There are many issues that can hold people back in life and at work. Problems that are often discussed include lack of skills, brains, social aptitude, and organization. As detrimental as these issues can be, there is a greater evil waiting in the dark corners of the office (and at home): the Procrastination Beast.
There are many methods of conquering this sly creature and, in order to trick the Procrastination Beast, it is often best to combine and switch methods. Here are some tacticts.
Guerrilla Warfare.
One tactic which is almost always helpful is to literally hide. Turn off your cell phone, don’t check your email and close the door to your office (if you have one). If you are in a cubicle, you can make use of a Do Not Disturb sign. This method overlaps with the stick method, because it means you don’t get to turn on your phone/facebook/whatever until you finish working.
You can also work on a different project you have been procrastinating as a method of appeasing the Beast. At least that way you get something done.
A third guerrilla tactic is to do something marginally useful, not at all related to what you are procrastinating, and to tell yourself that at specific benchmarks in that project, you’ll take a few chips out of the project which the Beast is guarding. Because you are busy with something, the Beast isn’t paying close attention and won’t notice if you make a quick, short attack.
The Carrot.
Reward yourself! There are 2 main methods of doing this. The pre-reward and the post-reward.
The pre-reward only works if you are intellectually honest and/or come from a guilt-ridden culture (Judaism, Catholocism, etc). In this scenario, you get yourself the prize (chocolate, playstation, blackberry, new book, etc.) and possibly even use it, and then you HAVE to do the work you have been pushing off.
The post-reward system is more conventional. Basically, you make an agreement with yourself that IF you do the work by such and such a time, THEN you get X, Y, or Z (or all of them). It is very important that the “such and such a time” part is in the contract. The procrastination beast is very, very clever and will continue procrastinating until it hits a deadline. The hope is that the deadline will electrocute the beast.
The Stick.
Now, unless you are into that sort of thing, you don’t actually beat yourself with a stick. And, come to think of it, that might not work as a deterrent if you are into it.
This method only works if you are intellectually honest. The stick is representative of punishment. Basically, you set a time by which point you must have started working in earnest. If you haven’t started working by then, then you don’t get to go on your date Friday night (this only works if you actually want to go). It is best to set multiple benchmarks, to help keep your momentum until you actually finish the project.
Now some might say that the “stick” is naturally in place at work: If you don’t do your work, you get fired. However, that is a very theoretical stick with lots of holes and very dependent on the mood of everyone involved, and what their lawyers let them do. If you know that you will conscientiously use the stick when needed, then it works much better to have a specific punishment goading you along.
Fight on, valiant knights!
