For many people, having a schedule is a way of being accountable to oneself for how one spends one’s time. I’ve fallen into that trap lots of times. I think I’ve finally gotten past that now.

I’ve had the most success not procrastinating when I do away with a schedule altogether. An example of this is my procrastination with my job. I hated going when I felt like I needed to be working on projects that I had at home. I had a schedule and I was working (quite efficiently) on getting these things done. But every time I had to stop so that I could go to the office, or work from home (I do both weekly), I would freeze up and not want to go to work.

One day a few weeks ago, I decided I couldn’t keep this up. I nixed the schedule, told myself that my “home” work wasn’t that important and that I needed a life. The very next Monday, I found myself doing housework I had for months been putting off/doing/putting off again.

It’s been a little over three weeks, and I’m into a fairly laid back routine, and I’ve not has as clean a house and clean laundry in years! I’m wowed by this change. No kidding.

What was even more exciting was that going to work that first week wasn’t a chore. I actually enjoyed getting out of the house on the day I went into the office and I spent an extra 3 hours there that evening catching up some stuff that needed to be done.

It’s been several weeks now, and I’m feeling much more at peace with my job, and I’ve actually gotten plenty of work done on my “home” projects–more than I expected and enough to feel like I’m getting things done.

So, my verdict? Maybe accountability and scheduling your time is not the solution at all. Maybe it’s part of the problem.

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Accountability is Overrated

Over on the Remote Access Computer site, I give tips and information about how I use remote access computer software to work from home. I especially like doing this because I can work extra when I feel like working but I can cut back when I really don’t want to work.

This is also very effective for household work. If you have an urge to clean your bathtubs, but your floors really need picking up, do the tub anyway.

This is actually just a way of using procrastination effectively. Stuff is getting done, and sometimes that’s just as important as getting any specific thing done. There are always going to be days where you’re not going to want to do something that probably needs to be done, but don’t take that as an excuse to go watch TV. At least if you do something else, you’ll have done something!

This tip isn’t for everyone of course, because you need to be the kind of person who actually wants to do something besides watch TV on a regular basis.

But if you can use it, this is a powerful method of beating the urge to procrastinate.

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One sneaky way to avoid procrastinating – work when you feel like working, not when you have to work

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.

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Expert Advice: Practice

That’s never been more clear to me than after this weekend, when I spent some quality time listening to the unabridged audio book Become Who You Were Born to Be: We All Have a Gift…Have You Discovered Yours? by Brian Souza. Now, I’ll admit, the book feels slow sometimes, meandering through biographical tales of inspiration more often than offering practical advice. However, even books that don’t always seem to be filled with interesting and fascinating material sometimes contain real gems of wisdom. This is one of those books.

The author relies on us to learn by example instead of offering a simple list of things we should do to find out what our passions are. These examples give us the opportunity to see how others discovered what they’re good at and what they’re passionate about. This is actually a nice way to handle the subject since not everyone follows the same path to discovery.

I am not finished with this audio book yet though, so I can’t say how it all turns out. I can say that I’ve gleaned at least one important, possibly life-changing, bit of wisdom from the book so far and I’m anxious to try it out as an antidote for procrastination. This might not be how Souza meant for me to use his material, but that’s the beauty of books. We all take something different from each one.

About Goal Setting

Souza advises us to “avoid the goal setting traps” because goals are often “boring” and “useless” unless “there’s a big juicy dream attached to them.”

This is very true in my experience and I’m wondering now how I can make this work for me and my never-caught-up laundry and my perpetually unswept floors. These are two tasks I hate beyond any other (except maybe dusting, mopping, and killing spiders).

I wonder if setting up a big, juicy dream might propel me toward these goals a heck of a lot faster than a dread of embarrassment at having an untidy and uncleaned house.

My Experiment

Souza says that “most goals appear to be unrealistic until we begin making strides toward their achievement.” So, my goal will be large, inspiring, and possibly unrealistic, but it will motivate me the way a tepid, small, realistic goal or dream never could.

Souza also says:

• Goals should be measurable and specific
• I should have definite but realistic schedule, timeline
• I should put together a written plan
• I should take immediate action
• Goals need emotional intensity because the emotion and intent behind a goal gives it meaning and zest

My Dream: I want to have the prettiest, tidiest, cleanest house (and laundry room) in my neighborhood. I want an awesome house (but don’t want to move). I want beautiful flowers around my yard, and a vegetable garden in back. I want warmth and beauty inside, some organization underneath it all, and clean floors and tidy furniture.

My Goals: (1) Sweep, dust, mop, and tidy each room in my house, one room per day starting today and allotting a reasonable amount of time per room, while striving for excellence in each room, and keeping a checklist of room names. (2) Arrange furniture and belongings in an organized and eye-pleasing way. (3) Start with a container garden this year, and plan for next year’s vegetable garden. Make, buy, or otherwise get pots to plant vegetables in this year, and visit the farmer’s cooperative this week to pick up flowers (and vegetables) for around the front porch, and plant them next weekend.

Wow. Talk about big dreams. :)

Next on my agenda? Explore my dream of an internet empire.

I’m going to post a follow up on this experiment on Friday. I’ll let you know if this particular dream fires up my soul enough to overcome any of my procrastination habits.

By the way, don’t forget to check out Souza’s book yourself. You can either buy it (audio book or print book), or check it out with your library card from the R.E.A.D.S. website.

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Planning isn’t the problem; the lack of a dream is

The thing is, you shouldn’t let that stop you from reading a copy of this book. Even though some of my habits haven’t changed, the book has helped me cope with my procrastinating ways and helped me change several keys areas of my life that lead to procrastination.

I downloaded the book from the R.E.A.D.S. database, and if you have a library card and an internet connection, you might want to give it a shot. If not, then consider buying the book from Amazon. (Don’t procrastinate. Amazon has this book at a bargain price of $2.99 as of today.)

I recommended The Procrastinator’s Handbook because…

The author of The Procrastinator’s Handbook: Mastering the Art of Doing it Now, Rita Emmett, sums up the beauty of this book in her introduction.

People who benefit from time management are like a group that has decided to go on a bicycle journey. They know where they want to go; their bikes are all ready, and time management principles are like the map or directions they need to set off on their adventure.

Then along comes the group of procrastinators meandering down the road. They haven’t decided yet where they want to go, and they’ve forgotten to bring their bikes, which don’t work anyway because they haven’t gotten around to fixing the flat tire. Maps and directions (time management principles) are of little use to this group. They need something different, so for them I developed my Conquer Procrastination seminars and wrote this book.

When people take my seminars, often the first questions they ask are: “Can a person really stop procrastinating?” “How can people expect to change their basic personalities or character traits?”

Procrastination is not an inherent part of your personality or character; it is simply a habit, an attitude. Can people change habits? Of course they can! Millions of people have stopped smoking, even though that habit is extremely hard to break. Can people change attitudes? Sure. Do you know anyone who used to think owning a VCR or sending E-mail was unnecessary, yet now — several years later — can’t imagine living without either?

I speak about procrastination from personal experience because I used to put off everything.

I most enjoyed her sections on identifying what types of procrastinator I am in what situations and then applying her suggestions for changing the patterns that keep me procrastinating.

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Recommended: The Procrastinator’s Handbook

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.

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National Procrastination Week

Lately, I’ve been suffering from the fallout of following my own advice a little too closely. I still believe 100% that you have to find your passion if you want to find a true path out of perpetual procrastination. However, anything can be taken too far, and over the past six months, I’ve probably taken my passion too far.

I’ve put off the rest of my life in favor of pursuing that passion and the rest of my life has suffered. I haven’t been spending enough time with my family. I haven’t been spending enough time doing simple household tasks that ensure my household runs—smoothly or otherwise.

My passion for websites can be thought of like a piece of cake. I love cake. I could eat cake every day. I could eat cake after every meal. But I shouldn’t and I don’t. My health would suffer serious repurcussions if I did and I’m smart enough to know that and disciplined enough not to eat cake all the damn time.

I’ve taken that same attitude and turned it toward my passion. I’ve set strict limits on the amount of time I’m allowed to spend working on it so that I don’t permanently damage the rest of my life by overindulging too much now.

It’s very interesting to note that as I’ve become bored out of my mind during my “free” time, I’ve started doing stuff around that house that I hate doing, and I’ve started spending more time with my family and been lucky enough to realize how much I’ve missed being with them more.

This method of creating an environment where I’m pretty much forced to choose to work on stuff that I would otherwise continue to procrastinate on has been working exceptionally well.

For two weeks, dirty laundry hasn’t stayed dirty for longer than one to two days. I haven’t went to bed a single night with dirty dishes sitting in my kitchen sink.

I’ve had to maintain strict limits on how much time I can shift to tv watching, because I have a serious passion for that too. The truth is though, that now that I have so much more “free” time where I’m not working on my passion, I get to watch as much tv as I can stomach and still have time to get these other things done too.

Do you have a bunch of stuff waiting on you to get it done?

My suggestion? Don’t tell yourself how much you need to get it done. Give yourself some free time where you limit the good stuff. You, like me, might find yourself avoiding total boredom by working on those perpetually put off tasks that are just waiting for you to finish them.

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Boredom can beat procrastination

I’ve yet to find a better quote that addresses procrastination. All procrastination isn’t bad, and the reason I know this is because everyone procrastinates. We procrastinate on any number of tasks on any given day. Not everything can be started, worked on, or finished in any one hour, day, or moment.

We make choices.

Our choices define what type of procrastinators we are.

Mr. Graham believes that there are three types of procrastinators—those who do nothing, those who do something less important, and those who do something more important.

When studying my own habits, I find that much of my procrastinating ways fit into this mold. However, at different times, I’m a different type of procrastinator.

For instance, Friday I was a procrastinator who did something more important (depending on how I define more important—money won out that day). Saturday, I was a procrastinator who did something less important (turns out my digital music collection really needed to be organized). I can’t remember being a “do nothing” procrastinator on any particular day, but I do know that I’ve certainly been that kind of procrastinator on more than one occasion.

By defining my goals in terms of my passions, I’ve been able to let go of the idea that I’m procrastinating on any number of things. I’ve been setting goals for myself and meeting them, and frankly, ignoring the stuff that doesn’t fit into those passions. My goal every day is to be the procrastinator who did something more important.

By setting this goal for myself, I make sure I’m procrastinating well. Choosing to work on the more important tasks each day means I can look back at the day and feel good about what I’ve done—not look back and feel guilty about what I didn’t do.

You can choose to do this too. If you have to procrastinate on something, choose to work on something of more importance as a substitute. It doesn’t matter what the more important item is. If you can objectively state to an outsider that you worked on something more important than what you didn’t work on, you will eventually get the important things done.

What about you? What type of procrastinator do you see yourself as most of the time? Do you think you can make this method work for you? Let me know in the comments!

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Procrastinating well

However, I’ve revisited some of the content, and I do think some of my previous posts had value, so the day has come where I’ve decided to add some of that content back to the site. So if you see something new pop up and it seems kind of like a rerun, maybe you’re right.

I’m not going to specify what’s new and what’s old, since most likely you aren’t going to notice. I mean, it’s been years…. and the site is so small that I doubt any of you have even been here before.

Since this site is about overcoming procrastination, I think it’s important that at some point I do some overcoming! :-)

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(Some of) My old posts are coming back

For years, I’ve been using procrastination in this way to get things done.

I love to learn. I know that doesn’t sound like something I should limit, but more often than I’d like, I procrastinate by learning something new. These things that I learn are usually important skills for the work I do (and for the hobbies I pursue).

However, I can spend 70%-80% of my day looking for and reading information online about whatever it is I’m working on.

I tracked my time on some projects I’ve been working on and discovered that for my websites, I used 99.6% of my time to do stuff other than write posts or articles for them. Over the past few years, in between job time and family time, I’ve taught myself lots of fascinating skills, but in the process I’ve procrastinated on many, many things I wanted to get done.

On the other hand, I’ve learned some enormously helpful and useful things over the years, and I’m not sure I would be where I’m at if I hadn’t procrastinated by learning.

Learning online is a habit I’ve developed to keep me from working, without the guilt I might feel if I had instead spent that time playing Spider Solitaire.

Learning, however, is only one of many procrastination temptations I have to watch out for and it’s only one of the ways I’ve used procrastination to accomplish my goals.

My particular list of guiltless procrastination activities can be summarized in a short list of 8.

8 Guiltless Activities I Use to Procrastinate

1. Learning or studying something new
2. Planning and scheduling
3. Watching TV
4. Reading
5. Email
6. Personal finances
7. Laundry

You might ask why some very obvious leisure and household tasks are on my list, so let me explain.

I have several fan sites where it’s important that I stay caught up with the TV shows those sites follow. If I don’t watch the show, I don’t have anything to talk about. The timing of when I decide to watch invariably arrives just as I’ve become aware of something very important that needs my time. I also review books for one website I run and I put off reading the books until I have something more pressing to do. Then of course, I just want to read. But since these things do need to be done, I generally don’t feel that guilty about putting something else off in favor of sitting down to watch television or read a book.

Don’t mistake this for anything other than procrastination though. I often use procrastination on one thing to accomplish another. This is related loosely to the practice of Structured Procrastination.

My personal finances on the other hand have always been a problem for me. I can get caught up in reports and budgeting and spend hours accomplishing absolutely nothing. I do feel guilty then, but when I manage to keep myself focused on a checkbook or bill update, I’m fine with it.

Most of the time, I still want to be very careful with this technique, because anything can be overused and lead to a glut of procrastination. Sometimes, getting anything accomplished that needs doing is an accomplishment. Sometimes, it’s not.

Finally, laundry deserves an explanation. I hate doing laundry and the fact is, if I want to avoid work on something in favor of doing laundry, I NEVER feel guilty.

What are your biggest procrastination temptations? What do you do when you want to procrastinate but don’t want to feel guilty for it later?

See if there’s any way for you to use those things to help you accomplish some of your goals.

What do you have to lose? You’re going to procrastinate anyway, and you know it.

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Use Procrastination to Get Things Done