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There's that projection y'all've left on the backburner – the i with the deadline that's growing uncomfortably almost.  And in that location's the customer whose phone call you really should render – the 1 that does nothing only complain and swallow up your valuable fourth dimension.  Wait, weren't you going to try to go to the gym more often this twelvemonth?

Can you imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just brand yourself do the things you don't want to exercise when you are actually supposed to do them?  Not to mention how much happier and more than effective you lot would exist?

The proficient news (and its very skillful news) is that you can get better about non putting things off, if yous employ the right strategy.  Figuring out which strategy to employ depends on why you lot are procrastinating in the first place:

Reason #i   Yous are putting something off because y'all are afraid y'all will spiral it upwardly.

Solution:  Adopt a "prevention focus."

In that location are two ways to look at any task.  You can do something because y'all meet it every bit a way to end up improve off than you lot are at present – as an achievement or accomplishment.  Every bit in, if I complete this projection successfully I will print my dominate, or if I work out regularly I volition wait amazing. Psychologists call this a promotion focus – and research shows that when y'all take one, y'all are motivated past the idea of making gains, and work best when you feel eager and optimistic.  Sounds good, doesn't it?  Well, if you are afraid you will screw upward on the task in question, this is non the focus for you lot.  Anxiety and doubt undermine promotion motivation, leaving you less probable to take any activity at all.

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What you need is a mode of looking at what y'all need to do that isn't undermined by doubt – ideally, one that thrives on it.  When you have a prevention focus, instead of thinking about how you can terminate upward better off, you meet the chore as a fashion to hang on to what you've already got – to avoid loss.   For the prevention-focused, successfully completing a project is a way to keep your dominate from beingness angry or thinking less of y'all.  Working out regularly is a style to not "let yourself go."  Decades of research, which I draw in my book Focus, shows that prevention motivation is actually enhanced by anxiety about what might become wrong.  When you are focused on avoiding loss, it becomes clear that the only fashion to get out of danger is to take immediate activeness.  The more worried you are, the faster yous are out of the gate.

I know this doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs, particularly if you are usually more than the promotion-minded type, but at that place is probably no improve way to get over your feet nigh screwing upwards than to give some serious thought to all the dire consequences of doing nothing at all.    Keep, scare the pants off yourself.  Information technology feels awful, only it works.

Reason #2     You are putting something off because you don't "feel" like doing it.

Solution: Make similar Spock and ignore your feelings.  They're getting in your style.

In his excellent book The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand up Positive Thinking, Oliver Burkeman points out that much of the time, when we say things similar "I simply tin can't leave of bed early in the morning, " or "I just can't get myself to exercise," what we really mean is that we tin can't get ourselves to feel similar doing these things.  After all, no one is tying yous to your bed every morning.  Intimidating bouncers aren't blocking the entrance to your gym.  Physically, nothing is stopping you – you just don't feel like information technology.  But as Burkeman asks,  "Who says you demand to wait until you 'experience similar' doing something in social club to commencement doing it?"

Call up about that for a minute, because it's actually important.  Somewhere along the style, we've all bought into the idea – without consciously realizing it – that to be motivated and effective nosotros need to experience like we desire to take action.  We demand to be eager to practise so.  I really don't know why we believe this, considering information technology is 100% nonsense. Yeah, on some level you lot need to exist committed to what you are doing – yous need to want to run into the project finished, or get healthier, or get an earlier start to your day.  Merely you don't need to feel similar doing it.

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In fact, as Burkeman points out, many of the almost prolific artists, writers, and innovators have become so in part because of their reliance on work routines that forced them to put in a certain number of hours a mean solar day, no matter how uninspired (or, in many instances, hungover) they might have felt.  Burkeman reminds usa of renowned creative person Chuck Close's observation that "Inspiration is for amateurs.  The rest of united states of america only show upwards and get to work."

And then if you are sitting in that location, putting something off considering you don't feel similar it, recall that you don't actually demand to experience like it. There is nothing stopping you.

Reason #3   You are putting something off because it's difficult, irksome, or otherwise unpleasant.

Solution:  Utilise if-then planning.

As well ofttimes, we effort to solve this particular problem with sheer will: Adjacent time, I will make myself start working on this sooner.  Of course, if we actually had the willpower to do that, we would never put it off in the commencement place.   Studies bear witness that people routinely overestimate their capacity for self-command, and rely on it besides often to keep them out of hot water.

Do yourself a favor, and embrace the fact that your willpower is limited, and that it may non always be up to the claiming of getting you lot to do things you find difficult, boring, or otherwise awful.  Instead, use if-and then planning to get the job washed.

Making an if-then program is more than just deciding what specific steps you need to accept to complete a project – it's also deciding where and when you will take them.

If it is 2pm, and then I volition stop what I'thou doing and start work on the report Bob asked for.

If my dominate doesn't mention my request for a raise at our coming together, and so I volition bring information technology upwards once more earlier the coming together ends.

By deciding in accelerate exactly what you're going to do, and when and where you're going to do it, there's no deliberating when the time comes.   No practice I actually take to do this now?, or tin this expect till afterward? or perhaps I should exercise something else instead.   Information technology's when we deliberate that willpower becomes necessary to make the tough choice.  But if-then plans dramatically reduce the demands placed on your willpower, past ensuring that you've made the right conclusion way alee of the critical moment. In fact,if-then planning has been shown in over 200 studies to increment rates of goal attainment and productivity by 200%-300% on average.

I realize that the three strategies I'm offering you – thinking about the consequences of failure, ignoring your feelings, and engaging in detailed planning – don't sound every bit fun as advice like "Follow your passion!" or "Stay positive!"  But they take the decided reward of really being effective – which, as it happens, is exactly what you'll exist if you apply them.