Procrastination Station

I read an interesting article on procrastination the other day in REAL SIMPLE* magazine. I meant to read it a week or so ago but put it off....:).


Anyway, I am the absolute worst....full blown procrastinator. Lucky for me (and everyone else) I work well under pressure.

A couple things I took away from this article:

1. Do the worst thing first
Um, what if they all seem like the worst thing, then what?

2. Start your day over at 2pm
They say, assess what you have done already that and make an action plan for the last couple hours of your day to tackle the most critical tasks.
I am pretty sure this why babies/toddlers take an afternoon nap...they need to refresh before tackling those tedious tasks of the afternoon like pooping, crawling, crying and eating. I wonder what Emma's critical task for this afternoon is....ah, whining. Mystery solved. Way to tackle the most annoying thing first!

3. Create an audience
Simply, this keep you accountable. A friend of mine started a blog so he would be kept accountable to stay on track for weight loss. It worked...he is down 87 lbs!

4. Don't Interrupt Yourself
This is the most amazing thing ever. I have put this into practice and it works. I can be a bit ADD and try to do 4 tasks at once. Concentrating on one, putting phone on silent and ignoring distractions (like kids calling my name....jk). It works.

Finally, my favorite. Plan an UNPROCRASTINATION Day.
Put together a list of all the errands, tasks and basically anything you have been putting off for too long and do it all in one day. I put this into practice today. I call it a mini-unprocrastination day because I did all the tasks that have accumulated in a pile on my desk that "I will get to later-don't want to deal with now".
I feel like a weight has been lifted. That to-do stack is gone and only one task left for the day, file away that big stack of papers on upstairs desk. I hate filing...I should have done that first.

After reading that article I thought, "Great idea, I will do an UNPROCRASTINATION day every month". After my mini one, I am more realistic...one every quarter should suffice.

 If you want to read more, check out this great article:

http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/time-management/avoid-procrastination-00000000055282/index.html



What will you do on your UNPROCRASTINATION day?