Procrastination is like fat - cannot be spot reduced

A comment from a new subscriber made me think. The person asked me specifically to help with motivation at work. Fantastic I thought, now there is an honest person. I know a few of you have also asked for help in specific areas with regards to procrastination and motivation, so today I thought I would spend some time on the specifics of what makes us procrastinate and how we can translate that into motivation.

First of all, I can almost guarantee that if you procrastinate in one area of your life, you will find it easier to procrastinate in other areas too. You may think that is a load of bunkum, but having spent a good portion of my life researching my own life and what makes me tick at some times and not at others I can tell you that I am not alone. If you are slack in one area, it will translate into others.

Today is Saturday, I could have gotten up at 6, which is my normal body clock time, but I suffer from insomnia and that has translated into many sleepless nights this week, so I decided to lie in for a little while. But by 8 o'clock I had my day laid out and it was time to get up. One of the first items on my mental to-do list was exercise. As you know I have a new programme and I needed to work out some of the more embarrassing moves, there's this one exercise I am supposed to do, well no matter how many times Andy tried to explain it to me, it was only by making a complete idiot of myself in the comfort of my own home that  I was able to work it out. (By the way it involved running with both hands against a wall, high knees and the other leg out to the back - as in a lunge at the same time....) I finally got it, when I realised it was a skip at a running pace.

Then it was change and straight into the car and off to do the weekly grocery shopping, followed by putting it away and then straight into the garden for 3 hours of weed pulling.

I have to confess I don't enjoy any of those three exercises whilst I am doing them, but I know that if I put them off it just makes it worse, so I get up and get on with it.

And that is one of the keys to overcoming the procrastination habit

1. Work out your day
2. Get up and start work on them immediately
3. Don't stop until you have at least one completed task off your list. Today I have all my morning tasks sorted. I need to eat now BTW but that will be next.

So why is procrastination like fat? Well fat is stubborn, if you have the same problem that I do - as in too much body fat, then you will know it is absolutely impossible to do a million sit ups and expect your body to give you a 6-pack if you continue to drink a 6-pack every night, or do nothing to burn off the amount of overall fat that you have in your body. And so it is with motivation at work or any other area. If you struggle to get going in a morning, then you're hardly likely to enjoy getting to work and doing the work. Then when you get home you might whinge a little while about how bad your day has been and instead of being filled with joy at the thought of spending the evening working on your other items on your task list (BTW short term tasks should eventually lead to your long term goal accomplishment) you will relive all the bad moments and you will go over every hateful thing that everyone has ever said to you, and what you said to them.

OK, a tip, if your job is that bad - find another one. Some people aren't willing to change. You are, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. But before you chuck your job in, do me a favour - when you go back to work on Monday, go back with the thought that today you are going to have a good day, no matter what. Another tip, pretend that tomorrow is your last day at work and you need to get some stuff done. You'd be amazed at how much more you get done as a result.

OK, that's it for today. You can't just work on one area at a time without it impacting on everyothing else, and so it is with procrastination.

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