Anti- procrastination song

Why is it that we hardly ever get done all of the things that we want to do in a day? Believe it or not, it is because we have trained ourselves not to.

We talked the other day about habits. While by nature we may have a fair number of good habits we tend to have more bad than good. That is of course until we train ourselves to have more good than bad.Training ourselves to have more good habits is what enlightenment, self improvement and in fact success in general are all about.

The biggest bad habit that I have seen within myself and that I see mirrored in other people is procrastination, but maybe not the way you normally think about that word. Yes, we are all guilty of having this one thing in front of us that we don't want to do and consciously or otherwise looking for anything else to do instead.

But that is not exactly what I am talking about. What I do is a little less direct. My pattern tends to be more along the lines of putting everything off because I am just not ready to get started yet. I want to just accomplish this one more thing in a game I am playing or catch the end of the anime that I started watching. And then there's just one more thing and one more thing and before I know it my day is more than half over and nothing is done.

Personally, I do some of my best work when I am under pressure and running out of time. I know this and tend to use that fact against myself as a reason why it's okay to not get started until I only have five hours left to do twelve hours worth of work. But the problem with this is that sometimes unexpected things come up that eat up even more of the little time that I have left myself and then it is no longer possible even if I rush.

Does this sound at all like something that happens to you?

There's a pretty simple solution but it takes a bit of discipline to make it work for you. When you get up in the morning make a list of all the things you should get done that day. Put them in the order of their importance and estimate how long each one should take you to do. I like to give myself about eighty percent of the time that I think a thing should take me to do, that way I'm putting myself under pressure. And even if I don't finish a certain thing within the time I have allotted for it, I still have part of my day left over to finish up. If you don't work well under pressure, give yourself a little extra time for each thing. At the end of the list put all of the stuff that you would normally do to put things off as the reward for you having gotten your "chores" done for the day.Then get to work.

With this method you get the most important things done. And if you don't get everything done this way, you would not have gotten them all done any other way either. IF for some reason that does end up happening, don't beat yourself up about it, just add the things you did not finish today to the beginning of your list tomorrow. If this happens every day for a week or so, then perhaps you need to look into simplifying your life and reducing your overall amount of commitments.

Procrastination

Okay, it's been put off for long enough. Today we're gonna talk about procrastination. See what I did there? Why put off for later what can be put off forever?

But seriously, you probably do  not realize just how poisonous procrastination is to your goals.Life is quite often hectic and confusing. We are so busy dealing with things on a continuous basis that when a chance to stop and take a breather arrives we jump all over it. And there is nothing wrong with that.

But when some opportunity to advance your dreams comes up don't put it off until later. I like to say procrastination procreates.Because once you put a thing off for the first time you have set a
 precedent. After all, putting it off once was alright. Your life isn't likely to slow down and wait for you to catch up on the things you want to do. So each time that thing comes up in the future you are just as likely to be as busy and/or as tired as you were when it came up the first time.  So, once you set that precedent you are just as likely to keep making excuses every time it comes up. What you put off once you will probably never do unless forced to by some outside force.

Take a couple of minutes and think about your life and you will realize that I am right.Think about all the things that you want to do, things that you should do. Think about all the things that never get done, things that if you had started them when the idea first occurred to you would be done by now. Think about how you could be enjoying the fruits of past labor, rather than dreading the work that you know is ahead of you.

When you put off something that is supposedly important to you by saying "oh i'll do that when I get the money " what you are really saying is that that thing is not important enough to you for you to either create the money for it or find it within your budget.

When you put off something that is supposedly important to you by saying "oh i'll do that when I get the time " what you are really saying is that that thing is not important enough to you for you to make the time to get it done.

When you do this, you are playing the victim. You are saying that if life would just fall into this exact certain pattern then you will be able to to the things that you want. You can get what you want out of life. But you have to be willing to work for it. And if the thing you are claiming that you want isn't worth risking some extra time or money on, then it isn't important to you, despite what you may say or think to the contrary.

Stop waiting for the perfect time or circumstance. There isn't going to be one. Life doesn't work that way and is perfectly willing to pass you by. It will go on whether you participate or not. You get stop making excuses and start making time for the things that are important to you. Or accept responsibility for failing to reach your goals.