“More often than not, solving, or resolving, a problem is a rather trivial exercise-once we know what the problem is.”— Gause and Weinberg, Are Your Lights On? How to Figure Out What the Problem REALLY is.
Treating procrastination as a symptom of laziness or a lack of discipline doesn’t work because those are not the causes of procrastination. Rather, they are symptoms, just like procrastination itself is a symptom, of a deeper problem. That problem is usually either:
You were never taught the habits of productive work; or
Fear: of change, success, failure, etc.
Fear-based procrastination is a complex subject and I discuss it, and the solution to it, in Chapters 11 through 26. Most of us experience some level of fear relative to the goals that mean most to us. Let’s begin, however, with cause #1: procrastination as a “simple” behavioral issue. It may be that the behavioral “fix” described in this and the next four chapters will be enough to help you solve your procrastination problem.
Productive work begins, as you now know, with Mission Management and Time Management. Once those are accomplished and you have a schedule in keeping with your core values, your next challenge is to be able to stick to that schedule. This can be reduced to three simple Productivity Behaviors:
Showing up to work exactly when you are supposed to.
Instantly starting the work you are supposed to be doing.
Staying focused on the work for an hour or more.
These Behaviors—showing up, getting right to work, and keeping at it-are the essence of productive work. They are also the points at which procrastination happens, and, consequently, the points at which it can be attacked.
Hillary Rettig helps ambitious and creative people from all walks of life use their time better, create more rewarding careers, and overcome procrastination, perfectionism, fears, and blocks.
About Procrastination
From Chapter 6:
“More often than not, solving, or resolving, a problem is a rather trivial exercise-once we know what the problem is.”— Gause and Weinberg, Are Your Lights On? How to Figure Out What the Problem REALLY is.
Treating procrastination as a symptom of laziness or a lack of discipline doesn’t work because those are not the causes of procrastination. Rather, they are symptoms, just like procrastination itself is a symptom, of a deeper problem. That problem is usually either:
Fear-based procrastination is a complex subject and I discuss it, and the solution to it, in Chapters 11 through 26. Most of us experience some level of fear relative to the goals that mean most to us. Let’s begin, however, with cause #1: procrastination as a “simple” behavioral issue. It may be that the behavioral “fix” described in this and the next four chapters will be enough to help you solve your procrastination problem.
Productive work begins, as you now know, with Mission Management and Time Management. Once those are accomplished and you have a schedule in keeping with your core values, your next challenge is to be able to stick to that schedule. This can be reduced to three simple Productivity Behaviors:
These Behaviors—showing up, getting right to work, and keeping at it-are the essence of productive work. They are also the points at which procrastination happens, and, consequently, the points at which it can be attacked.