Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Ways to avoid procrastination

When you put off things that you should be doing now is called procrastination, which is a major deviating factor in time management. While some procrastinate to a certain level, there are may who are habituated to this. When you come across a situation that you postpone vital tasks, thinking that you would get more time and better mood in future to optimally perform the particular task, then you are prone to procrastination. As a result, you would be bound to be in crisis when the deadline is nearing, you would experience low productivity, and finally, your career would be at stake.
The only possible mean to get rid of this habit is to recognize its reasons and take necessary actions to control before it creates chaos in your professional life. Here are some causes of procrastination; waiting for the right mood and for the right time. The other factors are lack of goals, underrating the difficulty of the task and the time required to complete it, ambiguity of the tasks, and feeling that a particular task is imposed on you. The other causes of procrastination are underdeveloped decision making skills, fear of failure/ success, and perfectionism.
Lets discuss the ways to overcome procrastination. As a first thing, you should recognize that you are procrastinating. For this, you need to analyze whether you are spending most of your work time in doing task which are of low priority, say reading mails and thinking what to do with them. Check whether a task is pending for a quite a long time in your To Do List. You wait for the right time and mood to do the important tasks.
On analyzing, you have to find out the reasons for procrastinating. You might procrastinate because of the given task, or you could be the sole reason for it. On identifying the irrelevant factor here, you apply the best approach and head on towards the success. If you find a job is monotonous, it is better that you wind it up quickly and get on to the interesting task. In case, you are disorganized, then you will be tempt to procrastinate. Organized people maintain a To Do List, where they prioritize their work. This way, they can have a clear idea of how important a work and when to be completed. Even if disorganized people try to get organized, they might tend to feel stressed with the task. You may feel they you have no enough skills or resources to accomplish a task.
You can avoid procrastination, only when you start avoiding it. Here are some tips to motivate yourself and get rid of this deep-rooted pattern of behavior.
1)Reward yourself when you accomplish a task on said time.
2)Ask your colleague to monitor your work.
3)Visualize those embarrassing consequences of not doing the work on time.
4)Maintain a To Do List.
5)Prioritize the work in your To Do List.
6)Set time-bound goals.
7)Concentrate on just one work at a time.
Hope, these time management training tips help you get rid of procrastination and be a master in getting things done on time.

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