Overcoming Procrastination

We are all about planning this month in our business community and in sticking to the ‘plan’, I have set aside a whole day to plan for a very busy few months ahead. Yet as I sit down to get things done, I’m finding anything and everything put in front of me distracting. I know I need to move things forward but procrastination is sneaking in…

As we know, procrastination is the act of delaying something — it is actually the limitation of growth. As we continually delay our to do list we can easily move into a state of overwhelm.

To combat this, I tried a quick method that I have used in the past to activate my frontal cortex by counting from 5 backwards to 1. It usually works a treat, but today I seem to be distracted more than usual – maybe because it is a sunny day and I wish I was out there…

In order to settle in for a great day of planning and to recalibrate generally, I know I need personal preparation and to bring things back to basics.

Here are the five things I do to get back in flow and to ensure I stay on task:

1. Drink more water – Nothing new here but dehydration can lead to low energy, fatigue and being more easily distracted. I am definitely guilty of not drinking enough H2O.
2. Get enough sleep – Early to bed, and early to rise as the saying goes. The point is, I actually do my best work early in the day… so I need regular, wonderful sleep.
3. Low sugar diet – I find that if I eat sugar I get energy spikes, but then I dip and I cannot concentrate. If I am doing something I find a chore I often ‘reward’ myself with a sugar hit and this can spiral into an unproductive day.
4. Turnoff social media – I have no alerts on anything, not email, social – I don’t even have a ringer on my phone.
5. Eliminate Multitasking – In the book The One Thing the research presents that you simply cannot do a few things at the same time if you want to produce great work. You must focus on the thing that needs to get done — no matter how hard it seems.

You can check out The One Thing by clicking on the image.

I always find that when I reel things back to basics, my mind focuses on the task a lot easier and then the next thing I know, my planning is almost done!

Great plans take personal commitment… what tactics are you using to stick to your plans?

Also published on Medium.