Tips For Fighting Procrastination

"Sleep faster. We need the pillows." - Yiddish Proverb

TIPS FOR FIGHTING PROCRASTINATION

In the Exchange textbook and management guide, The Art of Leadership:  Managing Early Childhood Organizations, Roger Neugebauer offers 50 ideas for effective use of time, including these ideas for fighting 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 is the best use of my time and energy right now?"  If the answer is not what your are doing at the moment, stop that and put your time and energy to work on a more important task.

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 fully on other tasks you attempt.

Create instant tasks.  Sometimes it helps to take a major task you're avoiding and breaking out some easy sub-tasks which you can readily start . . . Once you get rolling on these instant tasks, you might establish some momentum that will carry you well into the major task.

Close escape routes.  Everyone has their favorite routes for escaping from doing unpleasant tasks.  These may include wandering into the classrooms to chat with the teachers and the children, reading the newspaper, staring out the window, or leaving the center to run unimportant errands.  To avoid procrastinating in this way, try to cut off all opportunities to take advantage of them.  For example, work somewhere far removed from the classrooms, don't bring the newspaper to work, close the curtains, and don't bring your car to work for running errands. Make it inconvenient to use escape routes.

To check out The Art of Leadership, go to: http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0071

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