Do you ever procrastinate? Are you one of those people who puts off doing things until the last minute? If you are, you are not alone. If you’re not a procrastinator, then good for you! I envy you.
In the past I’ve been a huge procrastinator. If I could put something off, I’d put it off. I wrote all my school papers, even term papers the night before they were due. I would do my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. I would wait until company was on their way to my house to start cleaning up.
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy writing papers, shopping or even house cleaning. There are times that I really enjoy all of those things. I just couldn’t get myself to do them until I had the pressure of a deadline.
This need for deadlines and the rush of racing to meet them is probably a big part of what lured me into television news. In fact I discovered that nearly every person in TV news is a big time procrastinator. That meant that motivating people to finish special projects for ratings sweeps was always a challenge. I had to artificially create a deadline that would feel just as real as having to finish a story to make it into a nightly newscast.
Creating deadlines, even artificial ones can be a great tool for shifting past procrastination. The more real you can make your deadline the more apt you may be to meet it.
As you set out to do projects you may find it helpful to create a situation with built in deadlines. If they don’t exist you may find it helpful to just make up a deadline and see if that helps motivate you into action.
Deadlines are even more effective when there are consequences for missing or hitting them. I try to reward myself for making my deadlines and make it as uncomfortable as possible to miss the deadline. Now, I only ever do what I really want to do. Having consequences is not a way to “should myself” into meeting a deadline, it is just a way to help me remember what I REALLY WANT.
You can create consequences by recruiting an accountability partner. This is someone who you share your deadline with and when you meet the deadline this partner helps you celebrate.
Your task for today is to pick a project that you’ve been putting off. Set a deadline for completing it. Then pick someone, it can be anyone, including me or someone else in this program. Share your deadline with that person then start your project.
Remember procrastination can be rife with negative emotions and self hypnosis using a United Hypnotherapy recording is always an excellent resource for shifting past negative emotions.
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