The Procrastination Cure You Can't Put Off Any Longer

There are certain bad habits that get all the attention. Look around, and you'll see many warnings against smoking, overeating, binge watching TV, or drinking to excess. But there is one particularly nasty tendency millions of us share that doesn't get a fraction of the attention it deserves - the habit of procrastinating on our most important tasks.

It's easy to put off until tomorrow what we need to finish today. Unfortunately, that tends to leave you farther and farther behind on your work, and paints you as either inconsiderate of other people's time, or unable to manage your own life.

Study the people who have the most success in this world, and you'll find that they inevitably tend to be very punctual. They finish their work ahead of time, and never put off important tasks. And when it comes to being where they're supposed to be, they know that keeping to routines and schedules is important for maintaining control over their time, and will go out of their way to stick to their plans.

That's a big contrast to the way most people manage their schedules, of course, but it doesn't have to be. Here are three steps you can take today to break your procrastination habit...

Step #1: Recognize the Psychological Causes of Procrastination

Psychologically speaking, there are a lot of reasons people procrastinate. But a few stand out as being the most prominent.

First, it's easier for your subconscious mind to relax than it is to actively chase your conscious goals. Staying still or goofing off feels pleasurable and rewarding right now, whereas putting yourself through the mental effort of an uncomfortable activity doesn't provide an instant payoff. So certain parts of your brain are always going to want to pull you back to bed, onto the couch, or over to Facebook if you don't have good habits.

Another reason people tend to procrastinate so much is that they simply aren't motivated by the goals in front of them. When you aren't personally excited to achieve something, your subconscious will stop you from acting upon it. Your rational brain may know that your boss wants that report by the end of the day, but it doesn't feel urgent to you, which means it will take a lot of willpower to get moving.

And finally, people with low self-esteem tend to be the biggest procrastinators of all. They may feel afraid of success, or as if they don't deserve it. And so they self-sabotage their own efforts by putting things off until the last minute, missing deadlines, and making it impossible to do their best work.

Step #2: Face the Problem Head On

Regardless of which of these issues stops you from showing up on time or handling important tasks when you should, the best way to beat procrastination is to tackle the problem head-on with a few clear strategies.

The first is to simply make it harder to put things off. A classic example of this would be the person who puts their alarm clock in another room. In order to turn it off, they have to get out of bed, walk somewhere else, and press a button. By that time, they are far less inclined to hit the snooze button and do it all over again. That's a simple illustration, but there are probably dozens of ways you can remove distractions in your life and get things done faster.

You could also let others know that you're trying to beat the procrastination habit. Encourage them to acknowledge it when you're late, or make a pact with them that you'll set aside a few dollars every time you miss a deadline or put something off. That kind of simple punishment is enough to create a sense of accountability and get you thinking about your habits.

Step #3: Let the New Habit Take Hold

Don't expect you'll make the decision to stop procrastinating and be able to change your behavior in an instant. As with all habits, procrastination is something that is deeply ingrained at a personal and emotional level. You may have a few slip-ups, but if you are willing to acknowledge the problem and take steps to fix it, rest assured that you'll adjust over time.

Procrastination harms your productivity, your self-esteem, and your standing with others. But once you get in the habit of being proactive, showing up on time, and refusing to put things off when you could finish them right away, you'll start to feel more effective and empowered. Then the thought of not getting things done will start to feel strange to you.

You might be the kind of person who has put things off until the last minute your whole life, constantly running late from one task, meeting, or appointment to the next. Now is the perfect time to make a change. Don't put this improvement off until later - you'll be amazed at how much better you'll feel, and how much more seriously others will take you once you become the kind of person who doesn't procrastinate.

Source

Don't Let Life Happen to You

Don't Let Life Happen To You

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. - Marcus Aurelius (121-80 AD, Roman Emperor, Philosopher)

It's hard to believe that we are nearing the end of another year. As I write this, snow is falling in Colorado, the makings of a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner are in the kitchen, and our newspapers are filled with holiday ads. The end of the year always tends to be a time of reflection as we look back on the accomplishments of the past year and look forward to a new year. It's also a time to reflect on our lives and ensure that we are living the life we want.

It's easy to look at ones life and be content with where you are. You have a good job, a spouse or significant other, children, a nice car, and all of the trappings of success. Clearly you are well on your way to success. But the real question is, are you happy with what you are doing?

No, this is not an article about the spiritual side of your life. Normally these articles focus all of the attention on management and leadership concepts that you can use to shape your career, improve your performance, and move up the ladder of success. But as we enter a new year it is important to take a step back and make sure that the path you are on is the right path for you.

You see life has a way of just happening to people. Your first job tends to be the job that you were first offered, in an industry that may or may not really interest you, doing what you may or may not have a real talent in. Your career then tends to grow from there. You get promoted or change companies, but tend to stay with what you are familiar with and what you have done in the past. Months turn into years and at some point in time you find that you are on a career path that you never really intended to be on at all. It may be a great, wonderful career path doing all of the things that are important to you, or it may be a path where you have had some successes, but don't find inspiring.

In short, your life has been on autopilot. That is when you know that life has happened to you.

You didn't plan to be where you are. And while you are not unhappy with where you are, you are not happy with it either. It does not speak to your inner being.

The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. - Richard Leider

As you sit down in the coming weeks to plan your new years resolutions, take a few extra minutes to think about where you are in your life and where you are in your career. If you have not made a life plan in the past, start one now. Identify your core values. Identify what is important to you in life and in your career. Figure out were you want to be in 10 years and make sure your current path will take you there.

Your life is a fairy tale, with the journey unscripted. Take control of your life and write your own script. Understand your desires and passions and build a plan for your life that will be a source of happiness and pride. It may be in management and leadership. It may be in the arts. But whatever it is, make sure that you control your life and that your life does not just happen to you.

Source

6 Great Techniques for Staying Focused At Work

Do you struggle to focus while you work?

How often does it happen when you’ve been sitting at your desk for hours only to look back when the day is over and feel like you’ve accomplished nothing?

Or maybe you’re trying to work on something only to constantly be interrupted by email notifications, your smart phone beeping, or yet another interruption by a team member.

6 Techniques for Staying Focused At Work

Every day feels like a never-ending battle to keep your attention on what’s important, but more often than not distraction is winning the day.

This is a shame.

Because in many ways what we choose to focus on is the most valuable resource we have. We should treat it accordingly.

The good news is that if you set things up to maximize your focus, you’ll be able to get more done in any given day than you ever imagined. Below are 6 great ways to develop laser-like focus while you work:


1. Build Your “Focus Muscles” Like a Weightlifter

The same principle that weightlifters use to get stronger can also be used to develop your ability to focus. The only way for a weight lifter to get stronger is to stimulate his or her muscles with more and more weight. If not, the person’s strength will stagnate.

Studies show that we only have the ability to do a maximum of four or five hours of focused work per day. This is what we should aspire to work up to. However, just like a weightlifter’s strength does not come overnight, you slowly work up to your four or five hours per day of focused work.

When starting to build your focus muscles, doing an hour of focused work is a good starting point. But start at whatever point would be a challenge for you but still doable. So if an hour is too much start with 15 minutes and build from there.


2. Work In Focused Blocks of Time

Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr helped popularize the idea of “periodization” for entrepreneurs in their book, the Power of Full Engagement. Periodization in this context means we should work in a series of focused “sprints” throughout the day followed by periods of recovery.

A popular application of this strategy is the Pomodoro Technique, which advises us to work in a 25-minute burst followed by a 5-minute break. This 30-minute block is known as a “Pomodoro session.”

After four Pomodoro sessions you would then take a longer break.


My personal preference is to work for longer focused session of around 55 to 60 minutes followed by a 10-minute break (I use a kitchen timer to time my sessions). Experiment and see what works best for you.


3. Have a “Break Ritual”

Have you ever planned on having a quick 5-minute break to check something on the Internet only to come back from an “Internet black hole” 45-minutes later and have no recollection of what you just looked at?

You’re not alone.

Many well-meaning entrepreneurs struggle to stay focused because they don’t manage their breaks properly.

In addition to spending too much time surfing the Internet and checking our smart phones during our breaks, other culprits include getting distracted on long eating breaks and taking too much time talking to our friends and colleagues.

So how to fight against these ‘time robbers’?

By implementing a “break ritual.”

This means you’ll decide ahead of time exactly what you’re going to do during your breaks. I highly recommend you stay away from technology during these break rituals.

In fact, my preferred ritual is to “just sit there.”

Meaning after my timer goes off I’ll simply walk to the room next to me and sit down and relax for 10 minutes. No checking email, no looking at text messages, nothing. I find this is a great way to relax and clear my mind.

Another benefit: the 10 minutes seem to go by much slower than before when I would get lost in Internet-land during breaks. Other good things you can do during break rituals include stretching and going for a walk.

4. Schedule Your Distraction Time

In his book Deep Work, Georgetown University professor and MIT graduate Cal Newport presents the novel idea that instead of scheduling breaks from distraction to focus, we should schedule breaks from focus to distraction.

Meaning we should block out specific times when we’ll allow ourselves to check our smart phones and emails, but we should avoid these distractions at all other times.

We want to make not being distracted our “default” state.

This is one of the true secrets or “hacks” to being more productive. Numerous scientific studies show that the constant switching between stimuli has a negative effect on our ability to focus. When we force ourselves not to do this, we take our “attention power” back, which makes focusing much easier.

To do this, we need to schedule our “distraction sessions” into every work day. Preferably later in the day to allow time for us to get our focused work done earlier. It is during these distraction sessions where you can check email, your smart phone and your favorite social media sites (if you really have to).


5. Manage Your Energy For Maximum Focus

Managing your energy is one of the best ways to improve your ability to focus. We do this primarily through proper diet and exercise. A diet designed for productivity will not only give you the energy you need to stay focused throughout the day but will also give your brain a boost.

The keys to a productive diet are:
Eat plenty of healthy fats (including avocados, fatty fishes and nuts).
Eat plenty of greens (including leafy green vegetables like kale and spinach and broccoli)
Stay away from all processed sugars.

Similar to diet, exercise not only will give you energy throughout the day, it’s also been shown to improve brain function as well. And what type of exercise you do is much less important than the fact that you do exercise at all.

At a minimum, you’ll want to engage in 20-minutes of moderate exercise at least three times per week. But also look for opportunities to move your body whenever possible: take the stairs, park your car a little farther when you go to the store, carry a hand basket at the grocery store instead of pushing a cart around if you can. All of these things make a difference for both your energy levels and your health.
6. The 3,515 Year-Old Secret For Improving Mental Focus

Did you know that one of the most amazing “hacks” for improving your mental focus has been around for over 3,500 years?

What’s more, this secret is completely free and can do wonders to improve your focus in as little as five minutes a day.

I’m talking about meditation.

Meditation has been called a “mental workout” for your mind and that’s exactly what it is. We talked above about building your “focus muscles” while you work. Think of meditation as a way to further train your focus muscles so you really “stretch” them during work time.

Many top running coaches have their athletes train their legs with weights in addition to their strenuous running workouts to prepare them for their races. Think of meditation as “weight training” that will help you perform even better at the race that happens everyday at work.

A great way to get started with meditation is to sit comfortably and simply focus on your breath: take a slow deep breath through your nose and say the word “in” to yourself while you do this. Then slowly exhale while silently saying the word “out.”

Repeat this for five minutes. Once you can do that, slowly build up to 10 then 20-minute meditation sessions.


Summary

To summarize, we just covered six great ways to develop laser-like focus while you work:
Building your focus muscles
Working in focused blocks
Having a break ritual
Taking breaks from focus
Managing your energy
Meditating

If you implement these strategies one by one, your days of struggling to focus and get things done will be over forever.

Source

Organization Tips: Cleaning Up Your Workspace And Your Calendar

A lot of people think that being an entrepreneur means that I can do anything I want, anytime I want. While it’s true that I don’t have a boss who dictates my schedule, that doesn’t mean I’m just free-floating all the time—as an entrepreneur, I have learned to have a lot of self-discipline and to be very organized in my business and my life. So today I’m sharing with you some of my favorite organization tips. Your business can only grow to its full potential if your space and your time are clearly organized—I hope these tips help you clear the clutter and maximize your potential!

DESIGNATE A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

Time is money, as they say, and having an organized space will save you time. If you don’t take 10 seconds to put something in its proper place, you might lose 10 minutes looking all over for it later. When I complete a project for my DIY business, I don’t call it a day until each tool is put back into its designated space and the workshop is clean. In those moments, I’m often tired and ready to relax at that point in the day, but I motivate myself by imagining how inviting my workshop will be when I set to work on my next project—and how much time (and, therefore, money!) I’m saving in the long run.

LOOK AT YOUR SPACE THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE’S EYES

Schedule frequent meetings at your workspace, whether that’s a home office, a rented space, or a workshop. Knowing that you’ll have regular visitors will force you to keep it orderly. When we’re the only one using our space, we have a tendency to become “blind” to dirt and clutter that might accumulate over time. But as soon as someone else comes by, we suddenly see what’s overflowing or out of place. Use this fact to your advantage by regularly inviting clients and colleagues to meet with you at your workspace—the pressure to have a clean, hospitable space will compel you to keep things organized.

TRY OUT THE KONMARI METHOD

If your space really needs an overhaul, I highly recommend picking up Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. This unlikely bestseller has taken the U.S. by storm and, after finally having a look at it myself, I can understand why. Kondo’s “KonMari Method” of organization involves radically purging your home or workspace of anything that does not “spark joy.” While this criterion might seem strange for organizing an office space, its basic premise of getting rid of anything that’s not serving a purpose seems right on target. The extreme purge takes time—Kondo recommends laying everything out and methodically putting back only what you need—but it is time well spent if, as she argues, you’ll never need to do it again!

KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING—AND PARK ON A DOWNHILL SLOPE

The first three tips dealt with organizing our space; now let’s turn to how we manage our time. I force myself to make a plan in advance for each day and WRITE IT DOWN. If my plan for the next day (or at least for the first half of the day) is written down in my planner, then I don’t have to think about it for the rest of the evening. I can relax knowing that my instructions will be there waiting for me when I wake up. Sometimes I even make a point of stopping short of completing a particular task the day before so that I can begin the next day by picking up where I left off. Productivity experts call this “parking on a downhill slope,” and it can really help you start the day off with some momentum.

TURN A TO-DO LIST INTO A TO-DO SCHEDULE

A list is designed to be added to, so it can make it hard to feel satisfaction if you’re adding as much as your checking off. To remedy this, try turning your to-do list into a to-do schedule. When I consult my calendar at the start of each week, I write in my to-do’s alongside my scheduled appointments. If I assign an actual time to a task, I am far more likely to actually get that task done. Having a to-do schedule has taught me to be much more realistic about how much I can get done in a given time. Sometimes it means not having time for everything on the to-do list, but it’s better to know that in advance than feel disappointed at the end of the week. With this method, I’ve found that not only am I getting more done but also I’m more tuned in to my schedule and can therefore say yes or no to new projects with much more confidence.

PUT YOUR SCHEDULE WHERE YOU AND OTHERS CAN SEE IT

Put your important appointments/tasks on a shared, visible calendar where everyone else who matters can see it (family members, coworkers, roommates…). If you make your schedule and goals “public” in this way, you can avoid scheduling conflicts. You’ll also be more likely to complete tasks on time, because others can hold you accountable. You might share your schedule digitally, via a Google calendar or other shared site, but you can also go the try-and-true dry erase marker route. For home use, I got a magnetic wipe-off calendar from The Board Dudes with a set of markers so I can color-code based on category or person. For the office, I like their bigger and more professional-looking glass wipe-off calendar—it’ll keep you organized, give you a highly visible place to write down goals and important reminders, and look sleek if clients or collaborators come by.

STICK TO A SYSTEM

Don’t be fickle. I love organizational tools, but sometimes they work against me because I get so excited about the newest app or planner that I don’t stick with one long enough to really reap its benefits. The most important thing about an organizational system is not if it’s pen-and-paper or digital, or if it’s got flashy new bells and whistles—the most important thing is that you stick to it. So do a little bit of research to decide what approach might be best for you, and then hurry up and start using it!

Source