Are you killing time waiting for inspiration to strike, or for the clock to tick around to the desginated "home time"? Are you bored and wondering if there has got to be a better something than the something you are currently filling your days with?

You may be interested to know there is a whole section on this website dedicated to beating the procrastination habit. Hints, tips, suggestions, proddings, downright annoying nagging that you can use to think about your days in an entirely different way. If you are busy doing nothing and would like to procrastinate a little while longer why not visit the newsletter archive of motivateme.... the Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine. And if you are so inclined you can subscribe to the e-zine yourself, just follow the link at the top of the home page.

"Some people spend half a day looking for the shortest way to do a job that could be done in an hour"
W.G.P.

Do you have a to do list? 
Or do you rely on your memory to remind you what you need to do today?

Let's pretend you have one - a to do list that is, I'm assuming you do have a memory you can use. If your "to do" list is anything like most, the things that you have marked important and urgent are sitting in the top one or two spots, with all the other items sitting further down the list.

Now if you had your choice, which item would you choose to do first?

Please do not answer with the point that you think I want to hear, I want you to be honest. If no-one were looking over your shoulder, which one would you pick first?

That's right, the easy ones. Most people choose those items they think they will be able to do quickly and easily, leaving them plenty of time to do those other items they really don't want to do, or are afraid of doing. Putting off difficult decisions doesn't make them easier, in fact the opposite is usually the case.

Does that mean all procrastinators rarely if ever get anything done?

Actually no. We do work, and we can do the hard stuff - if we want to get out of doing something else.

Believe it or not, we have all been given the same amount of time every day that we can use. And we can use it any way that we want. It's true! The difference between those people who achieve their dreams and goals and those who don't isn't about luck, or being in the right place at the right time. No, the answer is far simpler than that. The people who achieve their dreams and goals are those people who spend their time wisely. They know that if they spend 2 hours a night watching the television, they won't have time to do anything else. A case of stating the blindingly obvious perhaps, but somethings just need saying.

It's a simple equation:

24 hours in a day (yes really, sounds a lot doesn't it - but you still need to do some maths)
Take away the time that you spend sleeping (be honest)
Take away the time that you spend getting ready for work, travelling to work, and the hours that you are actually working (as opposed to the time that you sit at your desk and pretending)
Take away the time travelling home, cooking dinner, supervising homework and/or doing chores and what have you got left?

The answer is NOT VERY MUCH.

But if you want to work it out, I would say you have between 2 and 4 hours per week day to spend on things you want to do, as opposed to doing things that you have to do. Of course, you could tell yourself that you'll do it on the weekend - but we all know what happens on a weekend. We get distracted by other people and their expectations of what we should be doing. Why do we allow ourselves to be distracted by people and things that take our energy and move us away from where we say we want to be? Every day we get nudged a little bit further off course, and most of the time we don't even know that's it's happening.

And then of course there are the technological distractions that fill our days with endless chatter. It has been said that for every distraction it takes another 8 minutes for your creative brain to return to the frame of mind where it can "work" properly. The problem I have found is that I don't get 8 uninterrupted minutes before the next distraction.

So what can you do?

• Turn off the tv.
• Turn off the email and the constant reminders that pop up to tell you that you have new mail. Better still, only log onto your mail once or twice a day.
• Turn off the MSN chatter and get on with your work, better still turn off the damn computer and go and get some exercise.
• Work out what you don't need to do, and don't do it.
  If it does actually needs doing - then work out whether it's worth you spending your time doing the task or if it can be done by someone else. 

Busy work is rarely productive work. Busy work does not bring in the money. Busy work allows us to pretend that we have achieved great things in a day, when in reality we are stuck on a turntable - going nowhere fast.