don’t put off something because there’s a better time for it. Just do it now. Take action whenever and wherever you can. You might suffer inefficiencies, but aren’t inefficiencies better than not doing it at all?

The truth is that procrastination is most prevalent when we put something off, because then we just want to put it off longer, later, and sometimes forever. By becoming action oriented and training ourselves to do things without even thinking about them first, we stop procrastination before it has time to take over.

And to me, that’s what becoming action oriented means.