Overcoming Procrastination

Abraham Lincoln said, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle." We build a foundation by visualizing what we want, determining our priorities, and setting goals. Once this is done, it is necessary to move forward by taking action. By standing still, we move backwards in this rapidly changing world. Action is a predecessor to success.

We all know this, but we sometimes procrastinate working on whatever it is that will bring us the most success. Often the most difficult part of taking action is getting started.

One of the best ways to start is to first develop an action plan. Writing an action plan itself requires action – the action of writing. Your action plan can be simple or complex, depending on the nature of your goal.

Once an action plan is in place, following this plan is as easy as following a recipe. The key is then to take the first step on the action plan with the knowledge that accomplishment of the goal will become much easier, once we start.

The following non-business examples will illustrate the process of developing a simple action plan:

Example #1

Jane's goal is to decrease the size of clothing she wears from a 14 to a 10. Her action plan might include these steps:

1. Visualize myself as wearing a size 10.
2. Tape pictures to the refrigerator and bathroom mirror of myself from four years ago, when I wore a size 10.
3. Consult with my doctor concerning the diet that is best for me.
4. Prepare weekly menu plans.
5. Make grocery lists before shopping for groceries.
6. Shop for groceries after meals, and buy only those foods on the list.
7. Eat only foods that are on my diet plan.
8. Walk at least 20 minutes each day.
9. Weigh and measure myself weekly.
10. Reward myself with a visit to an art museum or a movie, or by taking time to read a new book as I reach each five-pound milestone.

Example #2

John's goal is to buy a new house. He might engage in the following action plan:

1. Save money for a down payment on the new house.
2. Study information about local communities and determine where I want to live.
3. List the features that I want in my new home.
4. Visualize my new home.
5. Interview real estate agents, and select the one who will work best with me.
6. With the selected real estate agent, tour homes that are in my selected area, which have the features I want and are within my price range.
7. Revisit the homes that best match my selection criteria.
8. Make an offer to purchase the house.
9. Celebrate, and move in!

Although most action plans associated with your business goals will be longer and more complex than these examples, the process will be the same. The action plans have the following similarities:

• The steps are listed in sequential order, even though some of them are ongoing or overlapping during the process.
• Each step is measurable, i.e., you will know when the step has been completed.
• The action plans require visualization of the end result.

My last five blog posts have covered the first five success principles from my books on success. I’ve found that these five principles gain a lot of power when they are integrated. In other words, if your beliefs, visions, priorities, goals and actions are synchronized, you will be able to create much more success in your life. As when a baby is learning to walk, the first step is the most difficult. Once that first step is taken, the rest is easier.

Sigmund Freud once said, "Thought is action in rehearsal." I encourage you to rehearse your actions through thought, to develop action plans to achieve your major goals, and then to get started on following your plans.

Have you used action plans? How have they helped you in overcoming procrastination? What are some of the other things you have done to overcome procrastination?

Dreams with Deadlines

At the beginning of one of my recent workshops, a participant shared that she had never had a goal. As a left-brain person, I couldn’t imagine my life without goals. This participant and I were at the opposite ends of the spectrum when we met that morning. However, she later finished the workshop very excited about the three major goals she had written during the session.

I have discovered that, although most successful people are visionaries and intentional dreamers, they are also stable and goal-oriented. As Harvey Mackay cited, “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” Most successful people have written goals. They communicate their goals, visualize the results, and reward themselves and others for the accomplishment of milestones.

The following tips have helped my clients to set and achieve powerful goals:

• Before setting a goal, think about what you really want in your life. Many of us set goals to do what we think we should do; however, we do not want the results enough to remain committed to the goal.
• Ask yourself if your goal is in alignment with your priorities in life. When a person’s goals and priorities are not in alignment, a sense of being overwhelmed, or inertia, can stand in the way of accomplishing the goal.
• Ensure that your goal is realistic and achievable. Many people give up on trying to reach their goal, because they were hoping to achieve the impossible when they set the goal. However, it is also important to engage in possibility thinking and to realize that you are capable of achieving what others might consider impossible. Give your goal some “stretch.”
• Clearly state your goal by describing your desired results exactly as you wish them to be. State the goal in terms of what will be accomplished and when it will be accomplished.
• Ensure that your goal is measurable by asking yourself how you will know whether you have achieved this goal.
• Write your goal on paper, and keep this piece of paper in a place where you can look at it every day. Fewer than three percent of all adults have written goals, and research shows that people with written goals are more likely to achieve them.
• Make a commitment to yourself to reach the goal, ensuring that you understand the effort that will be involved in doing this.
• Visualize the end result. Close your eyes, and create a mental movie of how the end result will look. In this mental movie, visualize yourself enjoying these results. Repeat this visualization daily, picturing yourself as if you have already achieved your goal.
• Describe the benefits of your goal. Do this on paper, so that you can read the benefits whenever you might struggle with doing the things needed to reach the goal.
• Establish milestones as mini-goals, and write them down as well. It is easier to work on one small step at a time than on a big goal.
• Develop and implement an action plan. Determine the steps that you will take in order to achieve your goal, and write these down.
• Communicate your goal to supportive people who might be able to contribute to its achievement, either through direct efforts or through encouragement.
• Reward yourself as you reach milestones along the way to achieving your goal. By giving recognition to ourselves for our accomplishments, we expand our enthusiasm and energy to accomplish more.
• Remain flexible. Although you will set a date for accomplishing your goal, there could be an emergency situation that you need to handle en route. When taking care of this situation is a higher priority than the goal, allow yourself to adjust your schedule for accomplishing the goal. Also, as you achieve your goals, you may change direction and will, of course, set new goals for yourself.
• If you make a mistake, give yourself permission to start again. We are all in a constant process of growth and development. We can use our mistakes as learning opportunities and become even stronger than we had been previously.

Your goals, integrated with your dreams, will enhance your success, both in your business and in your personal life.

Are you a goal setter? If so, how do you go about setting and achieving goals?

Creating More Time in Your Day

Throughout much of my adult life, I considered myself one of the biggest victims of the Superwoman Syndrome. I completed two college degrees while working full-time and raising two children. This might have been enough to undertake, but I didn’t stop there. It was as if I wanted to show the world and myself that I could do it all – and do it perfectly. I made great meals and kept a spotless house. After finishing the dinner dishes and putting the children to bed each evening, I scrubbed the kitchen floor (on my hands and knees) before doing my schoolwork. People would comment that my basement floor was so clean that they thought they could eat off of it. Weekends were my time to catch up with the things I was not able to accomplish during the week. I often felt guilty for not doing more.

One of the reasons that I was able to be so productive was that I made lists of the things that I needed to do. By following the lists, I didn’t need to take the time to think about what to do next. I enumerated the tasks on paper as they came into my head, but I didn’t spend much time prioritizing the lists. Since I thought that I had to get all of these things done, the priority didn’t seem very important. I would normally start at the beginning of the list and work my way to the end. However, the lists were usually so long that I rarely got all the way to the end. The remaining items would just be transferred to the next list.

One Friday evening, I made a list of the things I wanted to accomplish that weekend. One of the items on my list was to call my grandmother. She was my only living grandparent, and I loved her dearly. She was of Italian descent and one of the best cooks I had ever known. She would often call me at work to tell me that she had made spaghetti sauce and meatballs and that I should stop by after work to take this meal home with me. When I was sick, she would call every day to see how I was feeling. She cared very deeply for each of her children and grandchildren. She gave of herself and expected nothing in return. As I thought of her on this particular Friday evening, I reminded myself that I hadn’t talked with her in a while. On my list, I wrote, “Call Grandma.” With all of the many things on my list, I never got to this item.

I had a late meeting on Monday night, so I added my item to call Grandma to my Tuesday night list. Grandma died suddenly of congestive heart failure on Tuesday. I had never made the phone call. After all these years, I still often dream about making that call to my grandmother. I had always said that my family was my priority, but I didn’t live my life that way. What a difficult lesson for me on the need to live my priorities!

It was at the time that I lost my grandmother that I realized that I needed to do something to create more time in my day to do the things that were important to me.

Because of the importance of the subject, much has been written and taught on time management, life management, and self-management. However, most people, especially high-achievers, still feel the pressure of too much to do in too little time. There are many reasons for this, one of which is the need for better prioritization.

Many of us complain about interruptions in the course of the day that rob us of time we had planned to spend on the things that are important to us; however, we allow these interruptions to have power over us. We might also say that we have our priorities straight and then demonstrate otherwise through our actions.

The following exercise will help you determine how you spend your time. For the next two days, keep a list of your activities in either fifteen-minute or 30-minute segments, whichever works best for you. When you are interrupted, list the nature of the interruption along with the amount of time that it took. At the end of the second day, you will see how you have spent your time and the approximate amount of time you have spent on each activity.

When you have finished the time recording, prepare four sheets of paper by labeling the first “Urgent/Important,” the second “Important/Not Urgent,” the third “Urgent/Not Important,” and the fourth “Not Urgent/Not Important.” Now transfer your activities from your time recording, along with the time allocations for each, to the appropriate sheets of paper. When you have completed this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are all the items on the first sheet (Urgent/Important) really important? If not, take time now to transfer these items to the appropriate sheets.
• Are all of the items on the second sheet (Important/Not Urgent) really important? If not, take time now to transfer these items to the appropriate sheets.
• How much of my time am I spending on the activities that are really important to me?
• If I am not spending the majority of my time on the items that are important to me, what can I change in my life in order to do this? This might involve scheduling non-interruptible time for important activities, learning to say no, delegating tasks to others, or just eliminating activities that are not that important to you.

Whether or not you have clearly defined your personal mission statement, you can still determine your priorities. The following steps have worked for many successful people, and they will work for you.

Determine your true values.
If you were asked to develop a list of your values right now, would they be your honest values, or would they be a list of values you think you should have? Keep this question in mind as you engage in this exercise. Start by making a list of items that you value most in life.

Prioritize your value list.
At this point, your list may be quite lengthy. Since long lists make it very difficult for us to prioritize our activities, I recommend narrowing this list down to no more than your top seven values. You can start by combining the values that are similar and then determining those seven values that are indeed most important to you. Although these values are all important to you, it also helps to list them in order of most important to least important.

Plan and prioritize your activities.
Victor Hugo said, “He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.”You might have a big project that is important but not urgent. In many cases, you will not be able to complete this project in a day. It might require several days, weeks, or even months. In this case, you can divide this project into manageable segments and develop milestones for the segments. This offers several benefits:

• The project will not seem as overwhelming as it might have if you were to try to tackle it entirely at once.
• It is easier to concentrate on smaller tasks. The old saying that it is “easiest to eat an elephant one bite at a time” is true.
• By getting part of the project done on a daily basis, you are in a better position to complete the project on time.
• You are working on something that you classify as important.

Make time for your highest priorities.
How often have you heard someone say, “I just do not have enough time”? The truth is that they have the exact same amount of time as you and I do. The difference is in how they choose to spend or control their time and their tasks. To gain more control, it helps to ask ourselves, “Is this what I want or need to be doing right now?” If not, the prioritized action list will help to get back on track.

By using these methods, I have been able to create the time in my day to do what is most important. I’ve also discovered that I have more time to do the things I enjoy most.

By the way, I still make lists. These list get things out of my head and onto paper, allowing me to use my head for other things. The difference is that I now prioritize my lists according to my values and priorities.