Fighting Procrastination

The Exchange article, "Getting Organized: 50 Ideas for More Effective Use of Your Time," which is available for free at ChildCareExchange.com, points out that "procrastination is the number one enemy of effective time management.  Faced with a difficult or unpleasant task, it is extremely tempting to yield to countless distractions and more enjoyable tasks."  Here are a few of the suggestions from this article for "dispelling the fascination of procrastination":

• Confront yourself.  Much procrastination is unintentional: you allow yourself to be sidetracked without thinking about it.  Often such mindless diversions can be avoided by asking yourself, "What's the best use of my time and energy right now?" If the answer is not what you are doing at the moment, stop that and put your time and energy to work on a more important task (LeBoeuf).
  
  
• Attack ugly tasks first.  When you start the day, it may be most effective to dispense with the most unpleasant task on your priority list first.  If you postpone working on this task, you will most likely fret about it all day, thus preventing yourself from concentrating your full attention on other tasks you attempt.
  
  
• Complete what you start.  Once you've overcome the inertia of getting started and are rolling on a difficult task, it is a mistake to stop.  Try to finish a task or a complete unit of a task in one setting.  If you stop, you may well waste additional time getting organized and getting rolling again.
  
  
• Leave work starters behind.  Sometimes it is impossible to complete a task when you leave for the day or go to lunch or head to a meeting.  On these occasions it may help to get right back into the swing of the task you left behind if you stop at a point where the next step is obvious.  Then when you return you won't need to waste time trying to decide where to begin.

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