Tips for Kicking Procrastination to the Kerb

Have you ever wondered just how to break out of that negative behaviour called "Procrastination"?

The big 'P' word can be the cause of many a job being left undone, which is a major cause of stress in our lives.

I know when I am on a 'bender' - that is, a week where I just can't get myself into gear, the big 'P' word takes over. The washing, the dishes, the kid's rooms (I have four under 11 years) just seem to become major disaster zones and I finish my bender more and more determined not to let it ever get that way.

So how do I, and how do we, tackle this major robber of peace, order and organisation in the home, the workplace, the general community?

We've all heard of the Nike advertising, "Just do it". I believe this is a principle that goes across every aspect of our lives. As my dear old mother would say, "Work never killed you, Hayley. It is just the thought of it." I think having a Nike attitude is the type of attitude that you have to adopt to beat procrastination.

I know for me, if I let things slide it is just that much more difficult to get things back to good working order. It is much easier to beat myself up for a few seconds a day with the "Just Do It" message and get the job done, than to let things go for a few days and live with the guilt and lack of peace that is a much heavier burden to bear.

My son brought it all to a head for me recently. He is sharing a room with his sister who is 18 months older. They are aged 5 and 7 years. Well, they'd managed to get their room looking like a bomb had hit it. There were clothes on the floor, toys, books, bags and discarded shoes. That room was wall-to-wall clothes carpet. Now I have a policy with my children that their rooms are their responsibility and I try as hard as I can not to rescue them from their own mess as I want to teach them to clean their own space. But what happened was my five year old son refused to come home from school oneday and when I asked him why he didn't want to come home he told me it was because his room was "disgusting", which he said with the emphasis as I would use. It actually was affecting how he felt about living in the house, as he kept asking to move out and go to live at his Dad's house.

It was then that I realised just how important order was to his feelings of security and peace. He craved order just as much as I did. So I got in and I cleaned that room and it took me all of 15 minutes. Now I had put up with that room for over a week being disorganised and it has weighed very heavily on my heart every time I went to that end of the house. I could no longer procrastinate because my procrastination was having a significant impact on my son's peace and happiness.

How many times do we succumb to the big 'P' word and then pay the price for days. I know that this is particularly true of doing projects that I don't really want to do. If I leave the large items that I know are going to be big thinking tasks until last, guaranteed I am going to run out of time and be stressed out. So I've learned to move these difficult tasks to the top of the pile and to get them off my pile so they are not playing on my mind. The same with phone calls you don't want to make, with visits you don't want to make. Just do it and you will feel so much better.

I have a little jingle I use with my children when they are struggling with motivation. We chant together, "You can do it, you can do it, if you put your mind to it." It works for them!

Tell me what works for you. Leave a comment.