Overcoming Procrastination

Many of us, especially myself, put things off or do little unimportant things rather than work on the important tasks in our lives. This is procrastination. Putting off until tomorrow, causes us to worry. We worry about the priority activities that we have put aside that aren't getting completed. And, worry in our lives is a stressor that may lead to depression and/or an increase in our chronic pain.

"Procrastination or doing low priority tasks before high priority activities, robs us
of valuable time.", says Dr. Ingram walker of Carilion Clinic Saint Albans Hospital, in the Spring 2010 issue of LifeWorks.

Dr. Walker says, "There are four major reasons for procrastination:

1. Laziness – To defeat laziness, begin. Once moving, you'll tend to keep going.
It takes greater energy to start an activity than to sustain it. For example, if you're writing a screenplay, put something on paper. Forget about sharpening pencils, arranging paper, reading one more script for inspiration. Write. Writers write.

2. The quest for perfection – Nobody is perfect. Nothing created by anybody is
perfect. Stop fretting about getting everything just right. Learn to do your best
and accept the results. Expecting perfection never gets anything accomplished.
To continue with the writing analogy, get that first draft done. Get something
down on paper – you can revise and rewrite the screenplay later.

3. Indecisiveness – To overcome indecisiveness, use the “ready, fire, aim”
approach. Fire it up there, and then aim it. Make some mistakes, learn, adjust,
move on.

4. Difficult tasks – Break down a difficult task into easy steps.
Just do a little at a time. You write a screenplay or a book one
page at a time. Write one page a day and at the end of a year,
you will have written 365 pages."

I intend on getting started with all of these tomorrow (just kidding). Take the time to put these four reasons to rest. Let's overcome each of these in order to take control and live happier and healthier daily lives.


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