I had an early morning flight to catch and the airport was on the other side of the city. And I needed to get up very early in the morning. I was alone at home as my family was away. Though I had set an alarm but still to be double sure I called my 10 friends, who work in US, to wake me up at 3 am (IST). It was 4am when someone knocked my door bell and I woke up and saw the cab has arrived. I was in shock as neither had I listened the alarm nor any of my friends called to wake me up. Now the situation was critical as I was to leave in next 15 minutes else I could have missed the flight. Cab driver assured me that I can take another 15 minutes and get ready. I took 25 minutes and left for the airport and I was the last passenger to enter the plane.
Though I caught the flight I was in shock that how could I miss the alarm? What would have happened had I missed the flight? May be just a flight or some money or an opportunity? That was the day I realized that I didn’t snooze the alarm but I snoozed my success and whenever I snooze for 10 minutes I snooze my success for 10 minutes.
I realized that snoozing is nothing but another name of procrastination and in order to be successful one need to learn how not to procrastinate and how can we manage our time effectively.
What is Procrastination?
Procrastination is habit of putting off or delaying things that one should be focusing on, in favor of doing something which is more enjoyable or that one which is more comfortable.
Reasons for Procrastination
Weak Focus
Focus is the most significant aspect for any achiever. You need to lay your focus right and need to understand & prioritize. You cannot allow things/problems and people to affect your focus. Make them a part of your goal and ask things to wait, problems to get solved and people to support you in your motive. You need to work, take break, rejuvenate and get back to work.
Complacent attitude towards Comfort Zone
It is human nature to become complacent in an affable surrounding. But you need to check the difference between being comfortable and being complacent. It is good to take a break in comfortable surroundings but we need to watch out when we are turning complacent about it and need to get back to the work.
Lazy Optimism
A no. of times, people seems too optimist to see the future. Mostly, it is the lazy attitude to act which brings such damage to the ongoing pace. Better to keep going positively rather than thinking positive. An untimely break usually leads to a huge wastage of time.
Bad Time-management
Manage time smartly. One should keep the ‘to do list’ handy. Be it the leaders, philanthropists, successful people or even those who haven’t made it large to any lists but are happier than most follow the rules of time management. A simple example, we know that we have to rush & switching on TV at the breakfast table will cause delay, still we want to get hooked for that last piece of news. How well you manage your time is directly proportional to how far you go & achieve.
Know yourself
If you are able to avoid the above points and feel that you have already overcome those shortcomings that it is better to know yourself and do a quick self-assessment and find out the reasons which affect your routines and lead you to procrastination. Short-sightedness & Over-excitement are some other personality reasons which lead to a break in the pace of a task at hand. Sometimes, we get over excite about a certain new project, a personal incident that we shift our entire focus towards that particular stance and leading to procrastination of the goal.
Overcoming Procrastination
The point here is – How to Overcome Procrastination!
Self-analysis
The first & foremost requirement is to do self-analysis and find out what disturbs your concentration and what leads to distractions. The best way is to take a pen & paper and make notes of what takes away your focus and then make a list on – How to stop this from happening?
Manage your Time Well
If you have realized that some habits and practices are leading to procrastination, immediately you need to manage your time in a way that you do not end up in such situations again. Start making Task lists and assign them time-lines and if it still doesn’t help – break the tasks into smaller chunks and set shorter goals which combined lead to a larger perspective.
Change the Order of Deliverable
If you think that there are certain tasks you aren’t able to accomplish on timelines. Keep it aside and take the projects which excite you more at that particular time and get to work. Doing this will bring back your confidence and it will help you get back to normal routine where you want to excel & finish up the tasks. The feeling of that small accomplishment will give you the required push for bigger assignments.
Change the Work-station
Very often it is seen & observed that a change in place works as magic to many. People call it funny, some say these are misbeliefs, but a simple logic of this is it breaks monotony. We humans become slow when we work in a monotonous environment. A good change is well advised for. If you are really cringed to same work for longer hours or week and you feel – you are not able to really add value, it is time to change your workstation. Before it starts leading to procrastination, it is time to change the work-station and bring a fresh spark to the perspective.
Unschedule/ Unwind & Plan
Sometimes, doing nothing helps in fighting procrastination. There are times, when you mind & heart stop ticking to your plans. This could be some professional failure; some not fulfilled expectations, a personal reason or anything.
In such a situation, it is best to unscheduled everything. You can take a break from your busy schedule, go on a holiday, unwind and then plan the next lap.
Try the above tips, next time you are feeling low about work & timelines. And do not allow success to drift away. Plan & walk parallel with it.