Procrastination – The Time Diet: Digestible Time Management
We all put things off from time to time, but how to kick the habit depends on why and how you procrastinate. Which of the following 3 procrastinators are you?
Dare Devils thrive under pressure and live for the thrill of a last-minute crunch time. They find it difficult to stay motivated until the last possible second so they put off their work until the deadline is looming. Then, they work like crazy, forsaking sleep, food, family time, etc…promising themselves they will never do it again.
One reason people thrive under pressure is it becomes easier to tune out distractions during crunch time. Are you more likely to check your email and glance at Facebook when you’re working on an urgent deadline or non-urgent one? Exactly. Remove distracting Time Killers so they don’t tempt you. Then you’ll be able to work with the focus of an urgent deadline without having to actually live so close to the edge.
Rationalizers are experts at convincing themselves that their work doesn’t have to be done right now. They will find excuses, make bargains with themselves, or downplay the importance of a deadline.
Excuses are harder to make when your goals are staring you in the face. Why are you working so hard? Who inspires you? What are you trying to achieve? Make sure the answers to those questions are top of mind when you’re working. Post your goals near your workplace. Seek out people you admire and constantly remind yourself of the important motivators that drive you.
The Overwhelmed Ostrich
Sometimes we have tasks that are so monstrous, it seems we never have time to start them. When we see the task on our to-do list we skip right past it, hoping it will just go away if we don’t look at it – the time management equivalent of burying your head in the sand.
Break a large task into tiny chunks and write those chunks down on your to-do list. Don’t even write the big task at all. It’s too intimidating. Then rejoice in the satisfaction of crossing those little chunks off one by one. This helps accomplish large tasks in 20 or 30 minute time periods since realistically, you can’t always devote a whole day to accomplishing a huge task.
Are Your Goals Gathering Dust in Your Closet?
Do you have “nice” clothes sitting in your closet that you never wear because you’re waiting for the right special occasion? (Men, if this is a foreign concept to you, it’s definitely a thing, and we women do it all the time.)
Perhaps you also have dreams and goals, both big and small, that you want to accomplish…some day. What are you waiting for? There is no perfect time, perfect occasion, or hand delivered invitation letting you know when the time is right. No, the perfect time is now.
My Fashion Fiasco
Last week, I dug through my closet for something “special” to wear out and found a dress wrapped in a garment bag. “Oh perfect!” I thought. “I’ve been saving this dress!” I had only worn it a small handful of times since I bought it 4 years ago as it seemed far too nice to wear for just any ol’ date night or dinner party. I proudly tried it on and looked in the mirror…
…and sighed a deflated sigh. It wasn’t in style anymore, nor did it fit right. When I bought it, I felt cutting edge and stunning because it fit like a glove and was definitely “on trend,” but now it looked tired. The time to wear this dress was 4 years ago, not now. I had missed my opportunity while waiting for “someday.”
What Are You Saving for Some Day?
What do you want to do that you’re putting off until someday? I can go buy another dress, but life opportunities don’t work like fashion. Once they are gone, they’re gone. If you’re waiting for someone to tell you the time is right, allow me to be that person. Make time in your schedule today for something you’ve been putting off.
(And go wear those nice shoes and the perfect pants. Tomorrow is not any more special than today.)
The 5-Minute Rule in 3 Easy Steps
May 20, 2013 The Time Diet 1 Comment
Look at your to-do list. Have you been staring at the same tiny tasks, day after day, putting them off until the infamous “later?” What if I told you those tasks are actually wasting your time? The time spent worrying about, making excuses for, and dealing with the consequences of a tiny unfinished task greatly outweigh the time it would take to actually finish it. This is why I’m a huge advocate of The 5-Minute Rule:
If it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now
Not later, not tomorrow, now.
You can give it a try today. Pick a tiny “Vegetable” task from your list you’ve been putting off, and ask yourself these three questions:
1. Will this be any easier to do tomorrow?
2. Is there any reason I can’t do this right now?
3. Will this take more than 5 minutes of my time?
If the answer to all three questions is “no,” then go finish that task right now. In fact, when you’re finished, email me (Emily@TheTimeDiet.org) and let me know what you did! I would love to know what this blog inspired people to do.
My “Battery” of Excuses
I’ll share my example of The 5-Minute Rule from this week. The battery in my garage door clicker died a week ago. When I come home, I pull into the driveway, get out of the car, open the garage manually, get back in the car, and drive in. A huge problem in the grand scheme of life? No. But every time I did it, I was annoyed. I was annoyed that I haven’t taken 5 seconds to get a replacement battery out of the drawer and change it, but by the time I get inside, I’m distracted with a million other things to do and the thought of going back out into the garage seems simply absurd.
My excuses were fabulous: “I’m sure those batteries are lost by now,” “It’s always so difficult to get the back of the clicker open,” “ I already took my shoes off and I don’t want to step on a scorpion in the garage” (a real consideration in Arizona!) Finally, I said, enough! I write a time management blog and this behavior is simply unacceptable. I started the stop watch on my phone and went to change the battery. When all was said and done, 2 minutes and 30 seconds had elapsed. 150 seconds. Why in the world hadn’t I done that sooner?
What will you accomplish using The 5-Minute Rule? Drop me a line and let me know!
Connect with The Time Diet for even more time management tips
How To Turn “Meaning To” Into “Done”
“I’ve been meaning to get to that!”
Have you uttered that phrase recently? When we say this, it’s usually our way of saying, “Hey, look, I know that what you’re asking of me is important, and it’s been on my mind frequently, I just haven’t made it a priority yet.” The next time a task you’ve been meaning to do is on your mind, ask yourself the following three questions to turn meaning to into done.
1. Can I do it now?
When an important task is on your mind, it’s easy to say, “I’ll do it later” but what is stopping you from doing it right now? Is there a reason you can’t pick up the phone right now and make that call? Or type up that document? Or send that email? You might not feel like doing it now, but will you feel any more like doing it 24 hours from now? Instead of thinking about how long it will take, or how much you wish you didn’t have to do it, focus on how good it will feel to not have this task tugging at your mind anymore.
Sometimes, we think of important tasks when we’re in the middle of something else and it would be distracting and counterproductive to drop what we’re doing and switch gears. In this case, instead of saying “later,” pull out your calendar and commit to “when.” Even if it’s a tiny task that doesn’t seem like it deserves it’s own place in your agenda, add it anyway. It’s much harder to put something off when you’ve validated its importance with a spot in your calendar.
3. If not when, ever?
If you’re still having trouble making this task a priority, is it really necessary? Remember, we make time for the things that are important to us. If you can’t make time, perhaps it’s because what you thought was important is really just something you wish was important or should be important. Either acknowledge it as something you value and start making the time, or accept that it’s something you can live without, and let it go.
Last week, I joined Toastmasters. I’ve been meaning to do it for the past year or so and just haven’t. I finally decided it was important, so I found a club, put it on my calendar, went to the meeting, and loved it. What have you been “meaning to do” this month? What are you waiting for?
Schedule Your “When”
December 17, 2012 December 17, 2012 The Time Diet Leave a comment
Often when we say we “haven’t gotten around to” something, what we really mean is that we haven’t committed to a deadline and tried. When a boss or supervisor is checking up on us, we’re forced to finish our tasks, but when we are only accountable to ourselves, we can sometimes allow too much leeway. This is why creating a deadline and making a commitment are half the battle. Make this the week that you schedule your “when.”
“When” before “How”
When our schedules are already bursting, we don’t like to add more things to them. It doesn’t seem like we’re able to fit anything else into our day, so we wait. We put off tasks that are important to us at the expense of tasks that we owe to other people. It’s difficult to figure out how you’ll find time to do something if you don’t first set a goal of when. Once the when is established, the how comes much more easily.
As part of my doctoral degree, I have to take three written exams. There is no set date these are offered. Students are supposed to schedule them whenever they feel “ready.” I have been waiting for the day when I wake up and feel “ready” to regurgitate all of the knowledge I’ve acquired in the past three years, and that day has yet to come. My days are full as they are and I don’t have large blocks of time at my disposal to study for these exams. This week, I realized the only way I’ll ever finish these tests is if I just schedule them.
The last week of January, I will be taking my first doctoral written exam. My “when” has been established. Over the next month and a half, I’m going to figure out the “how.”
Have you been putting off something that’s important to you or that you know needs to be done? What are you waiting for? Take out your calendar, pick a day, and make a commitment. Putting it in your calendar makes it real and forces you to start constructing a plan. Until you add it to your schedule, your task is just an idea. Turn your idea into an obligation.
The Side Streets of Time Management
November 12, 2012 November 12, 2012 The Time Diet Leave a comment
Have you ever been traveling with a friend who is convinced he has a faster way to get to your destination? It’s usually a little-known side street or back road. These side streets can either shorten your journey…or waste a tremendous amount of your time after getting you lost.
We run across similar shortcuts in our time management. Before you take a time management shortcut (such as skipping or shortening a step in a process), ask yourself the following questions:
1. Do I Have Enough Experience?
Let’s pretend that you’re on your way to a new destination and two people suggest a shortcut. One of those people has never traveled the road before, while the other travels it frequently. Whose advice are you more likely to take? Experience is crucial when deciding which steps to remove from a process. If you’ve never completed a certain task before, it’s a good idea to follow all of the steps in detail, even if you think they might waste your time. As a novice, you don’t know the consequences of removing a step.
2. Am I Just Being Lazy?
If we’re looking for tasks to cut out of a process, we’re most likely to turn to the most tedious and annoying tasks first. It’s important to determine if those tasks truly aren’t necessary, or if you just don’t feel like doing them.
To use a simple example, I was making “For Rent” signs for our rental property the other day. At first, I was marking out the word placement in pencil before inking the final letters in marker. Pretty soon, I got lazy and stopped my pencil layout…only to discover that now my posters were crooked. I cut out the intermediary step not because it was unnecessary, but because I didn’t feel like doing it.
3. Will This Shortcut Make More Work Later?
Sometimes what seems like a shortcut now, in reality, just makes more work for ourselves later. Remember: later always gets here eventually. It’s much faster to do a small, annoying task now, than let those small tasks pile up. Procrastination is the enemy of time management. A shortcut is only truly a shortcut if it saves time, not if it just puts off work until later.
Time Management? That’s Debatable
“That’s ridiculous” “You don’t know what you’re talking about” “That’s just not true.”
These could be statements from one of the recent Presidential debates, but you might also recognize them from the internal time management debate we have in our heads all the time. When we don’t want to do something, our responsible side says we need to do it anyway, and our inner procrastinator says to do it later. Consider the following when you’re trapped in a time management debate.
1. You Never Regret Productivity
Think about it like this, when we convince ourselves to tackle something now instead of putting it off, we rarely ever say, “Gosh, I really wish I hadn’t done that.” However, when we choose to procrastinate, we rarely say, “That was a wonderful decision.” Use this experience to your advantage.
Rather than think of the benefits of getting work done early, sometimes it’s more effective to think of the problems that come from procrastinating. Think of what the worst possible scenario could be if you put off your work. If that scenario sounds unappealing to you, start the task now to avoid it.
3. Find a Productivity Coach
It’s usually pretty easy to find people in our lives who will encourage and enable us to procrastinate, however, it’s important to find that one friend or colleague who instead tells you to snap to your senses and just start your work. Think of this friend as your “Productivity Coach” who you can call when you are in need of some help in your time management debate. Sometimes just hearing another person weigh in can give your productive side enough of a boost to be victorious.