“Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.” Victor Kiam
What have you been up to? It has been quite some time. Believe it or not, we are now past the 2nd half of the year! A lot has been going on from my end –A lot of business travel, launched an online community of growth minded entrepreneurs, and in the process of launching my flagship course for entrepreneurs who want to scale their businesses.
I have had this on my mind for a while – How has procrastination prevented you from accomplishing what you set out to achieve this year? I usually ask a reflection question at the end of my posts, but I think this is a good place to start.
Essentially procrastination, is simply putting off what you can do today tomorrow. An example of how I have been procrastinating is writing and sending out my regular blog posts.
According to Psychology Today, Procrastination all starts with a simple choice between working now on a given project and doing anything else: working on a different project, doing something fun or doing nothing at all. The decision to work on something is driven by how much we value accomplishing the project in that moment – what psychologists call its subjective value. And procrastination, in psychological terms, is what happens when the value of doing something else outweighs the value of working now.
And you cannot know the value of accomplishing a project if you have a lack of focus or overwhelmed which often leads to no action.
I recently learnt 2 ways you can eliminate procrastination and will like to share that with you. They include:
- 3 way planning – I learnt this from one of my mentors, and it has helped me with amazing results. 3-way planning enables you to think through your plans even before you have started on the task. It involves:
- Weekly review – This is done at the end or beginning of your week. I usually review the previous week and plan for the following week on Sunday evenings. By taking about an hour each week, I review my intentions and ensure it aligns with the major projects I am working on which in turn aligns with my strategic goals and roles;
- Evening before planning – This is done the evening before, where you spend about 30 minutes thinking about the following day, what and why you need to do what you plan to do. Remember, you are reviewing and improving upon what you had planned the Sunday before.
- Morning planning – This exercise has been extremely useful to me, and it takes about 20 minutes before you start your day. A question I have learned to ask myself every day before I start my day is – How can my day be most productive and fulfilling? By answering this question, I may improve upon what I had written before
- People – This is about being accountable to a person or people – your coach, accountability partner (AP) etc who are committed to your success. I feel that being accountable to someone or people is most important. My AP and I check in weekly with our intentions and also review what prevented us from accomplishing our previous week’s goals . This is what helps me moves the needle the most. You know, you can have things all planned out, but things get in the way and you easily become distracted. This is especially as it may be a task which you have not done before, but you know completing this project will take you to your next level.
Do not allow procrastination rob you of completing the projects you know you must complete to take you to your next level in 2018!
What else has helped you eliminate procrastination?
Post your comments below.