The Procrastinator’s Handbook was a great book. I read it, dwelt on it, thought about it, intended to write a review of it, but, well, I never got around to it.

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. Continue reading this article »

“…the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well.” — Paul Graham

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. Continue reading this article »

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.

Here are some resources to help you learn about a technique for dealing with procrastination called Structured Procrastination. This method uses your ability/desire to fool yourself as a stepping stone to  do what needs done. It’s definitely one of the more useful methods I’ve come across. Continue reading this article »